Economics blind spot is a disaster for the planet -- Herman Daly, New Scientist

Special report: Economics blind spot is a disaster for the planet
15 October 2008 by Herman Daly

HERE is a salutary tale about the World Bank. The first draft of its 1992 World Development Report, dedicated to sustainable development, contained a diagram labelled "the relation of the economy to the environment". It showed a rectangle labelled "economy", with an arrow entering it labelled "inputs" and an arrow exiting it labelled "outputs". That was it.

It was my job, as senior economist in the bank's environment department, to review the draft and offer suggestions. I said drawing such a picture was a great idea, but it really had to include the environment. As drawn, the economy was receiving inputs from nowhere and expelling outputs back to nowhere.

I suggested we draw a big circle around the economy and label it "ecosystem". Then it would be clear that the inputs represented resources taken from the ecosystem, and the outputs represented waste returned to it as pollution. This would allow us to raise fundamental questions, such as how big the economy can get before it overwhelms the total system.

When the second draft came back, a large unlabelled rectangle had been drawn around the original figure, like a picture frame. I complained that it changed nothing. In the third draft, the diagram was gone. The idea that economic growth should be constrained by the environment was too much for the World Bank in 1992, and still is today. The bank recognised that something must be wrong with that diagram - but better to omit it than deal with the inconvenient questions it raised....

READ THE REST HERE

For what it's worth, Herman Daly is one of the pioneers of "ecological economics" and teaches at the University of Maryland.

Thoughts?

And, recently, I watched the movie "The 11th Hour," which tells a similar message. They discuss how we've turned our ecosystem into a resource center for the few at the top to exploit & make fortunes on. Corporations & governments make policy that considers only the economy, without any consideration for where the elements that feed our economy come from. It was a very good movie - imo, much better than "An Inconvenient Truth."

Here's the other article I mentioned. http://carolynbaker.net/site/content/view/851/1/ It's quite a bit longer & places more of the blame on capitalism.

Both these articles are very good. I only wish more people would read them & realize how our choices are devouring the very system that supports us. Will we wake up before it's too late? Or will we be like that song, "you don't know what you've got till it's gone"?

Thanks for the post.

k&r

This is the premise behind Paul Hawken's remarkable book "Blessed Unrest". The converging crisis is fostering the spontaneous appearance of small, local, independent groups devoted to ecological, social justice and aboriginal concerns all over the globe. To that list of concerns I would add groups devoted to personal awakening and spiritual transformation. Hawken estimates there are now 2 to 3 million of these groups, in every city in every country of the world. They spring out of individual awakenings as a response to the unfolding crisis, and Hawken calls them "Gaia's antibodies".

I think they're more than just antibodies born to try and fix local injuries, though. I think they are the metaphorical equivalent of the "imaginal cells" that appear mysteriously in the body of a caterpillar, and catalyze its metamorphosis into a butterfly. I have no idea if this metaphor will hold for humanity-as-caterpillar, but I have my dreams...

I've recently written several articles about the spreading phenomenon of personal awakening as a response to the accelerating social and ecological crisis. In chronological order:

The Spiritual Effects of Comprehending the Crisis
Changing the Dream
Separation, Awakening and Revolution
From Despair to Hope
Gathering Momentum

While I don't think the awakening will stop or even slow the unfolding crisis, I think it's an essential response for humanity and the species that share this incredible planetary home.

I've bookmarked the thread to read over the next few days.