{"id":28636,"date":"2017-12-07T07:11:03","date_gmt":"2017-12-07T12:11:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=28636"},"modified":"2017-12-07T07:12:55","modified_gmt":"2017-12-07T12:12:55","slug":"the-cognitive-prison-habits-of-economic-growth-and-development","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=28636","title":{"rendered":"The Cognitive Prison Habits of Economic Growth and\u00a0Development"},"content":{"rendered":"<header class=\"entry-header\">\n<h3 class=\"entry-title\"><a href=\"https:\/\/integralpermaculture.wordpress.com\/2017\/12\/06\/the-cognitive-prison-habits-of-economic-growth-and-development\/\">The Cognitive Prison Habits of Economic Growth and\u00a0Development<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/header>\n<div class=\"entry-content\">\n<p>This post grew out of a recent facebook discussion. Hat Tip to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/bruce.kunkel1?fref=gf&amp;dti=311043106022261\">Bruce Kunkel<\/a> for the title phrase \u201c<em>Cognitive Prison Habits<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>George Monbiot <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2017\/nov\/22\/black-friday-consumption-killing-planet-growth?CMP=share_btn_fb\">recently made some important points<\/a> and asked questions we all should be giving some thought to.<br \/>\n\u201cGreen consumerism, material decoupling, sustainable growth: all are illusions, designed to justify an economic model that is driving us to catastrophe.\u201d<br \/>\n\u201cThe promise of economic growth is that the poor can live like the rich and the rich can live like the oligarchs. But already we are bursting through the physical limits of the planet that sustains us.\u201d<br \/>\nI would add t<span class=\"text_exposed_show\">he aphorism that \u201cWhen you find yourself in a hole, rule #1 is to stop digging.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n<div class=\"text_exposed_show\">\n<p>The International Energy Agency has just released their yearly <em><a href=\"http:\/\/www.iea.org\/weo2017\/\">World Energy Outlook<\/a><\/em>report, which tells us that current policies put us in a scenario that would add the equivalent of another China and India to today\u2019s global demand for energy by 2040, and greenhouse gas reduction polices currently in play or being considered are \u201cfar from enough to avoid severe impacts of climate change.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While the title of Monbiot\u2019s post mentions consumerism trashing the planet, <span class=\" UFICommentActorAndBody\"><span class=\"UFICommentBody _1n4g\">consumerism is not the fundamental problem (us) that he is addressing, nor is it unrestrained corporate power (them). More fundamental, giving rise to both of the above polarities, is the almost unquestioned commitment to growth that is built in to most of our systems. In Monbiot\u2019s words:<br \/>\n\u201d The promise of private luxury for everyone cannot be met: neither the physical nor the ecological space exists.<br \/>\nBut growth must go on: this is everywhere the political imperative. And we must adjust our tastes accordingly\u2026<br \/>\n<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<p><span class=\" UFICommentActorAndBody\"><span class=\"UFICommentBody _1n4g\">\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Cognitive Prison Habits of Economic Growth and\u00a0Development This post grew out of a recent facebook discussion. Hat Tip to Bruce Kunkel for the title phrase \u201cCognitive Prison Habits.\u201d George Monbiot recently made some important points and asked questions we all should be giving some thought to. \u201cGreen consumerism, material decoupling, sustainable growth: all are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,4],"tags":[17378,4037,17377,161,17381,6112,17379,391,17376,433,17380,9286],"class_list":["post-28636","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy-2","category-environment","tag-bruce-kunkel","tag-cognition","tag-cognitive-prison-habits","tag-consumerism","tag-david-macleod","tag-george-monbiot","tag-green-consumerism","tag-growth","tag-integral-permaculture","tag-international-energy-agency","tag-material-decoupling","tag-sustainable-growth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28636","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=28636"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28636\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28637,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28636\/revisions\/28637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}