{"id":58973,"date":"2021-08-12T07:06:31","date_gmt":"2021-08-12T12:06:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=58973"},"modified":"2021-08-12T07:06:31","modified_gmt":"2021-08-12T12:06:31","slug":"to-save-ourselves-well-need-this-very-different-economy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=58973","title":{"rendered":"To Save Ourselves, We\u2019ll Need This Very Different Economy"},"content":{"rendered":"
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To Save Ourselves, We\u2019ll Need This Very Different Economy<\/a><\/h3>\n

What would \u2018getting serious\u2019 about the survival of civilization look like?<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n

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\u2018Ecological overshoot\u2019 is causing climate change, the pandemic and more. Is our political system capable of doing what\u2019s needed?\u00a0Photo by\u00a0Paddy O Sullivan<\/a>.<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/section>\n
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The pandemic is a big problem. Climate change is an even bigger problem. But the meta-problem is ecological overshoot.<\/p>\n

Plagues and heat waves \u2014 along with plunging biodiversity; fishery collapses; soil and land degradation; land, water and sea pollution; resource shortages, etc. \u2014 are mere symptoms of a much greater planetary malaise. Ecological overshoot means there are way too many people using vastly too much energy and material resources and dumping too much waste.<\/p>\n

In more technical terms, humanity\u2019s consumption of even renewable resources and our production of wastes exceeds the regenerative and assimilative capacities of the ecosphere. This is the biophysical definition of \u201cunsustainable,\u201d and a\u00a0harbinger<\/a>\u00a0of pending systems collapse.<\/p>\n

Avoiding the collapse of one\u2019s civilization would seem to be job one for political leaders. And yesterday they\u00a0received<\/a> yet another \u201ccode red\u201d reminder of what is at stake from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.<\/p>\n

Yet few politicians have even heard of overshoot. Concern about its implications has yet to penetrate economic and developmental policy circles.<\/p>\n

It therefore seems fair to ask: What accounts for such political deafness? One obvious earplug is the neoliberal economics dominant in the world today. Its adherents assume that:<\/p>\n