{"id":59017,"date":"2021-08-16T07:20:05","date_gmt":"2021-08-16T12:20:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=59017"},"modified":"2021-08-16T07:20:05","modified_gmt":"2021-08-16T12:20:05","slug":"buying-our-way-out-of-pandemic-malaise-is-hurting-the-planet-experts-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=59017","title":{"rendered":"Buying our way out of pandemic malaise is hurting the planet, experts say"},"content":{"rendered":"

Buying our way out of pandemic malaise is hurting the planet, experts say<\/a><\/h3>\n

Some say the emphasis should be on well-being rather than economic growth<\/strong><\/p>\n

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People line up to shop in Toronto. As COVID-19 cases eased in recent months, provinces have relaxed restrictions and encouraged people to spend again. But the emphasis on economic growth can come at the expense of environmental health.\u00a0(Sam Nar\/CBC)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Back in the spring, Canadian politicians spoke optimistically of a “two-dose summer,” signalling that a robust COVID-19 vaccination rollout would enable people to fully enjoy the warmer weather.<\/p>\n

As COVID-19 infection numbers eased in recent months,\u00a0provinces have\u00a0relaxed restrictions and encouraged\u00a0people to spend again.<\/p>\n

While this was meant to provide a collective boost in the middle\u00a0of a stubborn pandemic, this summer has put on another horror show of extreme weather \u2014 including a deadly heat dome and rampant wildfires in British Columbia and northwestern Ontario\u00a0and drought in the Prairies.<\/p>\n

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Earlier this week, the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)\u00a0issued a dire report<\/u><\/a>\u00a0that stated unequivocally that climate change was human-made and that some of its catastrophic effects were already on view.<\/p>\n

The destruction we’re seeing now is fuelled by decades of environmental harm, but it is also coming at a time when politicians and marketers alike are prompting us to spend \u2014 whether it’s at the mall, at the car dealership or on so-called revenge travel.<\/p>\n

Mass consumption inevitably adds stress to the natural world, in the form of resource extraction and carbon emissions.<\/p>\n

“There is always discussion that we should as consumers spend money to fuel up businesses,” said Bengi Akbulut, assistant professor of geography, planning and environment at Concordia University in Montreal.<\/p>\n

“But I think the broader tension [right now] is whether we can grow our way out of the ecological breakdown.”<\/p>\n

\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Buying our way out of pandemic malaise is hurting the planet, experts say Some say the emphasis should be on well-being rather than economic growth People line up to shop in Toronto. As COVID-19 cases eased in recent months, provinces have relaxed restrictions and encouraged people to spend again. But the emphasis on economic growth […]<\/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":[2,4],"tags":[31624,103,3000,203,391,607],"class_list":["post-59017","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-environment","tag-andre-mayer","tag-canada","tag-cbc-news","tag-degrowth","tag-growth","tag-pandemic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59017","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=59017"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59017\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59019,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59017\/revisions\/59019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59017"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}