Thomas L Friedman wrote a great column in the New York Times questioning whether the global financial crisis is indicative of a greater failure in our society.
“What if it’s telling us that the whole growth model we created over the last 50 years is simply unsustainable economically and ecologically and that 2008 was when we hit the wall – when Mother Nature and the market both said: ‘No more.’” This is the Great Disruption.
Friedman sums up the ever growing US-China economic interdependence brilliantly in this paragraph:
“We have created a system for growth that depended on our building more and more stores to sell more and more stuff made in more and more factories in China, powered by more and more coal that would cause more and more climate change but earn China more and more dollars to buy more and more U.S. T-bills so America would have more and more money to build more and more stores and sell more and more stuff that would employ more and more Chinese …”
And I believe he is right in saying that we can’t do this anymore. At least not in the way we are currently depleting non-renewable resources and continuing to create unsustainable models of growth.
Friedman interviewed physicist and climate expert Dr Joseph Romm of climateprogress.org, who believes we have “constructed the grandest of Ponzi schemes, whereby current generations have figured out how to live off the wealth of future generations.”
In the words of Romm, “we created a way of raising standards of living that we can’t possibly pass on to our children. We have been getting rich by depleting all our natural stocks – water, hydrocarbons, forests, rivers, fish and arable land – and not by generating renewable flows. But it has to collapse, unless adults stand up and say, ‘This is a Ponzi scheme. We have not generated real wealth, and we are destroying a livable climate…’ Real wealth is something you can pass on in a way that others can enjoy.”
Until now it has mostly been environmentalists and scientists who have become alarmed at the environmental disruption caused by our unsustainable behaviour. The disruption of global financial markets has now given economists reason to pay attention too. The scary thing is that these “crises” are the symptoms manifested by a sick system which is getting sicker. A trillion dollar bailout is a very expensive pill to take, but it’s simply not a cure. Will it take a revolution, a war, or the next global health epidemic to wake up our politicians and doctors too?
Like our bodies, the modern world is an interdependent system in which we must recognise that every part is important and valuable. It doesn’t matter how smart our brain is because we simply can’t live without a heart, just as we cannot afford to lose our natural resources, our biodiversity, our Africa or our Antarctica.
