This question is from a series of articles about the troubles that lie ahead for the global economy published in the New Scientist last October. The graphic image it conjures up seems to capture the challenge humanity faces this century. Avoiding a crash will be tricky!
The New Scientist elegantly shows that despite technological advances we’re rapidly overshooting our planet’s carrying capacity: the average person is still consuming more of the planet’s resources every decade and we are currently increasing our global population by over 200,000 people a day. Ecologists know that if this continues our population will collapse.
However, the New Scientist offers its readers an optimistic scenario for 2020 based on a "steady-state" economy that is thriving within ecological and political limits set by science and society. There are clues in the scenario about how we’ll get from here to there, but not about how the social and political will to change developed so quickly.
Will the leaders of the G20 nations focus on patching up and redesigning the aeroplane? Or will they take the opportunity the current crisis provides and create genuinely sustainable recovery? As Prince Charles said recently "any difficulties which the world faces today will be as nothing compared to the full effects which global warming will have on the world-wide economy".
The New Scientist elegantly shows that despite technological advances we’re rapidly overshooting our planet’s carrying capacity: the average person is still consuming more of the planet’s resources every decade and we are currently increasing our global population by over 200,000 people a day. Ecologists know that if this continues our population will collapse.
However, the New Scientist offers its readers an optimistic scenario for 2020 based on a "steady-state" economy that is thriving within ecological and political limits set by science and society. There are clues in the scenario about how we’ll get from here to there, but not about how the social and political will to change developed so quickly.
Will the leaders of the G20 nations focus on patching up and redesigning the aeroplane? Or will they take the opportunity the current crisis provides and create genuinely sustainable recovery? As Prince Charles said recently "any difficulties which the world faces today will be as nothing compared to the full effects which global warming will have on the world-wide economy".
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