In 1929 the start of the Great Depression was hitting the USA. President Roosevelt proposed the ‘New Deal’, a giant monetary injection, to stimulate markets and reduce poverty. Part of the New Deal was the Work Projects Administration, whose task it was to create millions of new jobs for the unemployed across the USA. Overnight, people were put to work on re-shaping the country by building parks, bridges, schools and public buildings.
Once again we find ourselves in an economic situation unlike any other time in our generation. This time there is a new problem, a problem that is also the solution – climate change. I can only fantasise how a ‘Green’ new deal could now help restructure our transportation and manufacturing networks and our energy infrastructure, making them more sustainable, cleaner and greener.
Globalisation has brought increased global competition and cheaper goods, but all too often we have overlooked the negative consequences of our rapid accent in the name of development - pollution from transportation, rape of the planet’s resources and the devastating effect of unregulated industrialisation.
Trade has taken place for hundred of years, but at a more docile pace. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, trade never released large quantities of carbon. On the whole energy was free, clean, and available to all – the ships sail, the river that drove the mill. Times were hard, but no harder than they will be in a world going through climate change and a population without the skills and mechanisms to cope. If we were to look away from our continuous obsession for accumulating material wealth so quickly, we might discover a new concept of happiness and wealth.
‘I think the capitalist system is re-booting itself’, an ecologist, and old friend, told me the other day. I think he is right. Growth isn’t sustainable when it’s based on endless consumption of material goods sourced from the cyclic extraction of new renewable resources created from ancient sunlight. It’s not sustainable when it’s based on consumption driven by debt.
Maybe we need to look away from the globalized model and look towards economies closer to home. Competition driven from smaller geographic areas can still push technological evolution and efficiency, providing market diversity exists. Some will see this as protectionism and claim it is a bad thing. The question is which option is better for the environment.
The price of recycled materials has collapsed recently due to reduced demand from China, so what! Let’s start industries in our own economies to recycle all our waste and supply industry closer to home. We need to reduce consumption. Not so long ago appliance repair shops existed on every high street. Let’s bring them back – Reduce, Reuse, Recycle.
By supplying companies closer to home, we reduce our transportation costs, reduce pollution, and provide jobs. The resources we need are already in circulation; landfill and recycling can be the new mining industries. The end of a product lifecycle can be the start of a new one and help create self sufficiency on a local level and a national level. This is the new economic model we need so badly. This is the dream we need to make a reality. There will still be a need for commodities like tea, coffee, fruit and chocolate. These are the products ancient trade routes that will help lift our friends in other countries from poverty. They too mustn’t become dependant on one source of income and make the same mistakes we’ve made in the past. Their role is different. They are our saviours now. The carbon sinks we once had on our forested nations are gone, our friends are the trustees of the last remaining pockets of our pristine world. Snow and they need our help and we need theirs. The benefits of competition from globalisation must be renewed, by moving away from unsustainable profit driven by devouring consumption.
Industrial growth can be modelled on nature. Nature’s raw materials are often based on self regulating chains and food webs. Many of the members of these specialised communities rely on each other for life and growth and when the strength of one member becomes too great their population usually balances out or disappears entirely. We have enough raw materials without ripping up more mountains for precious metals or processing more oil for plastics. Through these methods of resource exploitation we have created toxic bi-products affecting our biological communities unlike any other species on Earth. If every company had an ecologist on their board advising how we might best achieve this we might not be in the mess we are now.
Question everything, improve everything, change your electricity supplier, change your car, change your car insurance, stop buying crap, start growing, stop travelling so much, we can all be great so long as we act great. Tand the new economy won’t just happen due to political intervention. It will only happen if we shape it. Whatever your ideals, be it reducing environmental damage or providing jobs for the people of your country, consumers can drive the agenda much faster than any trade laws can.
