Ben's Blog

The fossil fuel merchants are selling the stuff coal as fast as they possibly can, so obviously they are the culprits, right? But bare in mind that while they are destroying the world for the generations to come, they are also doing their level best to satisfy our insatiable demand for energy. We are like the poor unfortunate drug addicts that curse the dealer for getting us hooked, whilst pleading for ever more drugs. We are the culprits! Almost every last one of us.

(with the possible exception of Buddhist monks and the unemployed)

There are very few people in this society who are willing to forgo any of their creature comforts in order to avoid climate catastrophe. The climate disaster we have created is not caused by burning fossil fuels. It is caused by burning too much fossil fuel. If the economy did not keep growing at its present rate of around 4%, give or take the odd pandemic, we would not be in the present predicament. No matter how many wind turbines we think we can build, we will never catch up, a Uroboros, chasing its tail.

Every tower we build will generate more electricity. More electricity means more economic growth. More growth means more emissions, and so it goes, on and on and on. There is only one solution. I think we all know what it is. We have to stop spending so much money. But when we do spend even a tiny bit less, the who system goes into panic mode. So we need a system that can cope with an economy that does not grow. There are of course, many systems around the world that are not reliant on growth. But we don’t particularly like the look of them, do we. It would mean giving up that annual trip to Europe, giving up crossing the country in our great hulking SUVs, giving up our big house and our beach house and our investment properties, and our boat, and our Winebago, and…well just about everything really. There would be nothing left to live for, would there? So we have chosen mass suicide via over-consumption!