Prosperity without growth

how can a company opperate without profit?

Infinite cash reserves or an infinite line of credit.

This presentation by James Moody from the CSIRO ponders some related issues.

http://www.csiro.au/lectures/sixthwave/

hungry, how will infinite reserves work out in your mind? Level out world exchange rates?

Watch

Sounds like an interesting read. Let me know how it goes?

Have a read yourself, Prosperity without growth?

I don't know- it will all end in Mad Max. Just hopin the Chinese can fix this shit.

Yeah, thanks for the help man.

We are depending on developing nations to lead the way with sustainability, I'm not sure if China will be a good for this, who seems more driven by profit than quality.

India could be more promising, if it sorts out it’s government and corruption.

What are the issues that come to mind, that we will face in the next say 20/30yrs, that'll flip over this capitlist systerm? Peek Oil? Global Warming?.... (calling for debate and help)

I'm doing an essay on this stuff at the moment

I say China because they have the most to gain from finding alternative/green energy solutions and are definitely the biggest investors in related R&D as well.

This book leaves too many things unanswered.

Suppose we want to stop growth now. OK, but who's growth? Let's say the OECD. But most emissions are going to come from Africa, India and China. Should we ask them to stop, right now?

I don't know what evidence exists that the technology required to reduce carbon intensity to achieve 450 ppm byy 2050 can be achieved in a world with no growth.

moreover, the big enviro policies (carbon pricing, exhaustible resources), has a loooong intellectual history and is either ignored (exhaustible, the limitations of GDP as a measure of welfare) or the advice is pretty mainstream (carbon pricing).

it's interesting to see how some of the deep green view environment policy, and i'm most sympathetic with their objectives. but as with all romantic daitribes, it lacks it on the means to achieve their objectives.

1.5 stars.

Are they? Where did you read that?

Basil, I think the document is suggesting developing nations lead the way, biggest problems seemly to be individualism in consumerism, infrastructure and access to alternative fuel and transport.

most global growth to 2050 is coming from developing countries, so they're going to be most of the emissions. it's pretty hard to stop global growth and allow china, india, indonesia, brazil, etc to catch up.

That's true, Tim Jackson argues these are what we need to do to make a sustainably future.

Building a Sustainable Macro-Economy

Debt-driven materialistic consumption is deeply unsatisfactory as the basis for our macro-economy. The time is now ripe to develop a new macro-economics for sustainability that does not rely for its stability on relentless growth and expanding material throughput. Four specific policy areas are identified to achieve this:

1. Developing macro-economic capability
2. Investing in public assets and infrastructures
3. Increasing financial and fiscal prudence
4. Reforming macro-economic accounting

Protecting Capabilities for Flourishing

The social logic that locks people into materialistic consumerism is extremely powerful, but detrimental ecologically and psychologically. A lasting prosperity can only be achieved by freeing people from this damaging dynamic and providing creative opportunities for people to flourish – within the ecological limits of the planet. Five policy areas address this challenge.

1. Sharing the available work and improving the work-life balance
2. Tackling systemic inequality
3. Measuring capabilities and flourishing
4. Strengthening human and social capital
5. Reversing the culture of consumerism

Respecting Ecological Limits

The material profligacy of consumer society is depleting natural resources and placing unsustainable burdens on the planet’s ecosystems. There is an urgent need to establish clear resource and environmental limits on economic activity and develop policies to achieve them. Three policy suggestions contribute to that task.

1. Imposing clearly defined resource/emissions caps
2. Implementing fiscal reform for sustainability
3. Promoting technology transfer and international ecosystem protection.

Peak Oil

In terms of fuel we seem a bit slow on transit to greener ways to work transport, logistics and power plants. if we run out of cheap oil in the next five to ten years.