«Last Call» This is more than an economic and political crisis: it’s a crisis of civilization. We are trapped in the perverse dynamics of a civilization that does not work if it does not grow, even if growth destroys the resources that maintain the civilization. Our culture, completely addicted to technological and market solutions, has forgotten that, in fact, we are inherently part of an interdependent ecosystem. Today, there is mounting evidence indicating that the path of unlimited growth is similar to a slow motion genocide. The end of cheap energy, the catastrophic scenarios of climate change, and geopolitical conflicts over natural resources illustrate that the years of seemingly unlimited progress are forever gone. Our production- and consumption- oriented society cannot be sustained by the planet. We need to construct a new civilization capable of securing the dignity of a huge, and constantly growing, human population (which today comprises more than 7.2 billion) in a world of diminishing resources. This would be possible only after radical changes in our lifestyles, forms of production, urban design, and organization of territories. We need a society that focuses on recovering an equilibrium with the biosphere by using research, technology, culture, economy, and politics to advance towards this end. However, to do this we will need all the political imagination, moral generosity, and technical creativity that we are able to deploy.
Posted on: Tue, 12 Aug 2014 19:50:08 +0000
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