Impossible equations

Meat consumption has increased with 60% over the past 30 years in Sweden. In the meantime, the price has dropped with 40%.

Reflections

Peak phosphorous, peak oil, peak metals, water scarcity and sanitation problems, oil leaks, rapid fast and totally unsustainable logging of rain forests, collapse of fisheries , etc. etc. Shortages of raw materials and ecosystem degradation along with social and ecological consequences coincide globally in a rapid pace.

When will we seriously begin to lift the really critical issues? What are the actual social and ecological consequences of our economic systems? How does the debt, speculation and credit systems operate and how do they affect the social and ecological systems - the foundation of our survival? How, and for what reason, do we intend to allow the growth of our financial systems to continue take place? No matter what we say, in the end of the day we will need to face the reality that we will be forced to convert our societies (not least our personal lives) when we will experience shock price increases, in particular, of what we need for our survival and economic depression with mass unemployment and social unrest as a result. We need to arrange lifestyles that fit within the productive areas of this planet. And we need to critically examine this "target state" in order to balance the patriarchal, Western-oriented world, large-scale, technocratic and linear values that currently exist and which also leads us to the abyss. There are plenty of options that need to be highlighted to show the way out of the business-as-usual.

A sound and sustainable life - 20th of May

The 20th of May at ABF-huset in Sveavägen there will take place a political discussion. Topics that will be discussed are for instance if we still can continue have an economic growth with oil depletion taking overhand, if green growth is a wish or a realistic outline and how we are prepared for a fundamental adaptation lying ahead in an reality not run by a cheap and high-energy concentrated fuel.

Winona LaDuke - White Earth Land Recovery Project

The Next Energy Economy: Grassroots Strategies for Mitigating Global Climate Change
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VKOJ4XMzNG0&playnext_from=TL&videos=-Zs8MNdNC0M

Distinction of, misuse and consequences of modern terminology

There is an essential difference between growth and development. Growth has a positive connotation - a forest grows, a child grows. But after a while we surely want our child to stop growing and instead developing. Not a quantitative growth, but an qualitative development.

The term growth is used and mentioned, as previously pointed out in the blog, practically in every major political or organizational instance worldwide as a operational goal.

Which solutions, what values are rewarded with growth as a motive in political desicions? Does it lead us where we want to go? Examples of unreflected references to growth in Sweden are plentiful; the Collage of Education expresses that it educates teachers for the sake of growth, the Swedish horse breed organization donates money for growth and the county council of Örebro is offering health care not for the sake of the health, but to promote growth!

One of many deeply problematic consequences coupled to continued economic growth is that required work declines when technological rationalizations improves production costs and time in manufacturing sectors generally. Problem is that this underlying trend forces overall production volymes to increase so as to secure job opportunities. Ironically, this is the logic behind all consumption-stimulating measures in the aftermaths of the financial crisis (raw material crisis?). It is also the same path towards the gap.

Alternative routes encompasses for example less than 40 labour hours per labour week, extraction and exchange of returns in productivity to free-time and sharing labour. For alternative routes we need brave, bold and engaged politicians that are more interested in the future of coming generations rather than misusage of authority and power. For alternative routes we also need a shift in values among ordinary citizens that can support real sustainable decisions.

Financial crisis or raw material crisis?

Our societies are dependent on fossil fuels in order to operate. No other fuel is so concentrated in energy than crude oil derivative products. The reigning consumption-oriented societies rest on one much important condition - access to cheap and high energy fuels. Fact is that between 2004-2007 an oil barrel rose from 35 dollar to 70 dollar - a doubling of price. The reason is that the global oil production levels have been stable since 2004, despite increasing global demand. Interestingly, year 2008 the oil price was doubled once again. This led to much important and coupled concequences. Doubling of the oil price over the two-year course led to higher fuel and food prices leading to an inflation kickstart, which in turn forced the American Central Bank to increase the interest rate, amongst one concequence being higher housing mortgages, freezed downpayments from borrowers and freezed house loans from banks, etc, etc.

Alarmingly, the strategy utilized world-wide to bring economies back on track (apart of using state tax money as stimulation packages leading to a degration of public sector welfare) is through increased consumption and continued growth. An economical governance demanding accelerated access to cheap and high-energy fuels. Not to mention climate change with all of its direct and indirect consequences.

It goes without saying that when the global economy again rises, it will again hit the same energy boundaries that initiated the crisis it was supposed to revive from.

Dead end. Try alternative route.

Monopoly in thinking among national economists

People are getting tired of consuming. Something new is starting to form that is based on a longing for higher quality of life, more spare time and engagement in social/cultural or other creative activities. However, it seems, unfortunately that it will take some more time for important decision makers to understand the unsustainable essence of the prevailing economical system. Economic growth is a similarily unquestioned concept/dogma as the 15th century notion that the planet was flat. Economic growth is, today, the overall answer to most problems; poverty, inequality, unemployment and most frequently how to boost the economy so that higher competitive can be gained. It is used throughout the world, in practically every political instance. One fundamental cause of neoliberalism being the forefront political ideology worldwide (together with all of its problems, mishaps, environmental and social consequences) is the fact that students graduating with grades of national economical is indoctrinated in the same, old-fashioned, extremely narrow and simplistic framework: neoclassical economical theory.

It goes without saying that this will need to be questioned. In editorials, in political arenas, debates of all sorts and furthermore to spread the insight that we need another way of organising our economical system. And good news is, sustainable solutions already exist.

Localisation, down-sizing, democratical participation, ecological economics, social methods of sharing labour and resources, promoting all sorts of cultural activities for the benefit of citizens - a pluralistic economical framework should be what we need.