… It has meant that for centuries,
but why is it now causing environmental impacts?
Why would growing prosperity also now risk our
using up everything useable on earth, as investors seek the fastest growing profits achievable?
These threats are not because of politics, except for neglecting how little time we have left to act on them.
The need to save the earth is very popular, all over
the earth.
Growth is the pursuit of money too,
…using money always contributes to businesses increasing their profits as fast as they can.
We still find it hard to imagine how
making money uses and changes our world
as a whole, though….
How average uses of money impact the world as a whole… is about average! Like, ~1lb of CO2 comes from $1.00 of goods, as a world average
Notes on the hard science for why “average” is also an accurate estimate for energy use, not just logical.
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- If you make $40,000/yr, then it’s a probably accurate guess that using your income will release a real 40,000 pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere a year, as that’s the world average.
- In the past 40 years there have been lots of efforts to increase economic efficiency and develop alternative sources of energy. They have produced more goods, more efficiently, but has not changed the growing rate of fossil fuel use, as that’s still the most profitable fuel to use.
- The ability of more successful competitors to pay the rising prices of the food and fuel resources being depleted is squeezing everyone else harder and harder.
- We need another way to maintain prosperity than by expanding our use of the earth’s resources ever faster.