At the UK’s Green Party Spring Conference 2011 in Cardiff, Tim Jackson, ‘Prosperity without Growth’, spoke at a fringe meeting. He spoke about how the Green Party should take this moment of financial turmoil, t o push the message for change, away from the failed economic models. He said it would be tough, but telling the public the truth, that there would not be jobs for all, would ultimately bear fruit, for those brave enough to say it, how it is. The Green Party, under Caroline Lucas, MP., failed to deliver the message for a different economic model.
Why the EU must dare to debate ‘degrowth’ « Feeding the habit.
Tim Jackson stated there are three aims:
- Establishing the limits;
- Fixing the economic model;
- Changing the social logic.
Changing the social logic is something Annie Leonard and her ‘Story of Stuff Project’, tried to do.
In a commentary by Pavan Sukhdev in ‘Prosperity without Growth’, states:
GDP growth does not capture many vital aspects of natural wealth and well-being such as changes in the quality of health, the extent of education and changes in the quality and quantity of our natural resources.
The ongoing economic crisis, itself a result of crisis in our fuel, food and finance, and at a parallel crisis in our ecological and climate commons, suggesting that both share a common cause: our failed economic model.
Tim Jackson does state there is a need for investing in jobs, assets and infrastructure:
- retrofitting buildings with energy- and carbon-saving measures;
- renewable energy technologies in particular the electricity grid;
- public transport infrastructure.
If politicians do not start to send out the message for change, it will come about but it will be forced on people by events beyond human control. Without change now, catastrophic climate change will force change.
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