Throughout the developed world, the financial crisis is prompting frantic calls for the restoration of economic stability as the number one priority for the immediate future. But as a procession of unsustainable organisations line up for bailouts, we are in danger of missing an opportunity to deal with a much bigger problem.

In 1972, the Club of Rome published ‘The Limits to Growth’, its report on the predicament of mankind, termed the ‘World Problematique’. This was the first attempt to explore the implications of exponential growth in population, consumption and pollution within a finite system, using a then-revolutionary world dynamics computing model developed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology – requiring computers occupying hundreds of square metres of floor space, today available on a single laptop! The particular emphasis of the study was to examine the holistic interaction of humanity and biosphere, rather than looking at each issue in its separate silo. It also used scenarios to explore rather than predict, another novelty at that time.

The report was much maligned, both then and since, as being overly pessismistic and too academic. However, some of its scenarios are now turning out to be spot on, as a recent analysis by CSIRO scientist Graham Turner demonstrate.¹

At the end of WWII we had 2.5 billion people on this planet - a relatively empty world. Today we have 6.7 billion people, all aspiring to improved standards of living and increasing consumption. The result is already a full world in which we are exhausting the planet’s ability to accommodate the human species,² and yet population is forecast to grow to 9 billion by 2050.

Since 1972, considerations of the ‘problematique’ and the common good have taken a back seat to our unbridled individualistic dash for economic growth. We have proved incapable of accepting, so far, that the most important factor for our own survival is the preservation of a biosphere fit for human habitation. Given the current convergence of climate change, peak oil, food and water shortages, something clearly has to give, as conventional economic growth is untenable. Do we have the maturity to develop a genuinely sustainable alternative? Is the financial crisis the trigger to make it happen?

Image: Urban Sprout

Ideas for a Green New Deal

It is heartening that in response to these daunting challenges, new ideas and leadership are flowing freely. Lester Brown’s ‘Plan B – Mobilising to Save Civilisation’³ was one of the first. Jonathon Porritt’s ‘Capitalism as if the World Matters’,⁴ lays out a blueprint for reframing capitalism on a sustainable basis. Thomas Homer-Dixon’s ‘The Upside of Down – Catastrophe, Creativity and the Renewal of Civilisation'⁵, gives a fundamentally optimistic message of our potential to regroup and renew in the face of current challenges built around resilience concepts, provided we first accept the size of the problem. Worldwatch’s ‘Low Carbon Energy'⁶ outlines a framework for global low-carbon energy solutions. ‘Zero Carbon Britain'⁷ is a plan for simultaneously eliminating carbon emissions in Britain within 20 years and delivering energy security. ‘Green New Deal'⁸ proposes a fundamental reframing of the UK economy to meet the triple crunch of credit, climate and energy. ‘Beyond Zero Emissions’⁹ are developing similar concepts for Australia. To see how the ‘official future’ has changed, read the International Energy Agency’s ‘World Energy Outlook 2008’¹⁰, a comprehensive analysis of the energy and climate change challenge we face, calling for an ‘energy revolution’. The report is still too sanguine on oil supply, but represents a vast improvement on their previous unfounded optimism on the future of cheap energy. The Tallberg Foundation’s ‘Grasping the Climate Crisis'¹¹ challenges the widespread perception that nations are dealing effectively with climate change: “in fact almost nothing is happening yet at the global scale”. Their paper argues that policy should now be structured around risk management, the latest science (not just the IPCC), ethics and the common good rather than national self-interest. Finally, the Club of Rome is being rejuvenated to complete the task of catalysing solutions to the ‘problematique'.¹²

There is no shortage of ideas and the solutions are clear. The challenge is now for the community to demand change from the political and corporate world. The financial crisis provides our great opportunity to set the world on a new sustainable path, as many sacred cows, which have stood in the path of change, are being slaughtered by the day as the crisis unfolds. It is an opportunity we cannot afford to waste. If bail-out funds are to be provided, then they should come with very stringent conditions attached to ensure we move rapidly on to that new path and not just shore up an unsustainable system, to create an even bigger problem a few years hence.