Dear Members of Parliament,
The Anti-Growth Alliance offer a unifying aspiration to calm the chaos in the House. Liz Truss’ naïve mini-budget revealed the lack of understanding about the threat that GDP growth economics poses to both our sanity and our survival. Democracy in its current form, is powerless in the face of the escalating climate and ecological collapse; because we have no political party which offers the antidote to ecocidal GDP growth economics. The latest publication from the Club of Rome, Earth4All, highlights the urgent need for profound socio-economic change.
We urge the House to consider creating an emergency cross-party government to set objectives that will reduce our ecological footprint, with the long-term objective of operating equitably within the biocapacity of our own country. In the UK we currently operate at three times the biocapacity available within our borders. A cross-party government focussed on achieving radical reduction in our collective ecological footprint will provide global leadership. In this way we can steer the world away from the dominant and toxic culture of coercive consumerism and irresponsible pronatalism. For those who are unclear why this change of direction is needed, the Preface in this paper from the UN Commons Cluster explains the scientific insights which are involved; the same paper also contains a section that addresses the problems within our education, which have caused us to become entrapped within the GDP growth mindset.
The U.K. government are out of touch with the public mood. Nowadays most people within the financial world are questioning the wisdom of GDP growth economics. This recent article reveals the strains that pension funds are facing to adequately fulfil their fiduciary duties. There is even a challenge to the legitimacy of investing any pension funds within a stock market that is still dominated by the GDP growth mindset. The European Union have understood the need to reduce ecological footprint, and are working to halve theirs by 2030. Holland are suggesting that this ambition can be made global by building it into the Global Biodiversity Framework. However, Europe has not yet openly identified GDP growth to be the underlying issue; in this respect the U.K. can lead the way.
If the U.K. Parliament were to act on the suggestion made by the Anti-Growth Alliance and create a cross-party emergency government focussed on footprint Degrowth, then these initial steps are recommended to demonstrate your good intentions:
- Grant a state pardon to all climate activists who are currently in prison
- Explain that both coercive consumerism and pronatalism present profound cultural challenges as we face up to the reality of escalating climate and ecological collapse. Explain that the emergency government intend to face up to both these challenges and to permit open discussion about how best to eradicate the misleading messaging from environmental groups that has prevented public understanding of the insights from I=PAT, ecological overshoot and the Jevons paradox.
- Request that both the public and the media commit to undertaking a collective envisioning exercise, to understand the problems that we face, and to work together to find imaginative and equitable solutions
There are a great many things that need to ‘grow’ in a culture that is focussed on ecological Degrowth, for example:
- Imagination – this works in two directions: a) imagining how awful it will get if we don’t pull out all the stops, and b) imagining the profound cultural changes that are urgently needed
- Realisation – that collapse is here and now; and that it is escalating rapidly
- Remorse – for the flippant manner that we are currently squandering the last remaining shreds of our ecosystems. Remorse for having spent decades promoting a toxic economic model which is a Ponzi scheme, pulling from the Bank of Nature and forcing her into bankruptcy.
- Willingness to change our attitudes and aspire to making reparations
- Humility – we need curb the arrogance which results from dominating and suppressing Nature, and other groups of our own species.
- Emotional Maturity – we need to have the courage to admit that we cannot negotiate with Physics and Environmental Sciences; we need to take the insights from I=PAT and the Jevons paradox at face value, instead of pretending that there is a workaround.
- Emotional Resilience – our modern culture distances us from the natural world. It will come as a shock to realise quite how far along the process of collapse we have already travelled; numerous tipping points were passed some time ago. Social cohesion and the shared aspiration will help us to build the necessary resilience. To grow your own emotional resilience, please read the Ego to Eco Journey in Leadership and Governance.
This email is sent on behalf of the Anti-Growth Alliance; we have a vision of a diverse global society collaborating peacefully towards the shared objective to salvage what remains of our dying ecosystems, as rapidly and as equitably as possible. None of this collective tragedy is our fault; it started long before most of us were born, and our education system is designed to perpetuate the problem. It is possible that Alok Sharma may possess the necessary emotional maturity to lead such a cross-party government, he has demonstrated many of the qualities needed in an eco-leader.
With Love and Respect
The Anti-Growth Alliance