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There is currently no global ambition to achieve maximum mitigation from the predicament of ecological overshoot. There is very little public recognition that we need to minimise our global ecological footprint per capita, nor our population size. There are few challenges in the mainstream media that address the peer pressure to overconsume and overpopulate that fuel growth economics. Although record weather extremes are being regularly broken nowadays, growth economics is still regarded as a solution rather than a problem in most people’s minds.
The absence of public challenges to our global ecocidal trajectory is primarily due to the conditioning that takes place in the modern STEM pedagogy. Students are taught to conform, and that earning money is a prerequisite to survival. Financial enterprise is encouraged without any consideration for the ecological damage that is inherent in growth economics. The insights from I=PAT and the Jevons paradox are not stressed. Human survival has always been achieved by balancing selfish needs with the collective purpose. Unfortunately our collective purpose has been dominated by growth economics for over two hundred years. This has perpetuated an ecocidal downside to all our development resulting in chronic ecological overshoot, and ecosystems collapse. Any projects that address the flaws in the prevailing pedagogy are welcomed.
Any project that is designed to disturb this complacency and ensure that people are aware that we are degrading our environment all the while we persist with growth economics, will be most helpful to steer us away from this tragic trajectory. These could take the form of artwork, drama, documentaries or webinars that engage the participants in envisaging a different set of priorities.