“Countries’ economies are driven by an obsession – continuous growth in the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). And our manic obsession with never-ending economic growth is driving our planet to ruin.
The absurdity of this becomes clear with a little bit of thought. Never-ending growth that relies on extracting resources from a finite planet is, of course, a mathematical impossibility. But well before we reach that point, this obsession will render our planet uninhabitable.
GROSS DOMESTIC PROFIT
If our concern is the well-being of our citizens, is GDP the appropriate indicator of that?
GDP is defined as:
“… the market value of all officially recognized final goods and services produced within a country in a given period of time.”
This implies that a cleaning-up operation after an environmental disaster for example gives a boost to GDP.
Dan O’Neill of the Centre for the Advancement of Steady State Economics (CASSE) makes the point that many bad things – such as family breakdown, wars and environmental disaster – contribute to GDP, but good things, where no money is exchanged, do not — such as volunteering.
Research shows ….”
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exactly … too bad there isn’t an emphasis on growth in consciousness or consciousness evolution
slowly, slowly, at a great cost humanity will learn not to breed like rats, to treat his fellow human, the flora, the fauna, the entire planet & the universe with care & respect, instead of shitting, pissing, raping & pillaging his neighbor, the nature & the planet, aka his home world
juice,
Your words are church to me; someday it will happen. Hopefully Gaia will be able to hang on and not anesthetize us with her anti cancer medication.