Friday, February 23, 2007

The Delusion of Sustainable Growth-letter to the Star

Re: PM must act on Kyoto now, Opinion, Feb 23

Stéphane Dion is making a fundamental flaw, a flaw shared by all the political parties, that economic growth can be sustainable. In a finite environment with the human population growing, consuming more raw natural resources, resources which have a limited supply it is physically impossible to be sustainable. The more humans there are the more environmental degradation there will be. More homes needed to be built, more food grown, more energy required, and more CO2 emissions.

In the not so distant future, within the lifetimes of the young people living today, we will hit the carrying capacity of this planet. Oil and natural gas will peak and head into terminal decline. Alternatives cannot be scaled up to replace oil.

If humanity wants to avoid civilization collapse this delusion of sustainable growth must be rejected and a full effort started to reverse human population growth.

Richard Wakefield
Komoka, Ontario

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