Rescuing A Planet Under Stress... rethinking and retooling our commerce

Lester Strong of the World Resources institute wrote an article in The Futurist magazine at the beginning of July with a clear statement of the severe challenges our overconsumptive industrial society faces at this time.

I want to focus on the upshot of what he's writing - that we have a grand opportunity to re-orient our economic and capital thinking to create new businesses, new industries by first recognizing the problems that we face. Once we embrace the reality of the current situtation, despair or denial are not necessary, but inspired engagement in new ways of operating our businesses and our lives.

He writes:

"The key to building a global economy that can sustain economic progress is the creation of an honest market, one that tells the ecological truth. The market is an incredible institution, allocating resources with an efficiency that no central planning body can match. It easily balances supply and demand, and it sets prices that readily reflect both scarcity and abundance."

"Accounting systems that do not tell the truth can be costly. Faulty corporate accounting systems that leave costs off the books have driven some of the world’s largest corporations into bankruptcy. Unfortunately, our faulty global economic accounting system has potentially far more serious consequences. Our modern economic prosperity is achieved in part by running up ecological deficits, costs that do not show up on the books but that someone will eventually pay."

"Once we calculate the indirect costs of a product or service, we can incorporate them into market prices in the form of a tax, offsetting them with income tax reductions. If we can get the market to tell the truth, then we can avoid being blindsided by faulty accounting systems that lead to bankruptcy."

"As Øystein Dahle, former vice president of Exxon for Norway and the North Sea, has pointed out,
'Socialism collapsed because it did not allow the market to tell the economic truth. Capitalism may collapse because it does not allow the market to tell the ecological truth.' "

"We are entering a new world. Of that there can be little doubt. What we do not know is whether it will be a world of decline and collapse or a world of environmental restoration and economic progress. Can the world mobilize quickly enough? Where will the wake-up calls come from? What form will they take? Will we hear them?"

"Participating in the construction of this enduring new economy is exhilarating. So is the quality of life it promises. We will be able to breathe clean air. Our cities will be less congested, less noisy, and less polluted. The prospect of living in a world where population has stabilized, forests are expanding, and carbon emissions are falling is an exciting one. It should inspire us to make the difficult but necessary decisions ahead."

Dive in and read the entire article here: http://www.energybulletin.net/17779.html