in english here:
http://www.monbiot.com/2014/05/27/the-impossibility-of-growth/
translation there:
http://babordages.fr/limpossibilite-de-la-croissance-par-georgemonbiot/
This excerpt is very relevant:
(...) As the philosopher Michael Rowan points out, the inevitable consequences of compound growth mean that by projecting 2014's global growth rate forecast (3,1%), even if we managed to reduce our consumption of raw materials 90%we would not push the inevitable than 75 years. Efficiency does not solve anything as long as growth continues. (...)
We could not be clearer ...
He's totally crazy to think that we can envisage a "simple" zero growth in "softness" and when that will sing the (illusory) economic powers ...
Only a sharp decline in our lifestyles based on a forward-thinking policy will allow us to survive, otherwise it is a violent recession (with social unrest that goes with) that we will suffer ... soon .. .
The impossibility of growth, by @georgemonbiot
It's simple. If we do not manage to change the economic system, we are screwed.
By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 28 May 2014
Ticket politely borrowed and graciously translated from English by @sknob
Imagine that in 3030 BC, the total wealth of the people of Egypt was in one cubic meter. And imagine that these riches have increased by 4,5% per year. What would be the size of the jackpot arrived at the Battle of Actium in 30 BC. J.-C? Here is the calculation made by the banker of business Jeremy Grantham.
Go ahead, guess. Ten times the size of the pyramids? All the sand of the Sahara? The Atlantic Ocean ? The volume of the planet? A bit more ? It is 2,5 billion billion solar systems. This result must not be contemplated for a long time to reach the paradoxical conclusion that our salvation depends on our collapse.
To succeed is the assurance of our destruction. To fail is the assurance of our destruction. Here is the trap that we have stretched ourselves. Ignore if it sings to you climate change, the collapse of biodiversity, the depletion of water, soils, minerals, oil; even if these problems vanished with a magic wand, the arithmetic of compound growth proves that it is impossible to continue like this.
Economic growth is an offshoot of the exploitation of fossil fuels. Before large quantities of coal were extracted, each peak in industrial production was offset by a drop in agricultural production, as industry demand for charcoal or horsepower reduced available cropland. . Each of these old industrial revolutions collapsed because their growth was unsustainable. But coal has broken this cycle by allowing - for a few hundred years - the phenomenon that we call today sustained growth.
It is neither capitalism nor communism that has made possible progress and pathologies (world wars, unprecedented concentration of wealth, destruction of the planet) of the modern era. It's coal, followed by oil and gas. The meta-trend, the main narrative, is carbon-doped expansion. Our ideologies are only secondary vicissitudes. But now that the most accessible reserves are exhausted, we must ravage the farthest corners of the planet to preserve our unsustainable proposition.
Last Friday, a few days after scientists announced that the collapse of the Western Antarctic Ice Cap was now unavoidable, the Government of Ecuador gave the green light to oil drilling in the National Park. Yasuni. He had made a proposal to the other governments: if they contributed half the value of the deposit in this part of the park, it would be left underground. It can be seen as blackmail, or as fair trade. Ecuador is a poor country, rich in oil deposits: why leave them unexploited without compensation, argued his government, while everyone digs to the first circle of hell? He asked for $ 3,6 billion, and he got $ 13 million. As a result, Petroamazonas, a company with a history of destruction and oil spills, will be able to penetrate one of the most biodiverse areas of the planet, where, according to some, every hectare of virgin forest contains more species than all of North America.
The British oil company Soco hopes to penetrate the oldest national park in Africa, Virunga, in the Democratic Republic of the Congo; one of the last bastions of the mountain gorilla and okapi, chimpanzees and forest elephants. In England, where 4,4 billion barrels of potential shale gas have just been identified in the south-east, the government is dreaming of turning the wooded suburbs into a new delta of Niger. To achieve this, it modifies the law governing the violation of property to allow drilling without prior consent, and it grease generously the paw of the residents. These new reserves do not settle anything. They do not reduce our appetite for these resources, they exacerbate it.
The trajectory of the growth rate indicates that the rampage of the planet is just beginning. With the expansion of the global economy, every spot that houses concentrated, unusual or valuable elements will be flushed out and exploited, its resources extracted and dispersed, reducing the wonders of the world so diverse and varied into a uniformly gray carpet of rubble.
Some try to solve this impossible equation by invoking the myth of dematerialization: the assertion that the optimization of processes and the miniaturization of gadgets would in total, we use less materials. There is no indication that this is the case. Iron ore production increased by 180% in ten years. The professional organization Forest Industries tells us that "global paper consumption has reached a record level and will continue to grow." If we do not succeed in reducing our paper consumption in the digital age, what hope is there for other commodities?
Observe the lifestyle of the super-rich, who give the world consumption. Are their yachts shrinking? Their homes? Their works of art? Their purchases of precious wood, fish or rare stones? Those who can afford it are buying bigger and bigger houses to store increasing amounts of possessions they will never have the opportunity to enjoy before they die. Imperceptibly, a growing proportion of the Earth's surface is used to extract, manufacture and store things we do not need. It may not be surprising that the dreams of colonizing space - which would allow us to export our problems instead of solving them - are resurfacing.
As the philosopher Michael Rowan points out, the inevitable consequences of compound growth mean that by projecting 2014's global growth rate forecast (3,1%), even if we manage to reduce our 90% raw material consumption, we we would push back the inevitable only by 75 years. Efficiency does not solve anything as long as growth continues.
The unavoidable failure of a society built on the growth and destruction of living organisms on Earth is the overwhelming foundation of our existence. Therefore, they are mentioned almost nowhere. They are the big taboo of the twenty-first century, the subjects that never cease to annoy your friends and your neighbors. We live as if we were prisoners of the Sunday supplement of our newspapers: obsessed with celebrity, fashion and the three painful pillars of the middle class conversations: recipes, decorations and resorts. All but the subject that requires our attention.
The shattering of open doors, the result of elementary calculations are treated as so many distractions as esoteric as displaced, while the unsustainable proposition that governs our lives seems so rational, normal and banal to us that it is not even worthy to be mentioned. This is precisely what we measure the seriousness of the problem: our inability to even discuss it.
