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Friday, 5 October, 2007 4:40 PM
Are Short Term Financial Gains
Killing Our Planet?
How
Reforms to Capitalism Can Save the Environment
The polar ice caps are
melting, species are facing extinction and our climate has become
more erratic than ever before. It is impossible to deny the need
for intense change in the face of today’s gathering ecological
crises. Now that scientific facts support the theories behind global
warming, why aren’t more people paying attention—and
how do we stop the damage?
Jonathon Porritt, adviser
to the UK Prime Minister and author of the new book, “Capitalism
as if the World Matters,” (Earthscan 2007) says the first
step towards implementing change is to alter the approach to conventional
environmentalism. To win people over and get them on board, he suggests
focusing on the positive. “Change will not come by threatening
people with yet more ecological doom and gloom,” says Porritt.
“The necessary changes have to be seen as good for people,
their health and their quality of life – and not just good
for future generations.”
As the book title suggests,
the biggest players in the game- businesses and politicians- must
undergo a paradigm shift. “Anything vaguely resembling ‘business-as-usual’
is no less than a death warrant for the highest ideals of contemporary
civilization,” says Porritt. “And that means we have
to dig a lot deeper than today’s superficial, febrile political
debates seem inclined to do.”
While Porritt acknowledges
the big picture can be very threatening, he believes positive and
profound change is possible. Through his work with Forum for the
Future, an organization that works with a very wide range of some
of the world’s biggest international companies, Porritt acts
as an adviser to a number of chief executives. Porritt says the
message that capitalism can be a change-agent for our future is
starting to resonate. “Like it or not (and the vast majority
of people do), capitalism is now the only economic game in town,”
says Porritt. “And that, of course, means that the emerging
solutions have to be fashioned with the embrace of capitalism.”
Porritt suggests that
today’s model of capitalism is more and more dependent upon
liquidating our necessary natural resources. This in turn has a
ripple effect of magnifying divides between the rich and the poor
worldwide.
Porritt suggests that
there are three ways we can transform capitalism in order to stop
this from getting worse:
- Pay real prices for
the things that we take out of nature
- Get the balance right
between the short and long term
- Promote responsible
consumption (energy, food, travel, etc)
“This combination
is the most likely to provide a serious political alternative to
today’s economic and political beliefs,” say Porritt.
“Sustainable growth is understood as answering the inescapable
challenge of living within our “natural limits,” providing
unique opportunities for responsible and innovative capital creators,
and offering people a more equitable and more rewarding way of life.”
“Capitalism as
if the World Matters” offers real-world solutions to the ‘destruction
of the world’ problems that our global society faces. Porritt
has put his experience to work, outlining frameworks for sustainable
capitalism and pointing to the initiatives some governments and
businesses are already beginning to follow. As Porritt so adroitly
points out, unless conventional environmentalism throws its weight
behind this type of progressive political agenda, the planet will
continue to face steep decline.
About the Author:
Jonathon Porritt is Co-Founder
of Forum for the Future (the UK’s leading sustainable development
organization) Jonathon is an eminent writer, broadcaster and commentator
on sustainable development.
Porritt was appointed
by Tony Blair as Chairman of the UK Sustainable Development Commission
in July 2000, the government’s principal source of independent
sustainable development advice. In addition, he has been a member
of the Board of the South West Regional Development Agency since
December 1999, and is Co-Director of The Prince of Wales Business
and Environment Program which runs Senior Executive’ Seminars
in Cambridge, Salzburg, South Africa and the USA.
Porritt was formerly
Director of Friends of the Earth (1984-90); co-chair of the Green
Party (1980-83) of which he is still a member; chairman of UNED-UK
(1993-96); chairman of Sustainability South West, the South West
round Table for Sustainable Development (1999-2001); a Trustee of
WWF UK (1991-2005). For his services in environmental protection,
he was made Commander of the British Empire in January 2000, which
is the highest honor one can receive that does not confer a knighthood.
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