-
The Tyranny of Time Poverty
The headlong obsession with corporate and economic growth, creates societies of time-impoverished individuals who can easily lose any holistic sense of their place in the environment. In the Western world, the progress of society is measured by capital flows and commercial growth. These financial goals are often put ahead of life values. The pace of life is getting faster and faster because the common assumption is ‘more is better.’ This has negative impact on both life satisfaction (which is one’s cognitive appraisal of one’s life as a whole) and climate change. What humans really require for happiness is life satisfaction as well as the health and well-being of our children,…
-
Are We Missing the Real Issue?
In his article, Don’t Call Me a Pessimist on Climate Change, I am a Realist, William E Rees explores the possibility that the switch to green energy sources will not meet our growing demands. Survival will ultimately depend on us facing hard facts about energy, growth and governance. In fact, he ventures to assert that existing policy for climate disaster-avoidance seems designed to serve the capitalist growth economy and make the latter appear as the solution rather than cause of the problem. “Unfortunately,” as University of Vienna public policy professor Clive Spash points out, “many environmental non-governmental organisations have bought into this illogical reasoning.” (Note that many NGOs are dependent on the corporate…
