GDP depends on finite resource degeneration and extraction
Our current economy, including the measure that we use to chart economic progress is largely degenerative. What do I mean? Well, Gross Domestic Product (GDP), an economic measure of a nation’s progress, is directly dependent on the extraction and depletion of finite resources that make up a market of goods and services. GDP, viewed simplistically, is calculated by adding together how much consumers, businesses and governments spend on goods and services together with the value of net exports for any given country. In other words, what we are really considering is the level and cost of ‘consumption’ in a country.
The greater the volume and the faster we extract these finite resources in the production of goods and services, and then deplete them in turn via consumption, the more this is viewed favourably in economic terms.
We are consuming our future!
If we examine this more closely, it seems ludicrous! How can we view the extraction and depletion of finite resources – with an emphasis on finite – as being in any way positive, and especially so when these are precisely the same resources that my life, your life, the lives of our children, and our children’s children depend upon? As the resources that we consume are finite, what we are really doing is consuming our future. Dramatic perhaps, but true!
Consequently, if we want future generations to experience and enjoy life, we need to move away from feeding an economic system that measures progress in terms of consumption. Thus, rather than implicitly measuring how degenerative we have been via the consumption of finite resources, we would be better placed asking whether the social and environmental systems upon which we depend are currently thriving and flourishing under our care? Are they regenerative?
If the answer to the above question is anything other than “yes they are”, then we need to stop and rethink what we might do in all areas of our lives to change this, to live more regeneratively?
Regenerative living
Regenerative living encompasses among others: recognising the relationship between nature and society as being interconnected, living life in a net positive manner, and considering nature and society as explicit co-creators and co-beneficiaries of a thriving, flourishing, and resilient healthy planetary system. Sadly, regenerative living currently remains both an obscure concept and a distant dream.
To be continued….
In a future blog post I will explore ways that we can all live more regeneratively.
