What would it take to accomplish a “Green Economy?”

What would it take to accomplish a “Green Economy?”

Here is a barely (but increasingly) coherent draft diatribe about sustainability that seeks to slip below the surface platitudes and status quo propaganda. To get a better look at what a first iteration toward sustainability would entail requires an unflinching answer to the question, “What would a true “green economy” require?” If and how a person or institution addresses the real issues tells us a lot, and there is less and less time for equivocation. Most are trapped in the paradigm they claim to try to seek to transcend, supporting “greenwash” enterprises with nothing sustainable but surface that will accomplish little worthwhile but conventional profit (still their principal focus).

Here’s a slogan-revealing, cant-smashing, fluff-exposing look into the hard physical and social science of sustainability. When a person or institution talks about a “green economy,” one can either expose their shallowness or confirm their probity. The superficial and the phonies can’t even enter this conversation, because most have neither the physical nor moral courage to confront the myths and illusions of our time. We as Americans are disadvantaged for entering this conversation because political realism (realpolitic in the rest of the world) is almost unknown in our society since we are genetically biased against it and it’s not taught anywhere.

This diverse material may appear disjointed (it’s not; it’s iterative) and extreme; however, given all that we know about human nature — the history and science of our species, culture, and civilization, this synthesis is the best-fit hypothesis to explain the facts in evidence. It is not about advocacy; it is seeking to accurately describe “what is” so advocacy can be sane and effective.

In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act.

George Orwell (apocryphal)

A “green economy” must, by definition, be sustainable.

That means it cannot manifest a structural commitment to “growth.”

Economic growth has relied on population growth. That cannot continue. This is the most evident (and most disregarded) truth of all: there is not one single social, political, economic, or environmental “problem” that is not exacerbated by more people and alleviated (but not solved) by fewer. When all the problems are regarded together in a system of multiple parallel-and-converging threads, this truth becomes even more obvious. That population pressures are not a major focus for the few sane humans still involved tells us that ideology and denial have totally corrupted political discourse.

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