I once believed that carbon reduction and peak oil would be the defining issues of my generation, and that to be involved in land use was the opportunity and challenge of a lifetime. Instead I am now inclined to believe that the overleveraging of the American consumer debt economy, and its resultant exposure of our economic model as the emperor's new clothes of the capitalist economy of the west may be almost as big an issue, and one that will overshadow our economy and prospects for development here and abroad in the developed world for what is likely to be the remainder of my working life.
No longer will the United States be viewed as the gold standard for safe investment of the concentrations of capital accumulating in the multinational corporations, China, India and the oil producing countries, as a result of our capital disinvestment in our own country, and seemingly insatiable appetite for cheap oil and cheap consumer goods.
