A New World Order Not as Previously Imagined
Posted by: Joel in Sustainability, Politics & Government, Land Use, Economics & Planning on
Nov 1, 2010
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.
Those capital rich countries, corporations and the superrich will realize that they are as much (or more) at risk investing in our debt than in the development of their own economies, and the consequences here will be devastating - until we begin to reinvest in creating value and quality of life for ourselves, in an interdependent and increasingly competitive world economy.
In my opinion that will be the new and perhaps most powerful incentive for "sustainability" than the abstraction of reducing our carbon footprint.