Without spouting new economics at this, it’s difficult not to: beyond an average of £15,000 per head per year, increasing a country’s GDP does not increase wellbeing (http://www.neweconomics.org/blog/2010/10/13/the-ecology-of-growth). We’re stuck in a system of measuring consumption in an age where we need to reduce consumption – I’d hope we therefore do get poorer, and instead attach value to other measurements, like time (see timebanks as a way of reciprocal exchange using time as a currency – http://www.neweconomics.org/publications/time-banks).

We’re lacking a conversation around valuing what matters – the social and environmental, as well as just the economic. And by what time-lines are we talking: current neoliberal economics rewards short-termism, despite its long-term ludicracy even on only economic terms. We’re all going to be incredibly poor if we don’t deal with climate change.

Without this, the meaning of rich and poor, what being made poorer means (WHO is poorer – is this not a question of redistribution?) and how we accept or reject this, is dishonest and will only continue our current economic model.

One really exciting impact of renewables is their ability to actually drive down the price of fossil fuel generated power. Once they’re built (which obviously does cost money) their output is virtually free. This means when they are generating the renewable power is the cheapest thing in the wholesale electricity market, driving down the demand for fossil-fuel generated power and thus its price.

So, far from pushing up the price of electricity the renewables are actually pushing it down.

This Bloomberg article sets out the dramatic impact that renewables are having in Germany in driving down the price of power and challenging the whole way the power market works.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-06-26/renewables-make-german-power-market-design-defunct-utility-says.html

The truth is material wealth can be produced in abundance, and especially base necessities, with minimal negative ecological impact IF this is based on a sustainable for-need basis as determined by both individuals and communities democratically.

That’s not how national economies run today (or ever have, despite what various fraudulent regimes have claimed). Instead, today, people are exploited and manipulated into buying things that are sub-quality and don’t last, and don’t even really benefit from (all while the majority in the world is forced to starve and live on far less than what they deserve) due to the exploitation of labour and the drive of dictatorial profiteering agencies to accumulate ever more wealth and market control at everyone else’s expense.

The proof here is, while all national economies have been capitalist-dominated in various forms (again, despite what various fraudulent regimes have claimed), we see that the most practical socialistic-influenced ones, like the highly unionized social-democratic-oriented ones in Nordic Europe, have been the most successful overall in cleaning up their acts and reducing their eco-footprint, as well as maintaining the highest living standards and greatest degrees of liberty on the globe.

http://www.swedishwire.com/sweden-in-foreign-media/5398-sweden-leads-the-european-union-on-renewable-energy
http://www.sustainabilitank.info/2010/07/the-upcoming-clean-energy-major-ministerial-washington-dc-conference-july-19-20-2010-the-david-sandalow-press-conference/
http://ecogeneration.com.au/news/cheaper_and_cleaner_bioenergy_leads_the_way_in_scandinavia/000354/

We in the west will have to give up some of material wealth and shrink our economies in order to lower our ecological footprint. For us in the west becoming green does mean becoming poorer.

Here’s the correlation between GDP and ecological footprint:
http://ars.sciencedirect.com/content/image/1-s2.0-S0049089X08000665-gr1.jpg

What we need to aim for is the bottom right hand corner on this graph:
http://assets.panda.org/img/original/fig22_human_dev_and_eco_footprints.gif

(Currently the only country that has reached that point is Cuba, though Costa Rica comes out best in the NEF’s happy planet index)

This is the logic behind the principle of convergence and contraction. We in the west must share our wealth with the rest of the world to ensure sustainability, and realise that good lives don’t have to cost the earth.

That is the only sound solution which will meet the key goals of social justice whilst also reducing our ecological footprint