CNN is running a compelling interview with former Greenpeace leader Paul Gilding.
In ecological terms, Paul Gilding says that we are spending 150% of what we make. That’s not a responsible way to run one household’s expenses. When the household is the whole world, the questions of how we use resources are more than personal. No one of us lives in isolation, and the choices of the richest of us affect the fortunes of every person, and every other living thing on Earth.
Given what we know about global justice and the environment, can a good man be a capitalist? Is there a way to support a family that doesn’t involve taking more than our fair share of the world’s resources? If I provide for my children today at the expense of the world their children’s children will inherit, is it worth the cost?
You can watch Paul Gilding’s entire TED talk here.
I’m just not convinced that what Mr. Gilding claims has any real potential of happening. If we look at Mr. Gilding’s arguments, they aren’t any really different from those put forward by Thomas Malthus 200 years ago. In both instances the argument claims that there is a hard-limit on some resource (Malthus used arable land, Gilding uses oil) and that human population has grown beyond that which the resource could sustain (Mr. Gilding’s 1.5 earths claim comes from the global population increasing from 5 billion to 7 billion). The prediction is then that we are all destined for some kind… Read more »
@john hall L. “Because Malthus assumed that productivity could never increase he projected a hard limit that just wasn’t there.” Yes, but perhaps you’re doing the opposite error: it seems you’re thinking that we’ll always find a solution to a problem. E.g., that crop yields will continue to grow – they won’t. Or, that we’ll find a good substitute for oil – it’s not sure. And, even if we would, there are still “hard limits” that you cannot overcome: living areas, farming areas, drinkable water… There’s simply a point when the population (or its consumption) is too much. Whether it… Read more »
Everyone on the planet who has ever bought or sold anything at a profit has supported capitalism. Which includes the speaker. GMP is a business . . . I personally don’t therefore conclude that Tomlack isn’t a good man. Although the speaker is correct in terms of the very likely end of civilization scenarios based on current trajectory. However, he is on denial to imagine that there is going to be global cooperation and mutual care and concern. Given thousands of years of recorded history, the odds of humans destroying each other in response to a global shortsge of food… Read more »
“Given what we know about global justice and the environment, can a good man be a capitalist?”
Justin, it doesn’t need even that.
On an ecological global level, even the basic “american way of life” is bad enough.
If everybody on this planet would live by that standard, we would be screwed really fast.
So, what a good man should do? Limit his own (and family’s) lifestyle?
This seems the only sensible choice… but we know most people don’t like limitations at all.
(of course, we’d better define what a “capitalist” is)