G20 and climate change

Invariably, older people are looking in the golden past - how things were good then. This is actually the breeding ground for the populism of today: none of today's threats existed in1960's. However, the gross natioal products of all the rich countries were only a fraction of what they are now, and many things everyone of us now take for granted were extremely rare.

The book "Limits to Growth" was published in 1972. The book introduced the idea that there would in future be limitation for many needed resources.  At the time, virtually all economists rejected the idea, and the continued thinking that economic growth is needed is still prevalent, although all the calculations and exrtapolations indicate that Earth's limits have been reached long ago. The major problem resulting from exceeding Earth's limits, and accepted by most givernments in the world, is the climate change. However, although it should be accepted that growth economics ha come to an end, and should be replaced by sustainability economics, it is qurious that there is G20 meeting going on, and that is completely based on securing economic growth. Simultaneously, a meeting on climate change in Katowice, Poland, is starting, where the same governments are participating. 

It is notable that economy and climate change actions are kept strictly separate, although the truth is that economy depends on environment. And even more, the sad truth is that the growth economy isn't possible if we want to have an Earth that is habitable for future generations. So, instead of trying to calculate, how much economic growth is decreased by climate actions, the outset should be: how much should the world's economies (and population) need to be reduced in order to have sustainability. The new economic thinking, based on sustainability of natural capital, should be the major direction that economics goes into. We have reached the limits to growth about twenty years ago, and the future requires completely new way of thinking, which has little to do with the economic theories of growth economy. If the choice were made clear by governments and media that the choice is between a balanced diminishing of economies - back to 1960's - or a catastrophe, I am pretty sure that people would choose the first alternative. As has been said by many climate scientists, the question is not that we would not have the solutions to solve the problem, but that solving it requires the change of attitudes.

In short, all the media should start praising the situation that is taking place in many developed countries today, the population has stopped growing. Further, the media and governents should start campaigns in developed countries to say thet our material well-being could easily go back 50 years without much disturbing our daily life. Since the problem iss not that we would lack solutions to combat climate change, to save the planet we would need to scrap the attitudes pertaining to growth economy - the need for population and economic growth.