If you had to identify the major driving force of the concerns in the current economic crisis, the goal at the core of capitalism and ultimately civilisation itself, it is the concept of infinite growth. The economy must grow every year to make us prosperous! The nation must expand its influence and territory! We must conquer the wild lands and civilise them to make them productive! Growth created the current state of the world. So how come it hasn’t been focused on at all in environmental campaigning?

When people talk of growth, for example in our economies, it is often in single figures, say 7%. This lulls us into thinking that it’s really rather small and trivial. However, a growth rate of 7% would result in that economy/entity doubling every 10 years using the rule of 70 (divide 70 by the growth rate to get the number of years before it doubles) – suddenly this small figure is put into proportion to what it actually means. And as that economy doubles every 10 years, so will its resource uptake double, and ultimately double the burden on the planet’s ecosystems. In order for growth to be maintained over the next century the amount of resources civilisation will have to consume will be hundreds and even thousands of times what has been consumed before now, all because of this exponential growth. To think this can continue despite the decline in nearly all natural resources is insanity, yet the political leadership of this civilisation are desperate to keep this system going as long as possible.

Another effect of exponential growth is to make energy conservation initiatives proposed by many environmentalists almost completely ineffective in the long-term. For example, if every conventional car in the West was replaced by a Hybrid equivalent, there would be a reduction in oil consumption at first. But within about 5 years we would be consuming as much oil as we were before the switch, as more cars come on the road as a result of economic growth, and will rapidly increase after that point. It’s like running up a down-escalator – no matter how hard and nobly we try, eventually we will be pulled down with it. Another side-effect is that by reducing ones own oil consumption by cutting out air travel or car ownership for example, it makes these things slightly cheaper overall, encouraging other less environmentally concerned people to take up what you would have used. We are in the impossible situation of knowing we personally have to eliminate our impact on the earth, yet overall and in the long-term economic growth will make our attempts hollow gestures.

How can we break out of this impossible cycle? We, and environmentalists in general, need to accept that any attempts at conservation and cutting our resource usage will only have an effect if economic growth is eliminated and even reversed. Without this, all our efforts will be thwarted by the growing appetite of civilisation.

It is a Permaculture principle to turn every problem into a solution. In this situation, the problems of money can be turned on its head to become a tool of rewilding. As I have described in previous posts, local demurrage currencies can not only get people through the coming economic troubles, but can also create the conditions for resource conservation efforts to have a real, long-term effect as these economies will eliminate the problem of growth. Any attempt to rewild within the current system with economic growth at its heart will ultimately result in failure. If we want to dismantle civilisation we have to turn money, one of its core constituents, on its head to serve rewilding instead.

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