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SUSTAINABLE ECONOMICS

Dr. Edward C. Hamlyn M.B.Ch.B.

We are about to witness the Prime Minister of one of the richest countries in the world start to take frantic and radical steps to survive as he sees that we are drifting towards less and less ability to survive.

Tony Blair has inherited a mounting list of insoluble problems. An ageing population, waste disposal that can only get worse and for which there are no answers.

The list of problems in that area alone is really unconfrontable. It runs from the disposal of spent refrigerators, spent cars, used tyres and old electrical equipment, to nuclear waste and greenhouse gases.

There is nowhere for Tony Blair to turn, other than to speed up progress�to increase our resources so as to have the wherewithal to do the impossible. It is impossible because Tony Blair is going to handle the backlash of progress with more, bigger and faster progress.

Unless we open our eyes and see the danger of this philosophy we are going to be digging our own graves.

We feel that we cannot afford to open our eyes and look because the calamity that faces us if we go in the opposite direction seems even worse.

We see on television, the dying in agony of millions of our fellow human beings. They seem to demand of us that we speed up progress to come to their rescue. We also see the whole world being torn apart as human beings become more and more frantic to survive. More than happily they offer themselves as suicide bombers in the vain hope of helping their friends and families who are about to die.

They cannot see whether they will die as a result of progress or from a lack of progress.

In the Middle East the underlying cause of the crisis is the oil beneath their feet.

Planet Earth, at this time, needs that oil to survive�or so it seems.

Pathetic little wind farms popping up here and there are no more than gestures; we can all see that everything is being done to create a sustainable economy. Very nice, but quite pathetic.

Do not imagine that I am painting a gloomy picture without a very positive reason.

I do not wish to scare you into being even more scared than you already should be.

No. I wish to use our plight as a wake up call to an entirely new approach to a sustainable economy that is never considered.

We are in the midst of a commercial war that is destroying life on this planet. There it is, and it is a war that no one can win.

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10 Zweig as above

11 Mill, John Stuart (1848) Principles of Political Economy

12 Shiva, Vandana (1989) Staying Alive. Zed Books

13 Smith, Ken (1988) Free is Cheaper. The John Ball Press

14 Hawkin, P. Lovins, A. and Lovins, L Hunter. (1999) Natural Capitalism, the Next Industrial Revolution. Earthscan

15 Daly Bill (2002) Prosperity, freedom from debt slavery. Number 27, Prosperity UK.com

16 Ideas from a talk by Cliff Marrs, March 2002, Swanwick Conference Centre, Derbyshire at the Quaker Peace and Social Witness Conference.

17 Turnball, Shann (1991) New Economics. From handout On CHE course.

Other reading

Buchan, James (1997) Frozen Desire - An Inquiry into the Meaning of Money. Picador

Dauncey, Guy (1988) After the Crash - The Emergence of the Rainbow Economy. Green Print

Henderson, Hazel (1996) Building A Win-Win World - Life Beyond Global Economic Warfare. Berrett-Koehler Publishers

Korten, David. (1995) When Corporations Rule The World. EarthScan

Rowbotham, Michael. (1998) The Grip of Death. Jon Carpenter

Rowbotham, Michael (2000) Goodbye America. Jon Carpenter

Schumacher, E.F. (1973) Small is Beautiful. Abacus

Trainer Ted (1996) Towards a Sustainable Economy. Jon Carpenter

Index