Petera
RichmondPark1
Who is this Anti-Growth Coalition she's invented? Are they not people who live in exactly the same world as her? A new enemy to blame for her own party's failings.
She really is an appalling speaker.
Actually, the Anti-Growth Coalition might be me. I will of course defer to MaizieD if she comes along and blows my primitive understanding of economics out of the water. But…
... isn't relying eternally on growth just some kind of economic Ponzi scheme? There may be quite a lot of scope for it left, and of course locally we can always grow at the expense of the global, but will we not hit the buffers at some point? Should we not be planning for a steady-state economy?
It's alright, Petera, I'm not going to blow anything out.
As I see it we need growth, because we need well paid employment for everyone who can work (note 'well paid') but it needs to be sustainable growth. There's plenty that could be done on the 'Green' front, renewable energy, insulation, air source heating etc.. to create jobs and new industries, but I agree, we don't need to be using up the world's resources. We need to be looking to replace plastics, develop new materials for building and infrastructure, recycling and upcycling. I'm sure there's plenty to go at.
But it isn't going to happen without state investment. We've made the UK so unattractive that I can't see much investment coming from other sources.
For example, MOnica was saying the other day about our brilliant researchers and scientists. They must clearly be the people developing new' sustainable materials etc. But they're not going to be able to achieve much if the state doesn't put anything into education.
