We would not complain on the air we breathe even as it rusts away our iron vessel on which we navigate the oceans. We strive for economic well-being as we watch it rot the home we call earth.

Most individuals strive for economic well-being. It is what motivates people to be ‘productive’. To be able to produce something that can be exchanged for other products or services, rightly or wrongly perceived to be necessary for the individual’s and the community’s well-being. These exchanges are commonly carried out through an intermediary. Money. This intermediary takes centre stage in judging the success of an individual, of a company, of a country and of the whole world itself by the money or value generated. It is expressed as income, profit and, for countries and the world, as the gross domestic product.

Economic well-being has become inseparable from productivity. If producing something from nothing is impossible (I stand to be corrected here), the opposite must be true. Production requires materials and energy. We are very far from global, 100 per cent renewable energy and a 100 per cent circular economy. For these reasons, any product will require materials from finite resources and generation of waste. Non-renewable energy generation has an environmental impact from emissions, mining and extraction.

The globalised economic model aspires for a year-on-year rise in GDP.

A flat, inter-year GDP or, God forbid, recession, will panic political leaders and economists. Declining GDP is linked to reduced productivity (and consumption), likely leading to erosion of citizens’ economic well-being. The political survival of political leaders appears dependent on citizens’ economic well-being. Politicians strive for growth, an ever-increasing GDP, to appease the electorate and ensure political success. With some despotic regimes, the citizen’s economic well-being helps to prevent uprisings.

Economic growth, increasing productivity and citizen well-being are interrelated. There is, however, an inextricable relationship between these ‘desirable’ factors and a negative impact on the environment. Technology may help to mitigate these adverse effects but never comes close to neutralising them, let alone reverse them. As populations increase and economic well-being is sought and achieved, the environment increasingly bears the brunt.

There is real well-being and perceived well-being. They both need their share of ‘productivity’ by the citizens and they both have negative environmental impacts.

Real well-being is derived from the collective resources of the citizens (like taxes after productivity), used to create effective education, health, communication, transport and social safety-net systems. In these cases, the requirements in energy and material resources are justified even though unsustainable in the long term without a 100 per cent circular economy.

The untouchable economy promotes an unavoidable bleak future

Perceived well-being is fuelled by individuals’ needs for future financial security and consumerism, more ominously, consumption of superfluous products. The ‘need’ for such products (or services) is commonly created by third parties such as social pressures, the media and that devil peaking from behind the curtain, the advertising and marketing industries. Unless energy generation is 100 per cent renewable and a circular economy is achieved, consumerism is essentially bad, unsustainable and can only run the clock faster towards inadequacy in sustaining real well-being.

There is a Catch 22. Since a fully renewable, global energy supply and a 100 per cent circular economy are not even visible on the horizon of this century, a desirable reduction in superfluous consumerism to reduce environmental impact will reduce productivity and, hence, GDP. With current economic doctrine, this is a no.

As the well-being, whether economic or otherwise, of an individual is dependent on (legal and illegal) production, the reduction or obliteration of ‘superfluous consumerism’ will unequivocally lead to workers who are engaged in those sectors to lose their economic activity and, subsequently, well-being.

The work force engaged in producing essential or non-superfluous products is adequate. Those ‘taken out’ of the ‘superfluous’ sector cannot simply swell the ranks of the essential producers. Superfluous consumerism has integrated irreversibly into the economic model. Economists will tell you that significant upheavals in the economic system will likely cause a meltdown. The current economic model is probably untouchable.

Decoupling GDP from environmental impact is a noble and desirable concept. I believe this cannot be implemented in time to make a difference in the decades to come. One hundred per cent renewable energy and circular economies are also unachievable in the time frame that matters.

Other factors must be addressed. Citizens in developed countries have lit the fuse of environmental degradation many decades ago. The onus to reduce, reuse and recycle is on them (us). One may add two more Rs: repair and restore – the environment.

Population growth and swelling of the middle classes in developing countries are increasing consumption and their changes in diet preferences necessitate more food-producing land. We are all contributing to diminishing biodiversity and natural habitat, depleting water resources with scarce attempts to reverse humanity’s effects on the environment (CO2 levels, loss of ice and toxin and rubbish accumulation in the environment). Everything points to an unavoidable outcome.

The untouchable economy promotes an unavoidable bleak future. Change is needed, and fast. I doubt if the required experts would ever be influential enough to effectively guide those who lead us to embrace transformations in the current economic models. Al Gore, David Attenborough and lately Greta Thunberg are celebrities fighting for the necessary changes we should all be striving for.

Albert Bezzina is a medical practitioner interested in... a lot of things.

This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece

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