"The Era of Growth is Ending" - Jerry Mander

Complete video at: http://fora.tv/2008/10/09/Battling_for_the_Environment_Stories_from_the_Front...

Activist Jerry Mander describes America's current economic model as "unsustainable," and argues that a full return to pre-crisis levels of economic prosperity may not be possible "in our lifetimes."

-----

The fight for the environment does not stop at the edge of Antarctica's icebergs. The front lines stretch from the WTO and South Korean farms to our shopping bags and gas tanks.

With so many simultaneous environmental combat zones, many questions arise. Who is fighting this war? And who is going to win?

We have compiled a panel of leading authors, each with a unique perspective on environmental battles.

They use stories to explain what is happening to the environment around the globe, and look at how we are being directly affected at home and how each of us can play a part - The Commonwealth Club of California

Jerry Mander is an American activist best known for his book "Four Arguments for the Elimination of Television" (1977), and for his contribution to a book on an unrelated topic, "The Great International Paper Airplane Book" (1971).Mander worked in advertising for 15 years, including five as partner and president of Freeman, Mander & Gossage in San Francisco. In 1971 he founded the first non-profit advertising agency in the United States, Public Interest Communications, which worked on campaigns to prevent dams in the Grand Canyon, found Redwood National Park, and stop the American project to build a supersonic transport. He is currently the director of the International Forum on Globalization and the program director for Megatechnology and Globalization at the Foundation for Deep Ecology.

Category:

News & Politics

Tags:

• environment
• environmental
• green
• economic
• natural
• resources
• economy
• sustainibility
• unsustainable
• growing
• gdp
• gnp
• scarcity
• fora.tv
• foratv
• fora
• tv

[HigherPlanes]

We had a nice run. But it's time to go back to basics. Tribal societies anyone?

[taostoner1]

@shempship I'm not suggesting that there is a black and white answer to the problem of increasing resource consumption. I'm simply wondering weather the third world significantly contributes to resource consumption, since you seemed from your original comment to blame everything on the third world. My opinion is that consumption is primarily a first world endeavor and has little to do with populations in these countries that use fractions of the per capita resources of the US.

[matchbox555]

TECHNOLOGY WILL SOLVE ALL OUR PROBLEMS

[bogusnachos]

Economic growth does NOT require more cheap labor and it does not require more resources. For example, one ton of thorium can provide the energy of 10 million barrels of oil or 3.5 million tons of coal; and we have an inexhaustible supply of thorium. Cheap labor can be replaced with better machines. Transportation can be replaced with better communication. In short, the ultimate resource is human ingenuity.

[Esoparagon]

He'll be eating his words.

[HigherPlanes]

@IntronDepot1 That must be it.

[IntronDepot1]

@HigherPlanes Are you retarded?

[whitewolfinc]

@taostoner1 North America in general is an issue as a whole, look at the populations of both Canada and the US and look at the percentage of overweight individuals in both countries, and you'll see that is apart of the issue as well, alot of people in either country, or NA as a whole, take sustenance for granted, unlike other portions of the world who would kill for a loaf of bread, that we seemingly assume comes from an unending supply.

[PeaceLoveGoddess]

We're using the very last of our precious resources - oil, minerals, land/soil, water - to fight senseless global conflicts instead of carefully rationing them for the transition to other, more sane ways of living.

[fireofenergy]

These are truly scientific times. I believe that advanced machine automation will make such things as artificial photosynthesis and GaAs solar panels in such abundance that people will once again have jobs. But we all know that will not be allowed to happen...

[BeondaPale]

The second part of the answer is taking responsibility for our ability to procreate and for the developing world to start treating women like human beings.

[BeondaPale]

@fireofenergy

The answer is nano-solar - which according to all reliable sources and because of recent advances (just as Ray Kurzweil predicted!!) will be cheaper than thorium could ever dream in 5 to 10 years - before the commercial thorium PROTOTYPE is on line in China.

The second part of the nano-solar answer is recent amazing, paradigm shifting artificial photosynthesis via artificial leafs to store the energy produced by nano-solar.

The sun is the TRULY perfect energy source