I am encouraged by the “occupy” movements.
The form of capitalism imposed on us by stealth, beginning in the 1970s, has delivered the lived realities its critics predicted and tried to stop: broken democracies, broken economies; civil unrest; resource wars and trashed ecosystems.
If we want a future for our grandchildren, there is no going back. A mode of development that requires infinite growth on a finite planet — even if we took the corporate greed, crony capitalism and corruption out of the dynamic — is not sustainable on any level, politically, socially, fiscally, economically or ecologically.
We need new models of development. Fortunately, we are incredibly creative creatures. We have everything we need to break out of the unnecessarily narrow, boxed in and blinkered thinking of current economists, politicians and business leaders — all of whom seem to think doing more of the same is going to bear different results!
Steps to tapping into our creativity to birth new authentically sustainable models include deep reflection and dialogue about what kind of lived realities (not ideologies) we want to be part of co-creating.
This is not utopian. It is being very pragmatic.
These dialogues need to re-include the very real limits of our ecological systems — without which we have neither life nor an economy.
Y.A. Zarowny
Qualicum Beach
