“The EU must invest more, to avoid falling behind”, economists warned this week. “Otherwise, in 50 years we will be the open-air museum for the rest of the world”. Well, if we do, invest more, society might end in a collapse, and in 50 years we will have to go to a museum to see life from before before capitalism…
Even if we continue to measure in GDP, in money, it actually stands for 1 : 1 resource depletion. Then let’s call it that way…GDE! *
As Monbiot writes in the Guardian: ‘building of an ecological civilisation that subordinates economics to Earth systems, not the other way round’. [4]
( just to illustrate exhaustion, form the recent UN circularity gap report [5]: Between 2016 and 2021, the global economy has consumed 582 billion tonnes of of materials – nearly as many materials as the 740 billion consumed in the entire 20th century. )
If you want to do something about raw material depletion, environmental or climate problems, you should not make a budget based on gross domestic product or turnover, in money, but relate to budgets in raw materials, and maybe even broken down by kind: a yearly Gross National Water Budget, a Gross National Energy Budget, a Gross National Material Budget, and as well separated into domestic production (and possibly net depletion) and imports. Maybe even a GNBB, a gross national biodiversity budget as well. The part which will be added each year by natural processes in water resources, in solar energy, in growth of biomass (for food and material), in (concentrated) ore formation [1] is what is available and can be spent, but no more than that.
As long as we keep using the growth of GDP as the main indicator for everything, sustainability will never work, the problems will only get bigger. More is more (money, fuss and bother), but less is less.
It’s just what you go for. Maybe let’s choose for that open-air museum in Europe, then at least we know for sure that everything has to last a very long time, otherwise there is no longer a museum of course. Which also saves us a lot of work. Lets operate that Europe-museum with an entrance fee and limited opening hours. Get rich while you sleep, sitting in front of your old wooden cabin.
But…“Oh no, but then we’ll have money again?” No, No , people should pay in kind, from their net domestic resource budget..! **
*And if we do it all the right way, we then express everything in terms of land use or land take. Money is equivalent to a shortage or excess of land…. [6] The Domestic gross (and net) national land budget. [7] , which is the ultimate unit to unite all resource impacts absolutely and value free.
**which is also labour, for example: kind of like eco vacations: you’re allowed to come and live in the open-air museum for three weeks, with the quid pro quo of helping in maintenance, or working the land, weeding and such 😉
[1] paper: renewability of all resources :https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1755-1315/1078/1/012125
[2] https://www.ronaldrovers.com/bullshit-products-update/
[3] https://www.ronaldrovers.com/everything-that-doesnt-last-at-least-50-years-is-system-degradation/
[5] https://admin.circl.nl/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/CGR-Global-2024-Report.pdf
[6] land is our capital: https://www.ronaldrovers.com/the-real-capital-is-land/
[7] https://www.ronaldrovers.com/we-need-yearly-a-land-budgetting/
