In the article at the link in my last post, the author cites a few governments which are exceptions to the contention that politics and politicians essentially are incapable of effectively dealing with our worldwide Crisis. The exceptions are: "New Zealand, Bhutan, most of the Scandinavian countries, [and] Germany perhaps...". In my opinion, here are a few more (in no particular order): Netherlands, Austria, Costa Rica, Portugal, and Uruguay. There are several others, as well. The USA is not one of them.
Despite the praiseworthy efforts of the exceptions above, the world as a whole is not yet where it needs to be relative to significantly dealing with the socio-eco-econ-ethical Crisis. There are about 200 countries in the world today. [That's not counting a few dozen which are not recognized by the U.N., but have declared themselves independent.] The Crisis we are in is global, and surmounting it will require a global effort. Furthermore, the "Market" will not solve the problem. It will take Main Street, NGOs, all manner of other groups, the U.N., Business (of a flavor different from much of what we have today), and yes, Governments as well.
We all know that. Or rather, all of us do except for most economists, most politicians, and a few others. The problem here is 1) lack of knowledge in high places, and 2) the focus is on the wrong aspect of our existence, as follows.
1) As pointed out in the essay by Julian Cribb, Leaders around the world (with a few notable exceptions) essentially are clueless when it comes to Ecology and Environmental Science. They seem to think going Green means only solar panels, electric vehicles, and recycling. A few probably add reuse and using less. They appear to know little-to-nothing about the importance of biodiversity in Nature, the extent of toxicity in our environment, the nuclear waste problem, the nuke weapons problem, desertification, soil degradation, the extent of both income and wealth inequality and their impact, the problem of inequity, and on & on.
To compound the problem, the advisors of many Leaders are mostly lawyers or mainstream economists. All they seem to know is the status quo. On top of that, there's no (in the USA, at least) comprehensive, centralized Gov't agency with the purpose of implementing sustainability. I don't even know which current agencies are working on it, probably in isolation. None of the above bodes well for sustainability.
2) It seems 99.9% of the time when government begins working on some aspect of the socio-eco-econ-ethical Crisis we're facing, too much emphasis is on the economy only. Everything else is shoved to the back of the bus, or thrown under it.
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For those who still believe government plus technology is going to solve the Crisis, I suggest this: "lobby" hard for a national Department of Sustainability. Sustainability has three major components: environmental, economic, and social. In such a department, all three components must be equally represented. It's a transdisciplinary field, and comprehensive thinking is paramount. This proposed department should be staffed with botanists, wildlife biologists, ecologists, agriculturalists, anthropologists, ecological economists, industrial ecologists, and perhaps an environmental geographer, a climatologist, and an ethics philosopher. [I imagine I left out an important field or two.] With all that, government might come up with significant solutions.
How will the new department be financed? There are numerous possibilities, none of which involve increasing taxes on wage earners. For example, tax the billionaires 0.1% on their incomes. They should be anxious to help finance the discovery of solutions. Why? Because civil society is at stake. Or, cut the Defense budget by 1% (or some such number). Or, cut the budgets of every current Department by some appropriate fraction of 1%. Or, believe it or not, there are many millionaires who are divesting themselves of a large portion of their wealth. Solicit their donations. Or, root out the financial waste in all departments and use that. Or, mix & match from the above. Or, just "print" the money. The Fed Reserve has been doing something similar to that for a few decades. It's not good for the value of the dollar, but then, neither is the collapse of organized human existence. Hello.
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Not only my opinion. Be Well
