Is the light on the hill a mcmansion

Dethroning GDP as our measure of progress

"Whatever you think it is that makes life worth living, as Robert F Kennedy pointed out in 1968, it's almost a sure bet that it isn't measured by Gross Domestic Product, or GDP."

"One of the frontrunners to replace GDP is the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI)."

"While the unbridled pursuit of GDP growth has not done much to increase our well-being over the past few decades, it has been a triumph for big business and the finance sector, i.e. those who disproportionately benefit from raw economic activity. Not surprisingly, as a result of this windfall, these sectors - and the politicians who serve them - are likely to resist any move to a more comprehensive metric of national economic well-being."

Tim Dean succinctly and eloquently outlines this problem, which has been talked about and analysed and bandied about and then talked about and analysed some more, ad infinitum, since the sixties, just as the reality of the greenhouse effect due to it's basis in the physical characteristics of chemical bonds, and therefore global warming and climate change, has been, but still we maintain the status quo and vote conservative governments into office.

We are already doomed to at least a two degree world and probably worse. The last time there was a two degree change in the average global temperature the glaciers retreated from central North America and Europe. These are the sort of macro effects you can expect from only a two degree change. And yet we maintain the status quo and vote conservative governments into office.

It has been demonstrated that even a two degree world can not support the lives of  7-8 billion people. At least a billion people will have to be eliminated. But still we maintain the status quo and vote conservative governments into office.

You can't argue with physical laws. The very existence of our species is at stake, so we build bigger and bigger coal mines, coal trains and shipping facilities, extract crude oil from coal seams, and from the Arctic ocean-bed. But that's OK because we can always maintain the status quo and vote conservative governments into office.

David Suzuki visited Australia and spoke on ABC TV. He has been a voice crying in the wilderness for something like fifty years now. The commercial media take no interest at all. He has not abandoned all hope, as many futurists have. He said that we simply don't know enough to predict what is going to happen and described an example to illustrate what he means.

If we keep maintaining the status quo and voting conservative governments into office, we all have blood on our hands, and the answer is yes. I personally never vote conservative, so I can pretend to have washed my hands of this blood, but we are all collectively members of the electorate, and the electorate voted this government into office, so no one can escape responsibility completely.

Revolution or the status quo. which would you prefer?