Placeholder Image

字幕表 動画を再生する

審査済み この字幕は審査済みです
  • Let me begin with four words

  • that will provide the context for this week,

  • four words that will come to define

  • this century.

  • Here they are:

  • The Earth is full.

  • It's full of us, it's full of our stuff,

  • full of our waste, full of our demands.

  • Yes, we are a brilliant and creative species,

  • but we've created a little too much stuff --

  • so much that our economy is now bigger

  • than its host, our planet.

  • This is not a philosophical statement,

  • this is just science

  • based in physics,

  • chemistry and biology.

  • There are many science-based analyses of this,

  • but they all draw the same conclusion --

  • that we're living beyond our means.

  • The eminent scientists of the Global Footprint Network, for example,

  • calculate that we need about 1.5 Earths

  • to sustain this economy.

  • In other words,

  • to keep operating at our current level,

  • we need 50 percent more Earth than we've got.

  • In financial terms,

  • this would be like always spending 50 percent more than you earn,

  • going further into debt every year.

  • But of course, you can't borrow natural resources,

  • so we're burning through our capital,

  • or stealing from the future.

  • So when I say full, I mean really full --

  • well past any margin for error,

  • well past any dispute

  • about methodology.

  • What this means is our economy is unsustainable.

  • I'm not saying it's not nice or pleasant

  • or that it's bad for polar bears or forests,

  • though it certainly is.

  • What I'm saying

  • is our approach is simply unsustainable.

  • In other words, thanks to those pesky laws of physics,

  • when things aren't sustainable, they stop.

  • But that's not possible, you might think.

  • We can't stop economic growth.

  • Because that's what will stop: economic growth.

  • It will stop because of the end of trade resources.

  • It will stop because of the growing demand of us

  • on all the resources, all the capacity,

  • all the systems of the Earth,

  • which is now having economic damage.

  • When we think about economic growth stopping,

  • we go, "That's not possible,"

  • because economic growth is so essential to our society

  • that is is rarely questioned.

  • Although growth has certainly delivered many benefits,

  • it is an idea so essential

  • that we tend not to understand

  • the possibility of it not being around.

  • Even though it has delivered many benefits,

  • it is based on a crazy idea --

  • the crazy idea being

  • that we can have infinite growth

  • on a finite planet.

  • And I'm here to tell you the emperor has no clothes.

  • That the crazy idea is just that,

  • it is crazy,

  • and with the Earth full, it's game over.

  • Come on, you're thinking.

  • That's not possible.

  • Technology is amazing. People are innovative.

  • There are so many ways we can improve the way we do things.

  • We can surely sort this out.

  • That's all true.

  • Well, it's mostly true.

  • We are certainly amazing,

  • and we regularly solve complex problems

  • with amazing creativity.

  • So if our problem

  • was to get the human economy down

  • from 150 percent to 100 percent of the Earth's capacity,

  • we could do that.

  • The problem is we're just warming up

  • this growth engine.

  • We plan to take this highly-stressed economy

  • and make it twice as big

  • and then make it four times as big --

  • not in some distant future,

  • but in less than 40 years,

  • in the life time of most of you.

  • China plans to be there in just 20 years.

  • The only problem with this plan

  • is that it's not possible.

  • In response, some people argue,

  • but we need growth, we need it to solve poverty.

  • We need it to develop technology.

  • We need it to keep social stability.

  • I find this argument fascinating,

  • as though we can kind of bend the rules of physics

  • to suit our needs.

  • It's like the Earth doesn't care what we need.

  • Mother nature doesn't negotiate;

  • she just sets rules and describes consequences.

  • And these are not esoteric limits.

  • This is about food and water, soil and climate,

  • the basic practical and economic foundations

  • of our lives.

  • So the idea that we can smoothly transition

  • to a highly-efficient,

  • solar-powered, knowledge-based economy

  • transformed by science and technology

  • so that nine billion people

  • can live in 2050

  • a life of abundance and digital downloads

  • is a delusion.

  • It's not that it's not possible to feed, clothe and house us all

  • and have us live decent lives.

  • It certainly is.

  • But the idea that we can gently grow there

  • with a few minor hiccups

  • is just wrong,

  • and it's dangerously wrong,

  • because it means we're not getting ready

  • for what's really going to happen.

  • See what happens when you operate a system

  • past its limits

  • and then keep on going

  • at an ever-accelerating rate

  • is that the system stops working and breaks down.

  • And that's what will happen to us.

  • Many of you will be thinking,

  • but surely we can still stop this.

  • If it's that bad, we'll react.

  • Let's just think through that idea.

  • Now we've had

  • 50 years of warnings.

  • We've had science proving

  • the urgency of change.

  • We've had economic analysis pointing out

  • that, not only can we afford it,

  • it's cheaper to act early.

  • And yet, the reality is

  • we've done pretty much nothing to change course.

  • We're not even slowing down.

  • Last year on climate, for example,

  • we had the highest global emissions ever.

  • The story on food, on water, on soil, on climate

  • is all much the same.

  • I actually don't say this in despair.

  • I've done my grieving about the loss.

  • I accept where we are.

  • It is sad,

  • but it is what it is.

  • But it is also time

  • that we ended our denial

  • and recognized

  • that we're not acting, we're not close to acting

  • and we're not going to act

  • until this crisis hits the economy.

  • And that's why the end of growth

  • is the central issue

  • and the event that we need to get ready for.

  • So when does this transition begin?

  • When does this breakdown begin?

  • In my view, it is well underway.

  • I know most people don't see it that way.

  • We tend to look at the world,

  • not as the integrated system that it is,

  • but as a series of individual issues.

  • We see the Occupy protests,

  • we see spiraling debt crises,

  • we see growing inequality,

  • we see money's influence on politics,

  • we see resource constraint, food and oil prices.

  • But we see, mistakenly, each of these issues

  • as individual problems to be solved.

  • In fact, it's the system

  • in the painful process of breaking down --

  • our system, of debt</