Insufficient fuel to stoke the G20 fire

The G20 has decided to further the damaging addiction to unsustainable growth. As reported over at Peak Oil: Planning, Preparation, and Relocation;

"... we can examine the economic growth that the world experienced from 2003 until 2007. In 2003 oil consumption was 77 million barrels per day and in 2007 it was around 85 million barrels per day, i.e. an increase of 10 percent. At the moment consumption is around 84 million barrels per day. If the stimulus package that the G20 group decided on is to generate the same amount of growth as seen in the 2003 to 2007 period then we will need an increase of 8 to 9 million barrels per day during the next 5 years. Such an increase is not possible."

Clearly the energy to fuel the growth the G20 are planning on is out of the question.

As long we measure progress using the outmoded concept of GDP the illusion of perpetual growth will persist. GDP allows the inclusion of environmental cleanup, such occurred after the Exxon Valdez spill, superfund sites, and treatment of the cancers that result. If on one hand we inslude the creation of the devastation that causes the cleanup and call that activity growth and then include the cleanup itself we are at least delusional, and at worst insane. As long as we allow corporations whose only motivation is profit to define "growth" and how and why we should pursue it we are in serious trouble.

It is high time we let our leaders know that a new paradigm is needed. We need a steady state, sustainable economy, one that looks after the needs of all the worlds people through to the seventh generation, rather than one that, as Paul Hawken says, "steals the future, sells it in the present and calls it GDP."

For more details read the full article by Kjell Aleklett, Professor of Physics
Global Energy Systems, Uppsala University, www.fysast.uu.se/ges
President of ASPO International, the International Association for the Study of Peak Oil & Gas, www.peakoil.net.