Europe faces a catastrophic economic crisis and tens of millions of redundancies as a result of the political measures to contain the Covid-19 pandemic.
As a result, there is growing tension among policymakers between saving the economy and economic growth or saving Europe’s costly climate agenda.
In her speech to the United Nations last year, the eco-socialist activist Greta Thunberg denounced world leaders for their main interest in what she called “the fairy tale of eternal economic growth.”
Her anti-growth attack didn’t come as a surprise. After all, critical observers have always known that this kind of radical climate activism is driven by an anti-capitalist agenda.
Now Europe’s main scientific body, the European Academies Science Advisory Council (which comprises of the National Academies of Science of all EU Member States, Norway, Switzerland, and the UK), has followed in Greta’s footsteps, hitting out against policymakers and governments who prioritize economic growth.
“Generation Greta gets it. Our focus should be on well-being and welfare, but our economic system puts all focus on growth and GDP which adds fuel to the climate and biodiversity crises.”
That’s how the European Academies Science Advisory Council press release highlights the main take of its report which calls for “‘transformational’ change that is necessary if policy-makers and their public (sic) are to support the conclusions of the advocates of change.”
The capture of Europe’s scientific institutions and organizations by degrowth ideologues is a tragic reflection on the state of green ideology which is bringing institutional science ever more into disrepute.
Focus on GDP and economic growth is unhelpful for the climate, European group says
Tracking happiness could be the key to beating climate change, a group of European scientists has said.
The report by the European Academies’ Science Advisory Council, chaired by British chemist and former civil servant Dr Michael Norton, argues that measuring GDP has led to rampant consumption and financial growth which is destroying the planet and not making us happier.
They therefore suggest replacing the widely-used wealth measure with “indicators of human well-being”.
Co-author Anders Wijkman, a former politician and member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, said focus on economic growth and GDP “adds fuel to the climate and biodiversity crises”.
Current “incremental” measures are not enough to head off “dangerous” climate change and more fundamental shifts are needed, the report argues, criticising political leaders for caving to business interests in a quest to maintain growth.
Instead policymakers should recognise that current consumption levels are unsustainable if environmental damage is to be mitigated, the group said.
The call is at odds with the stance of European countries including the UK, with ministers insisting that continued economic growth is possible alongside a phase-out of fossil fuels, through investment in new industries including renewable energy.
The group said their conclusions “challenge the social and political paradigm of at least the past 70 years where leaders have campaigned on the basis of continuing improvement in the traditional economy, with science and technology expected to allow economic growth to be indefinitely sustained.”
Read more at The GWPF
Our focus should be on well-being and welfare, but our economic system puts all focus on growth and GDP
Well being and welfare are creations of gdp although there may be a downside to well being and welfare because that eventually leads to eco wacko goofiness and the collapse of civilization.
Climate paranoia is a scientific and economic failure. Europe’s obsession is now killing more people through energy poverty than weather-related events kill in the entire world! Weather related deaths before the last one hundred years were 500 thousand per year. Today, they’re about fifty-six thousand in spite of a near threefold increase in population! That makes the weather/climate thirty times LESS DANGEROUS thanks our fossil fuel powered civilization improvements. We all live in the world’s first energy based civilization. And 85% of that energy comes from coal, oil, and gas. We are the best fed, longest living, most prosperous human beings that have ever existed. Only communist led China would benefit from a new Luddite abandonment of energy. The free world certainly would not.
Just another group on intellectiual Eggheads as rediculous and as irresponsible as the Union of Concerned Scientists
Real conservation projects need to be funded somehow. If the economy is weak, funding dries up.
So do these screwballs think we all should return to Human Sacrifice? Talk about Dumb these nit-wits take the Cake