Chapter 46 NEW RELIGION
Ohlsson, now an ageing member of the arcane Valhalla Club, an activist
group, pondered the IMF announcement that the IMF that the global
economic growth for the year would be a fraction over zero, which at first
glance seemed positive, at least to his and his friends way of thinking. The catch
was the world’s population would at the same time grow by over one percent, the
equivalent to almost one hundred and fifty million more hungry mouths to feed.
‘It’s about time our so called environmentalists realized that economic growth is
O
not the driving factor in global warming and all the rest, it’s the unrestrained
growth of the planet’s population. If we stopped having more babies the world
would become a better place,’ Ohlsson told his friend John Ennis.
‘And alas, the world will progressively become a poorer place. More people
running after fewer resources.’
‘There’s not much we can do about it John, you just have to stop and think the
economic world is not controlled by governments, rather by a few vast
impenetrable business corporations like Microsoft, Google, Exxon-Mobile,
Citigroup, Wal-Mart, Coca Cola, Sony and IBM.’
‘They decide what we buy,’ added Ennis.
‘Right, and what they want is more consumers.’
‘The more the better!’
‘Their influence stops not only at consumerism, they also control the way we
think and behave. It’s they who decided what we buy and where we buy it, they’re
the strings pullers, deciding whether the goods we consume be manufactured in the
US, Germany, Japan or China.’
‘Are they concerned about the environment, I mean the state of the planet?’ asked
Ennis.
‘Indirectly so John,’ replied Ohlsson, ‘What I mean is as long as it contributes to
sustaining their businesses. What happens to the goods they produce after you’ve
bought them is less important than the idea of pleasing customers who will come
back for more. What happens to all that plastic doesn’t really concern them unless
they are forced by law to do something about it. Of course they will fight laws they
don’t like through their system of lobbying.’
‘I know what you mean, the other day I was looking for a gift for a two year old,
but when I saw the quantity of plastic from China in the form of useless toys I was
astonished.’
‘What we should do if we want to build a sustainable society is to drastically
reduce our population.’
‘You want to kill them off?’ said Ennis in mock horror.
‘It wouldn’t be a bad idea. Seriously though, in a little over a century the
population will have almost doubled on this small island. Image two times more of
everything.’
‘It’s good platform for the Greens.’
‘The Greens are too politically correct, they are part of the new religion. This
subject is much too sensitive; it touches questions of immigration, culture and even
traditional religions. Think about Catholics and Muslims, look at the negative
image of China’s one child per family policy.’
‘I suppose you’re right.’
‘Imagine the world has another eighty million mouths to feed every year, twice
the total population of Germany!’
‘And our politicians condone that?’
‘Of course, just consider how the financial crisis effects peoples living standards
and you will see governments taking urgent measures to put order back into a
system, one that is slowly destroying our planet and is becoming life threatening
for countless millions.’
‘Isn’t that part of this new religion?’
‘I suppose so. The Earth, it’s hanging in space like a jewel, a precious jewel with
very finite space and resources.’
‘I like that, Charlie Duke, if I remember rightly.’
‘Good memory. But what financial pundits, television channels and newspapers
should hammer home are the consequences of globalization. I mean pushing the
human race beyond the ecological limits of our small planet.’
‘We’ve been fighting against deforestation for decades and our calculations show
the world is losing its natural capital at a rate equivalent to five trillion dollars a
year as a result of deforestation alone. That makes the losses in the financial sector
look small!
‘Our survival’s not merely an economic option. If our resources are depleted at a
greater rate than replacement then our world will surely come to a dire Mad Max
end.
‘Remember what our friend Jared Diamond told us about the sudden decline of
earlier civilizations and the depletion of resource. Ecological collapse is the
inevitable consequence of economic success. Resources that appeared to be
inexhaustible to us fifty years ago are shrinking at an ever increasing pace with the
BRICs racing to transform their economies into consumer societies.
‘If we think of Churchill’s words in 1942 ― Now this is not the end. It is not
even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning. The old
man would have been astonished to see the Britain that has been spawned by
consumerism and perhaps he would have changed his words to something like: It is
the beginning of the end of our way of life.
‘Churchill was right to be cautious, the war lasted three more years, and this
crisis, which the UK has got itself into through its own fault will probably last
longer.’
‘Yes, and whilst we at it, it’s about time people gave up this obstinate nostalgia
for empire with the huge problems the country is facing and try to player a greater
role in Europe and make the world a better place.’
Armageddon had been avoided ― by a whisker. Nation’s had emerged bankrupt
or crippled by backbreaking debt burdens. Personal savings and pension funds had
shrivelled. But, as the dust started to settle the first to emerge from the wreckage
were the banks, and to the astonishment of all they were soon up to their old tricks.
It was not long before people started asking who had been screwed. Self-serving
bank chiefs were again to ladling out huge bonuses, to themselves and their
traders’.
Unemployment in the UK had shot up; three million homes were without a single
family member in work. Government statistics belied the real depth of misery,
overlooking the millions of others who had dropped out of the system, surviving on
benefits or charity. Certain had even abandoned the idea of ever working again,
with joblessness an accepted way of life, as Britain slide back to the days of the
‘State We’re In’.
This grim scenario did not however stop a flood of foreign workers arriving,
whose wage demands were so low that grass root Brits could not compete. Armies
of low paid foreign workers cleaned the nation’s streets, ran its hospital services,
served burgers and occupied just about every other menial job niche. For those
who had been left behind in the struggle to survive, ambition was transformed into
winning the lottery, or the hope of become a celebrity in Britain’s Got Talent or X
Factor ― a new variety of Ephemeroptera.
