Chapter 46: Chapter 46

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.