The most bandied about slogan since the outbreak of the global economic crisis is to boost consumption, which will pull the world out of recession. Some people do not agree. One of them is Prof. Yehuda Kahane, head of Tel Aviv University's Alfred Akirov Institute for Business and the Environment.
Speaking at the Environment 2020 Conference in Tel Aviv today, he warned that there is an environmental cost to such calls.
"Globes": There have been a lot of conferences since cleantech became a buzzword a few years ago. How is this conference different?
Kahane: "There is constant talk about global warming, but I assert that that the problem of global warming is not at the forefront of every environmental issue. The world today is undergoing a process of linear production, in which we are ultimately taking resources and turning them into garbage as quickly as possible. This process is seen in the overdrawing of ecological resources, which cannot be replaced. When we emerge from the crisis, the world must be a different place, otherwise we'll very quickly fall back into crisis, and by crisis, I mean that we're destroying the Earth."
Kahane continued, "We destroying species of animals and ruining the air. If we continue to consume at the current level and production methods, we'll need three or four earths. Israel consumes 55 dunam (13.75 acres) per person, whereas natural resources exist for just 10 dunam (2.5 acres) per person. The average global ecological consumption is 22 dunam (5.5 acres) per person, compared with a planetary capacity of 18 dunam (4.5 acres) per person.
"This requires us to change our ways. People are now saying, 'Increase consumption to pull out of the crisis', but the opposite is true. Consumption only increases irreversible global pollution."
Published by Globes [online], Israel business news - www.globes-online.com - on March 30, 2009
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