by
Jason Hickel
275
Nine
The Necessary Madness of Imagination
The Necessary Madness of Imagination
0
terms
2
notes
282
[...] As Joseph Stiglitz put it, 'What we measure informs what we do. And if we're measuring the wrong thing, we're going to do the wrong thing.'
on GDP and how it is a pretty awful measurement. Hickel goes into the history of it a bit earlier: apparently Kuznets wanted a more social-first approach that would exclude areas like advertising, commuting and policing from the stats but alas Keynes' more "rational" approach won. funny cus i'd always had this image of Keynes as the more progressive of the two but I guess not
doesn't call it by name but that's essentially what he's referring to
[...] As Joseph Stiglitz put it, 'What we measure informs what we do. And if we're measuring the wrong thing, we're going to do the wrong thing.'
on GDP and how it is a pretty awful measurement. Hickel goes into the history of it a bit earlier: apparently Kuznets wanted a more social-first approach that would exclude areas like advertising, commuting and policing from the stats but alas Keynes' more "rational" approach won. funny cus i'd always had this image of Keynes as the more progressive of the two but I guess not
doesn't call it by name but that's essentially what he's referring to
286
So the problem isn't just the type of energy we're using, it's what we're doing with it. What would we do with 100 per cent clean energy? Exactly what we're doing with fossil fuels: raze more forests, build more meat farms, expand industrial agriculture, produce more cement and heap up more landfills with waste from the additional stuff we would produce and consume, all of which will pump deadly amounts of greenhouse gas into the air. We will do these things because our economic system demands endless economic growth. Switching to clean energy will do nothing to slow this down.
So the problem isn't just the type of energy we're using, it's what we're doing with it. What would we do with 100 per cent clean energy? Exactly what we're doing with fossil fuels: raze more forests, build more meat farms, expand industrial agriculture, produce more cement and heap up more landfills with waste from the additional stuff we would produce and consume, all of which will pump deadly amounts of greenhouse gas into the air. We will do these things because our economic system demands endless economic growth. Switching to clean energy will do nothing to slow this down.