When Enough is Enough

If, as a society, we hope to transition towards a sustainable future we will need to insert the concept of “enough” into our economic equation.

It is quite understandable that as our numbers increase we might need to increase goods and services in order to get by. Recently my son and his wife gave birth to twins, which means that their household now is consuming more than it did before. And in situations where people are experiencing abject poverty – not having access to basic human needs - it will of course be necessary to ramp up consumption in order to live in a sustainable manner.

But it is a troubling fact that large segments of our population are presently gobbling up more goods and services than our planet can afford to deliver. And the problem is compounded by the fact that masses of poor people around the world aspire to a lifestyle equivalent to ours. Where might such resources come from?

A case in point is the growing need for fossil fuels that the world demands. Indeed, if the whole world would be using fossil fuels at the rate we do in North America, it would take four or five planets our size to even approach any degree of sustainability. But in such a case our pollution problems would also increase exponentially and take us beyond a tipping point.

The problem is that our economic system apparently requires growth in order to survive, let alone thrive. If our gross national product (GNP) is not growing year over year, we are told that we are headed for trouble. If it would not be so sad, it would have been funny to hear President Bush tell Americans to buy more stuff to get out of a recession, when that recession had been brought on by the fact that people had already outspent themselves.

In his book, A High Price for Abundant Living, economist Henry Rempel states,

“The capitalist system is like a massive eighteen-wheel truck barreling through history. It has an excessively powerful motor driven by the sum of all human selfishness. It has no brakes. The steering mechanism is clearly faulty. As a passenger on this truck, are you inclined to ask where we are going? Are you worried about arriving there safely?”

Taking this problem into the context of our personal lives, it is imperative that we at least begin asking the question of when enough is enough. How big does my house really need to be? How much stuff do I need to fill it? How much energy can I consume without jeopardizing the welfare of my fellow pilgrims? Hard questions, to be sure, but questions we need to ask.

Looking for a way forward, Rempel states, “To change our mad pursuit of ‘progress,’ we will require a new driver for our economic system, a driver that will use the gifts of nature in such a way that nonrenewable resources are conserved and the environment is sustained.”

Jack Heppner