Declining Economy

Written - November 10, 2008

The past few weeks have seen major changes in world politics, the dust of which has yet to settle. The election of President Obama has captured the collective imagination as new period of change, social justice and American moral revitalization. However, Obama has inherited the crumbling structure of a global economic system, driven into the ground through exploitation and environmental degradation. For environmentalists, this economic collapse represents both the best and the worst of times.

One of the benefits of the economic decline is the halt to industrial projects that have been deemed destructive to environment. In Alberta, the lower price of oil has forced the tar sands industry to slow down expansion, a position environmentalists have been lobbying for years. While the halt will undoubtedly be temporary, there have been other parallels in extraction slow downs in environmentally destructive industries such as mining. Obviously the loss of these sectors is detrimental to the regional economies where they operate, however, a decline allows for community innovation and small business re-imagination… unfortunately, this in not where government bailouts are directed.

So far, there has been over a trillion dollars collectively shelled out by governments to protect the economy during its period of decline. Governments that have slashed social programs, ignored environmental protection as to expensive and allowed agriculture to approach crisis are able to gather billions to bail out banks. Consider this: with that amount of money, we could have provided education to every person in the world, ended world hunger, cleaned up ecological disasters and given clean drinking water to all peoples. In fact, each of these projects individually would have cost just a fraction of the money that has been undemocratically handed over in the name of the economy.

It is important to note that banks are not Crown institutions and do not provide meaningful service to most people globally. While they provide some wealth to people in rich countries, but they also impoverish the majority of global peoples through overcharging and exploitive procedures. However, giving money for education, food and water would actually alleviate and directly save peoples lives – something that the world has been calling on the rich countries to mobilize on for decades. While it is important to not have an unmediated economic collapse, so are social and environmental issues – seems that governments have shown where their loyalties lie. Lets hope Obama becomes the change that everyone imagines.