GROWTH DOES NOT EQUAL PROGRESS

There was a news story today which perfectly captures the mental zeitgeist that i spoke about earlier, about the all-pervasive political/economic inertia that has infected the modern world.
The story dealt with the (unsurprising) refusal of countries at the G8 meeting to make ANY concrete commitments to drastically reduce carbon emissions.
‘"I know that in the past, the United States has sometimes fallen short of meeting our responsibilities. So let me be clear: Those days are over." Said Obama.
But by the end of the day... leaders of the most developed nations again declined to commit themselves to any specific actions now or in the immediate future to curb the greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to global warming -- actions that would require increasing energy prices, raising taxes or imposing other unpopular economic measures on their people.’
Instead they made vague pronouncements about voluntary targets of 50% less carbon dioxide by 2050, far too little and far too late, even with sufficient political will, which was sorely lacking.
This is the epitome of short-sighted political self-interest; ‘leaders’ proving themselves unwilling to undertake any actions which might make them unpopular in the eyes of their ignorant constituents. How profoundly sad it is that we let these individuals of such narrow vision dominate the decision making process.
We have become psychologically locked in a perception that the most important economic measure is growth, and yet the kind of growth pursued by industrialized countries is fundamentally no different than the runaway cellular growth of a malignancy which eventually destroys its host. This is what human beings have become on this planet- a cancer, spreading unchecked.Real progress needs to be measured by a different set of values, ones less concerned with overall GDP and more with basic issues of sustainability and maturity. Of course, this would severely impact the business-as-usual mantra of free-market fanatics and globalization zealots, so nothing gets done, and every single living thing on this earth will have to bear the price of this incredible stupidity.