Peak Everything Read Online Free Page A

Peak Everything
Book: Peak Everything Read Online Free
Author: Richard Heinberg
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market value of all final goods and services produced in a country in a given year, and a rising GDP is generally taken as a sign of progress. If GDP is set to decline relentlessly in a post-growth world economic regime, then we need a way to focus our collective attention on non-consumptive aspects of economic and civic life so as to motivate useful action in directions where progress is still possible.
    Fortunately, alternative economic indicators are beginning to garner attention in cities and nations around the world. I discuss the Genuine Progress Indicator (GPI) on page 17 of the Introduction, but it’s also important to mention Gross National Happiness (GNH). That term was coined in 1972 by Bhutan’s former King Jigme Singye Wangchuck to signal his commitment to building an economy that would preserve Bhutan’s Buddhist culture as the nation opened trade with the West. Canadian health epidemiologist Michael Pennock helped design GNH, and has advocated for the adoption of a “de-Bhutanized” version of it in his home city of Victoria, British Columbia. Recently, Seattle has also expressed interest in adopting GNH.

    Med Jones, President of International Institute of Management, has elaborated on GNH metrics, measuring socioeconomic development across seven areas, including the nation’s mental and emotional health:
    1. Economic Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of consumer debt, average income to consumer price index ratio, and income distribution;
    2. Environmental Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of environmental metrics such as pollution, noise and traffic;
    3. Physical Wellness: Indicated via statistical measurement of physical health metrics such as severe illnesses;
    4. Mental Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of mental health metrics such as usage of antidepressants and rise or decline in number of psychotherapy patients;
    5. Workplace Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of labor metrics such as jobless claims, job change, workplace complaints and lawsuits;
    6. Social Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of social metrics such as discrimination, safety, divorce rates, complaints of domestic conflicts and family lawsuits, public lawsuits and crime rates; and
    7. Political Wellness: Indicated via direct survey and statistical measurement of political metrics such as the quality of local democracy, individual freedom and foreign conflicts.
    Contraction in population levels and consumption rates doesn’t sound like much fun, but a few decades of improvement in Gross National Happiness — potentially achievable under material circumstances that are by now unavoidable — should be an attractive notion to most people.
    The related idea that life can be better without fossil fuels is a core tenet of the Transition Town movement, which started in England in 2005 (I quote its founder, Rob Hopkins, on pages 135-136). Transition Initiatives are grassroots efforts to wean communities
off dependence on oil and other carbon fuels by promoting local resilience (through development of things like local food systems and ride-share programs). Transitioners realize that it is probably futile to wait for elected officials to take the lead in planning for the great energy shift, given that very few politicians understand our predicament — and given also that, even if they did, the measures they would likely propose would be deeply unpopular unless the populace were first educated about constraints on fossil-fueled growth. The genius of the movement lies in its engagement of the citizenry first. The Transition Initiatives appear to be taking off virally, with nearly 300 official sites around the world and over 70 in North America (as of mid-2010).
    During the past two years, car sales have declined while bicycle sales have soared; the number
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