It’s time to have a broader vision.Photo: MorBCNToday we stand at the crossroads. In one direction lies business as usual, the road we’ve traveled for decades. Down that path, we’d forgo serious measures to rein in our oil consumption, we’d continue buying oil from the dwindling number of oil-rich nations to drive our SUVs a mile to the grocery store, and we’d scrape Alberta clean to find a few years of tar to put in our tanks. We’d decapitate more mountains in Appalachia to heat our homes and power our flat screen televisions, pumping out climate warming carbon with every watt.
But another path exists, and it leads to a far brighter future. We can consciously shape a new and enlightened global economic order for the 21st century, much as the world’s developed nations, guided by economist John Maynard Keynes, shaped an enlightened and prosperous global order at the Bretton Woods conference near the end of World War II.
The goal would be a form of capitalism with a highly regulated financial sector that would steer industry to protect the global commons — our air, water, fisheries, and forests. We would shape the econo... Read more
