Who will pull the brakes? – Alan Deidun
‘Growth’ is a compelling goal indeed. Any uptick in annual statistics, whether they refer to inbound tourists, properties, vehicles or boats being registered and sold or even the number of university or MCAST graduates, is also met with elation by politicians, given that numbers provide a rapid stock-take of success and we all love comparisons. The COVID pandemic has re-defined the baseline, providing a fresh yardstick to gauge success with through the provision of pre-COVID and post-COVID targets. ‘Tourist arrivals have recovered to 80 per cent of pre-COVID times’ was a blaring headline the other day. Capitalist economic models hinge on unidirectional growth, irrespective of the impacts this growth will have on the depletion of the same resources supporting such growth. It did not take long for the unsavoury aspects of unbridled growth to emerge, with the ‘Tragedy of the Commons’ paradigm, referring to the unrestricted access to a common resource (fish, groundwater) which, in turn, fuels a rat race to exploit and deplete the same resources, being formulated by Garrett Hardin in 1968. The 1970s saw the fledgling sustainability movement come to the fore, with the first Earth...