Feeling the effects of "Endless Growth"

Although the world is in a constant state of flux, we have approached a point in evolution where change is accelerating at ever faster rates. The question we need to ask ourselves is; are we adapting accordingly to this rapid fire change?

The reason I ask this question is because the increasing change around us is putting into question some deep-seated ideologies. Ideologies that were born out of the industrial revolution. But are these ideologies continuing to serve us or have they become obsolete?

The very systems, structures, beliefs and ways of living created out of the industrial age are beginning to be exposed through various forms of limitation. This is because these systems have been built on the premise of endless economic growth.

In other words, as long as we keep growing, then these systems will continue to flourish. But as we've recently seen, these systems (financial and environmental) have begun to buckle under the relentless pressures of economic growth. This is because we live in a finite context.

We're now starting to feel a sense of vulnerability towards this fundamentally flawed logic of compounded growth. The industrial age has exploited all forms of fossil fuels; namely oil, gas and coal. But now that much of the low hanging fruit (the easy to exploit sources of energy) has been depleted, it's becoming increasingly difficult, expensive and dangerous to mine these natural resources.

For example, most of the oil drilling has now shifted off-shore resulting in greater energy expenditure to get at these hard to get energy reserves. Also, the technology required to extract from these reserves needs to be more sophisticated. Peak oil and the demands of technological innovation will continue to hike the price of oil as it becomes increasingly scarce.

Another major concern is peak debt. Peak debt was glaringly exposed in the financial crisis of 2008. Debt had, up to that point, served economic growth by way of a credit bubble. The Keynesian model of economics had been proved true until people began to default on their credit payments.  This was after financing various forms of debt through mortgage-backed securities.

Financial institutions sought to make money through fancy derivative products that were sold to market through credit default swaps. This was a form of betting on and insuring against default on credit payments, which at the time was immensely lucrative. Such products escalated debt to the point where large financial institutions (AIG, Lehman Brothers to name a few) could no longer make their own payments, filed for bankruptcy and caused the whole financial system to come crashing down like a house on fire.

Since then, governments (particularly the Fed) have bailed out such corporations (deemed too big to fail) while pumping trillions of dollars into the financial system, through a series of quantitative easing measures, to try resuscitate a bleeding system. But when debt is at such a peak these measures fail to address the underlying issues of systemic collapse.

That's because at the heart of this issue lies economic growth. Since industrialization, every system has been built for this sole purpose - to keep the wheels of economic growth churning. But due to peak oil and peak debt we are beginning to see the flaws in this system. And it is now apparent that we can no longer continue to grow at the rates we have done previously.

This is a radical paradigm shift. One that I believe we need to fully let in before we begin to contemplate building and integrating new, more useful systems to take us into the future. Systems not defined by endless growth, and the limits thereof. The sooner we can do this the better. The longer we ignore these red flags, the more painful the transition will be.