The path of sobriety
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| Infos : | 248 pages |
The third curve or the end of growth
If your running coach told you that you were going to improve your performance by 10% every year, you’d be right to have a few doubts: you can’t progress indefinitely. But that’s what governments and economists would have us believe when they talk about economic growth.
An Indian ecologist who studied in the United States, Mansoor Khan takes advantage of his dual cultural roots to offer an effective counter-argument to the dominant discourse. With striking images and a great concern for popularisation, he explains in an original way why our economic model is doomed to failure. While our minds can imagine infinite and exponential growth – this is the first curve, the concept – our bodies remind us of the limits to which we will inevitably come up against, in the image of the planet’s resources, which we cannot exploit ad infinitum – this is the second curve, the reality. The most obvious illustration of this finiteness of resources is the oil peak around 2008, when the top of the curve was reached. It is on the basis of this observation that the author develops the third curve, that of energy sobriety and economic balance, within the ecosystemic limits of the planet. It is only by identifying the forgotten relationships between money and energy, capital and resources, concept and reality, that we will be able to understand the pitfalls of perpetual growth.
‘A clear presentation of the folly and absurdity of the economic hypothesis that we could have perpetual and unlimited growth on a planet with limited ecological resources. [We need a new paradigm based on the real ecology of our planet. Mansoor Khan’s book is essential for anyone who wants to move towards this new paradigm’.
– Vandana Shiva, writer and environmental activist
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