Rush to nowhere: Richard Swift says it's time we slammed on the brakes - Keynote

New Internationalist, March, 2002 by Richard Swift

Demand for paper has gone up more than sixfold since 1950. The use of lumber has doubled, firewood tripled, adding to the pressure to 'mine' (ie log unsustainably) forests worldwide: 'Another-10 per cent of the world's forests may be lost by 2050. Almost all the forests in Africa and China may be wiped out. There is a danger of severe loss in Southeast Asia and South America. Old undisturbed forest is in decline almost everywhere.' (5)

Soil erosion and exhaustion are threatening our ability to produce food. Biodiversity is being lost. Thousands of species are pushed over the edge every year as habitat is gobbled up by development. And while population growth is a factor, the global economy is growing faster (in many places much faster) than population.

Turbo-capitalism is highly energy-intensive. Worldwide energy use is expected to rise 46 per cent by 2010. In places like California the energy grid is so over-stretched that rolling 'blackouts' have become commonplace. The highest energy use is in the industrial North, where economies gobble up more than four or five times the energy used in the South. Most of the growth in future will come from a further expansion in the use of fossil fuels.

What does this heavy energy use sustain? The world automobile Fleet continues to grow, with its attendant problems of pollution and congestion, particularly in places like China and India. Since 1950 the number of people per car has dropped fourfold. As the hurry-up lifestyle is exported, the US-based fast-food industry is growing at a phenomenal rate. The top-ten chains now operate over 100,000 outlets around the world. There are predicted to be 1.6 billion cell-phone users by 2005 with internet access also showing spectacular growth. (6)

All of this indicates the spread of the sped-up lifestyle turbo-capitalism needs for the quick turnover of capital. Its global 'utopian' vision is predicated on our ability to drive to the nearest Taco Bell as we chat on our cell phones. The US, with only 6 per cent of the world's population, consumes about 30 per cent of global resources: extending its unsustainable lifestyle to the rest of the world is a deeply malevolent fantasy.

That is not the full extent of the problem, either. There are many signs that the speed of turbo-capitalism is causing a profound cultural and political disorientation. You can see it in the spate of book titles announcing the end of almost everything: The End of Democracy, The End of History, The End of Sex, The End of the Family, The End of God, The End of Equality, The End of Affluence. Other titles announce the 'death' of everything else, from Modernity or the Nation-State to Ageing, Work and -- perhaps most tellingly of all -- Certainty. Since most of these things haven't actually 'ended' or 'died', what they speak to is a rapid, disorienting form of change. People no longer feel the firm ground of institutions or even solid belief-systems beneath their feet. The family, a secure job, public services, personal safety, even meaning itself are all thrown up in the air by turbo-capitalism and its disposable, 'post-modem' culture.