"Economy & Development" or Enviroment : Tough decision for World.

Almost everyone in my company & other organization with whom I interact by email, Use the Bottom line in email which says “Please don’t print this email unless you really need to”. This supposedly shows the concern sender have for environment. But apart from & probably more than environment, everyone is concern about Economy (recession & job market). Once in a while (Mostly when travelling from client meetings to office) when I have any discussion about economy, all of my colleagues support Capitalism, Free market & open economy. As they advocate these things are needs of the hour & very much necessary to pull Millions out of poverty in developing countries (Normally my European colleagues finger point towards me when they refer to Poor or developing country).


But today’s economy is driven by consumption & consumption alone. India & China have huge population (read consumers), that’s the exact reason why they are fast growing economies. More the consumption, faster the economy grows. Having said that, is not over-consumption bad, really bad for environment? It is indeed. So equation turns around to be “more consumption is better for economy & bad for environment”. If a developing nation have to choose what will it choose? Economy or environment?

Not being an expert in economy gives me luxury of questioning the very fundamentals of (open) economy. Once you are expert in a field you can’t afford to question the fundamentals of your field as you will fear making fool of yourself, if you did. There is something seriously wrong with open economy fundamentals. As a thump rule economy & environment can’t move forward together with current rules, Laws & Habits of world. We have reached a point where we can’t ignore any of them. In 17th, 18th century, when industrialisation of Europe was happening, Environment was not the issue. They make mess out of environment to became the develop nation. Now when developing nations need to so the same, it is not allowed. West has already caused enough harm to environment even our share (Quota) of harm has been done by them. Should we correct their mistake by not harming the environment anymore & hence stopping our development? Or we should first focus on development without bothering about environment. Either way there is something to lose. American’s per Capita carbon emission is 10 times more than India’s. Doesn’t it say enough what we should choose? Very basic rule of any civilised society says A have committed a crime, A should be punished not B. (A=Developed nations, B= Developing nations).

Atleast west not need to move from over-consumption. How many pair of RayBan shades are enough? How many Adidas, Nike, CAT are enough? Why we are Proved, encouraged to spend/consume more. When it is known that it is not good for harmony & balance with nature. It is one of the un-answered question in my head. Question are endless, answer are non-convincing. We can think, write what we feel but ultimately we will do whatever is expected of us (i.e. consume more).