We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Sunday, May 1, 2011

Time to Wake Up: Days of Abundant Resources and Falling Prices Are Over Forever

Click here to access article by Jeremy Grantham, the Chief Investment Officer of GMO Capital posted on The Oil Drum. 

Like Nate Hagens with reference to The Oil Drum, I also debated with myself about posting this fairly lengthy article on my blog. I share his reasons for posting the article as expressed in his introduction.  

The article is sourced from a quarterly report to GMO investors and written by an investment fund manager. Clearly the article is not written for a general audience, but it is important for a number of reasons. Chief among them are two: the truths that it contains about resource exhaustion and climate change, and the cracks that it may be opening up in capitalist thinking about these subjects. Unlike most of his capitalist colleagues, the author is more influenced by hard evidence than he is by the faith-based religion of capitalism.

So, with these considerations in mind, I advise you to read carefully those sections that are understandable and relevant to you, and skip the parts that are not. 
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