Utopia? No, Natural Capitalism.

[Guest guest]

Imagine for a moment a

world where cities have become peaceful and serene because cars and

buses are whisper quiet, vehicles exhaust only water vapor, and parks

and greenways have replaced unneeded urban freeways. OPEC has ceased to

function because the price of oil has fallen to five dollars a barrel,

but there are few buyers for it because cheaper and better ways now

exist to get the services people once turned to oil to provide. Living

standards for all people have dramatically improved, particularly for

the poor and those in developing countries. Involuntary unemployment no

longer exists, and income taxes have largely been eliminated. Houses,

even low-income housing units, can pay part of their mortgage costs by

the energy they produce; there are few if any active

landfills; worldwide forest cover is increasing; dams are being

dismantled; atmospheric C02 levels are decreasing for the first time in

two hundred years; and effluent water leaving factories is cleaner than

the water coming into them. Industrialized countries have reduced

resource use by 80 percent while improving the quality of life. Among

these technological changes, there are important social changes. The

frayed social nets of Western countries have been repaired. With the

explosion of family-wage jobs, welfare demand has fallen. A progressive

and active union movement has taken the lead to work with business,

environmentalists, and government to create "just transitions" for

workers as society phases out coal, nuclear energy, and oil. In

communities and towns, churches, corporations, and labor groups promote

a new living-wage social contract as the least expensive way to ensure

the growth and preservation of valuable social capital. Is this the

vision of a utopia? In fact, the changes described here could come

about in the decades to come as the result of economic and

technological trends already in place.Read More here:http://www.natcap.org/sitepages/pid57.php Think Simply. Think Wisely. Curb Semantics. Speak the Truth.

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