ABSTRACT
This chapter considers the options that may lead to a sustainable future. Winston Churchill’s observation that capitalism tends to increase inequality has been borne out by Thomas Piketty, and considerable evidence is available that links inequality and environmental harm. The term ‘clergy’ for the aliens suggests their hooded cassocks, their language of esoteric codes, and their overwhelmingly male numbers. The struggle for survival for most people before the Industrial Revolution was waged with technologies unchanged for centuries – the plough, the terrace, the harness, the loom and domestic fire. The Club of Rome has also undertaken extensive modelling of a new economy in which economic growth is decoupled from resource use in several European countries. The inverse nexus between income and population growth underlines the absurdity of policies that aim to reduce average levels of affluence. Such policies would include an approach to economics that measures impact on natural resources and emphasises non-material consumption rather than growth at all cost.
