DIGESTING the contents of the latest State of the Environment report will be painful, creating anger and a search for solutions. It would be an easy task if we could find someone or something to blame and there are of course quite a few people, probably most of us, who are guilty in some way. But the major cause of this disaster has to be our growth based economic system with its reliance on GDP as the only yardstick for a nation's wellbeing. Economics is sometimes called the dismal science, but it isn't science; it's just a collection of thought bubbles that gain acceptance if they are perceived as increasing the money in circulation without any reference to its impact on the environment or even human health.
