Thank you for sharing Emmanuel Macron’s warning about the “end of abundance” (Report, 24 August). It is heartening to see a glimmer of realism creep into a speech by a politician. Humanity has now been exceeding the biocapacity of Earth for well over 50 years, and it beggars belief that both politicians and voters still believe that pursuing GDP might solve the ecological collapse that has been caused by this measure of “wellbeing”.
We are increasing our ecological debt every year, leaving less and less scope for our children to survive. What we really need is a global aspiration to unite us in all our diversity, to peacefully and equitably aspire to shrink back within the biocapacity of our planet.
To be sustainable, we must return within our planetary boundaries, and the only way to achieve that peacefully is by acquiring the emotional and spiritual maturity to embrace voluntary equitable degrowth. My roadmap to inspire such maturity has recently been submitted to the UN’s high-level advisory board on effective multilateralism; the linchpin is a UN charter for ecological justice. Learn more at my website poemsforparliament.uk
Barbara Williams
Long Hanborough, Oxfordshire
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