Letter from Committee staff to Professor
Tim Jackson, Sustainable Development Commissioner, Centre for
Environmental Strategy (CES)
The Chairman mentioned that there were a couple
of questions the Committee would have liked to ask, but ran out
of time:
1. You've criticised the way in which mainstream
politicians will promote sustainable consumerism, but will never
urge people simply to consume less—even though this may
be the single biggest thing they can do to save carbon emissions.
What would a Government campaign to get people to buy less look
like? And how should the Government decide what a sustainable
level of consumption would be?
2. In his book, Capitalism As if the World
Matters, Jonathon Porritt wrote that the effects of lower
economic growth—and the lower public spending that would
go with it—would be as bad for society as higher economic
growth is for the environment. Do you agree with him? If so, then
what is the answer? What exactly does the SDC think the Treasury
should be aiming for?
3. Jonathon Porritt also argued that a capitalist
economy that ceased to grow might actually "put the cause
of environmental sustainability further beyond reach". In
what ways might the recession be bad for the environment, and
how might the Government make things better?
27 January 2009
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