Read the following and ask yourself who said these beautiful words:-
“We will find neither national purpose nor personal satisfaction in a mere continuation of economic progress, in an endless amassing of worldly goods. We cannot measure national spirit by the Dow Jones Average, nor national achievement by the Gross National Product.
For the Gross National Product includes air pollution, and ambulances to clear our highways from carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and jails for the people who break them. The Gross National Product includes the destruction of the redwoods and the death of Lake Superior. It grows with the production of napalm and missiles and nuclear warheads…. It includes… the broadcasting of television programs which glorify violence to sell goods to our children.
And if the Gross National Product includes all this, there is much that it does not comprehend. It does not allow for the health of our families, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It is indifferent to the decency of our factories and the safety of our streets alike. It does not include the beauty of our poetry, or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials…
The Gross National Product measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile, and it can tell us everything about America — except whether we are proud to be Americans.”
Well you have probably figured out it’s an American, and it comes from a while back.
Barack Obama describes it as “one of the most beautiful of his speeches,” in his New York Times profile of August 2008.
Still not sure? Then watch and listen to this video. It gains in power and graceful majesty as you do.
Robert F Kennedy, tragically assassinated 41 years ago, said it - who would have thought?!
What’s especially telling is to find this critique of both the limits of GNP and growth and of the pressing demands of sustainability cited by the current President of the United States of America.
There’s a fascinating article on ‘Obamaonomics’ written by David Leonhardt in the New York Tmes. In it Leonhardt comments:
"The current concerns about the state of the planet, he said, required something of a paradigm shift for economics. If we don’t make serious changes soon, probably in the next 10 or 15 years, we may find that it’s too late.
What’s new about the current moment, however, is that both of these arguments are actually starting to look relevant. Based on the collective wisdom of scientists, global warming really does seem to be different from any previous environmental crisis. For the first time on record, meanwhile, economic growth has not translated into better living standards for most Americans"
To listen to Obama himself talking, click here – as he himself says, ”We cannot build the this economy on the same pile of sand.”
Again my thanks to the wonderful Climate Progress – a blog so very well worth subscribing to