David Trubridge: Growth cannot be sustainable

Hawke's Bay Today guest writer David Trubridge believes sustainability is "not a dogma". The environmentalist and designer instead claims we should be driven by an empathy with the planet - and its people.
There is no such thing as "sustainable growth". It is an oxymoron, a self contradictory impossibility.
And the word "sustainable" is used too loosely. Put simply, something is sustainable only if it can continue for ever.
How many of our activities fit that description? Most of what we do is reliant on oil, actually far more than we probably realise or care to admit, especially agriculture.
Much of the farming land around the world has been exploited to death and can produce only when liberally fed with fertilisers, which are usually imported in ships and trucks.
Oil is a finite resource. One day this century it will run out. So anything reliant on oil is unsustainable.
Not only will oil run out at current usage - the same will happen to most of the other things we dig up from the earth. Subsistence farmers in Africa will be little affected, but what will happen to city dwellers when there are no more minerals and no more cheap energy? Growth in any material form is unsustainable, largely because in our world it is based on oil, but also because it is by its nature exponential. Those wonderful pictures of Earth from space say it all. It is round and very finite - it does not go on for ever, it stops at the edges.
Throughout human history the human race has expanded to fill every corner of the planet. But only in our lifetime have we finally come against the limits of that planet. It's not a pleasant concept. Many people can't accept it, and try to deny it, either for emotional reasons or because they are profiting too much from current exploitation of its resources.
We have reached a critical moment in the evolution of humankind when it is becoming increasingly obvious that we cannot continue as we are now. This means that our existing paradigms, and our existing systems, are becoming obsolete. Unless they can adapt pretty quickly they will fail us and we will be in trouble. Our economic system can only understand growth and will panic when we don't have it. It has to learn to accept that a stable equilibrium is the only way to the future. The crash of the past few years was inherent in this economic system and has happened many times before. Yet, unbelievably, all efforts seem to be aimed at regaining pre-crash growth. We are like a sheep stuck in a fence that only knows how to push forward. All we have to do is stop, look around and go in a different direction.
I believe that sustainability is not a dogma, it is not some rational idea imposed from outside. It stems from a feeling and an empathy: either you care or you don't. If you have an empathy with the land, with people, then you care about them. And if you care, no one has to tell you not to pollute, waste or exploit. You simply can't do it. You are uncomfortably aware that just by living in the Western world your footprint is dangerously large, but daily you try to do everything you can to reduce it. It is not a rational thought that stops you wasting irreplaceable materials - you just can't do it because you care.
Conversely, if you don't care, if you have no feeling, none of this matters. Your life becomes a metaphorical finger waving at the planet.
I met a woman who, like me, always filled the kettle only with sufficient water for her cup of tea. She said that her husband always defiantly filled it to to the brim every time and nothing she said could change him. With her we have a future - with him we do not.