invites you to ask and answer questions covering social themes of global significance. When you ask in order to understand, when you answer in order to share, this is what we mean by dropping knowledge.
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Gladman Chibememe's
biography
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QuestionIs there an ecological limit to economic growth ? David LetellierAnswer
Gladman Chibememe: Yes, everything has got a limit, because once you overburden the ecology, the environment, it will actually collapse. And in this case, if we over-harvest from forests, the expectation that this forest will get depleted. If we over-pollute river systems and river channels, the answer is that those river systems and river channel will obviously lose -- obviously be degraded. And in that case, there is a limit to economic growth.
Economic growth has always been associated with destruction of the environment. As I understand it, in order to build a house, you have to destroy the environment. In order for you to construct a road, you need to destroy trees. In order for you to do tourism, you have to tamper around with the environment. In that case, that would result really strategically and directly to the destruction of the environment. So, in a way, economics have got a lot of impact to the environment and there is no question about it. And, it is very clear that if we continue to overstrain the environment by our development and economic activities, then we will run the risk of having the environment collapsing. And, it is not going to collapse alone, it will collapse with us. We will all collapse, including the environment. And as I reiterated in the last question, the collapse of the environment is the collapse of humanity. And, we are part of the ecosystem as we are part of the system.
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