On Oct. 15, economist Jeff Rubin and environmental activist David Suzuki spoke on the importance of creating a sustainable future. Held in Pollack Concert Hall, the End of Growth Tour lecture was co-sponsored by the McGill Bookstore, the Marcel Desautels Institute for Integrated Management, and McGill’s Institute for Sustainability in Engineering and Design.
Rubin, the former chief economist at CIBC World Markets and a McGill alumnus, used an empirical analysis of the economy to explain why we may soon witness a stagnation in innovation and economic growth. He emphasized the circumstantial imperatives of the market, where the overconsumption of oil and a resulting rise in oil prices have led to an decreased demand for oil, and increased investment in green technology.
Rubin underlined the importance of energy—and oil in particular—in driving modern growth, and noted that the decline of its production may have dramatic consequences for the environment.
“Oil, still, is the single largest source of power for the global economy, and as a transit fuel, it has no substitute,” Rubin said. “If we step back and look at the history of our economy over the last 40 years, it’s hard not to notice that every major recession has oil’s fingerprints all over it.”
The higher the price of oil, he added, the less oil people can afford to consume.
“When we see triple digit oil prices, what we’re seeing is the boundary of a finite world,” he said. “I think the key to adjustment that has to be recognized in so many cases, is [that to] make do with less is better than always wanting more.”
David Suzuki, cofounder of the David Suzuki Foundation and long-time environmental activist, tied Rubin’s economic perspective to the impact of society’s increasing detachment from an identity as biological creatures.
“Our species thinks it can take over and use whatever we want, spew our chemicals and toxic waste back into [our home] without paying any price,” Suzuki said. “We can’t … see the consequences of our actions because we’ve lost our sense of where we belong and what our home is. We elevate the economy above our very own domain.”
Suzuki criticized what he called humans’ subordination of our planet’s needs to societal constructs—constructs such as capitalism and the economy. He said humans have lost touch with nature, which has resulted in a notion of human superiority and exceptionalism even though we depend on nature.
“We need air, we need water … we need the earth because that’s where our food comes from,” Suzuki said. “Furthermore, what keeps the planet habitable for us is the diverse array of living species on the planet. Those are the most fundamental needs for our very survival and our health.”
Suzuki asked the public to understand that nature is more important than anything created by humans.
“We created things like boundaries, economics, capitalism, corporations, [and] markets,” he said. “We invented [them] but we bow down to these things as if they dictate us. We can’t change nature. The only things we can change are the things we invent … Let’s take back democracy, and show our leaders what really matters to us.”
As a part of a nationwide lecture tour, this event highlighted arguments and observations from the speakers’ latest books—Rubin’s The End of Growth and Suzuki’s Everything Under the Sun.
Anna Stein, events coordinator at the McGill Bookstore, was pleased with the way the discussion progressed.
“[The speakers] had a great time together, and had a lot of interesting things to say,” Stein said. “I’m so happy to have McGill as a venue for them.”
Students echoed her appreciation of the speakers and the topics they covered.
“It was a solid event,” Thomas Raissi U2 biochemisty, said. “I obviously didn’t agree with everything they said, but I liked how Rubin’s points on economy complemented with Suzuki’s environmental points. They were both pretty good speakers.”
