PROJECT PLANET PIE - THE TRUTH ABOUT CLIMATE CHANGE AND THE WORLD ECONOMY

By Herman Meeuwissen

ISBN 1-904181-80-5
PRICE: £15.99, €24

SYNOPSIS

This is a book about origins and destiny. It poses questions that relate where we came from, what we do with the resources at our disposal and how we live our lives, with the outcomes that shape our destiny. This original and stimulating approach to an important subject takes us on a journey through time, using both contemporary and classical economic theory to question the very ethic of production and the means by which the factors of production are organised and deployed. A refreshingly different style of logic is traversed, typified by such issues as the extent to which the world’s transport infrastructure may be self-defeating; how ‘economy of scale’ creates the need for transport, and the endless loop that consumes resources in a way that may negate any possible benefits to humanity. This book challenges commonly held preconceptions of the economics of the earth’s resources and the proposed solutions, at the same time raising ethical issues that transcend social structures throughout the world. In this analytical evaluation of the shape of things to come, we go beyond economics and environmental theory, into the mysterious facets of both human spirituality and the very beginnings of civilisation, to reveal how the world may ultimately find the means for survival.

BIOGRAPHY

Herman Meeuwissen has been involved with African affairs, in conservation programs and financing of rural development projects for most of his software development career in Southern Africa. He has been based in Johannesburg and the Natal Coast, working in mining, oil exploration, and as a consultant for Kwa-Zulu finance Corporation, developing banking systems for small farmers and rural communities.

In the climate of change that prevailed at the time, conservation was both an economic as well as a political issue, in view of the widespread poverty in rural Africa. Many of his contemporaries have been reluctant to write about the sensitive issues involved, as conservation during the apartheid years was directly associated with the widespread poverty and lack of resources. It has always been difficult to address the issues involved with the appropriate empathy, since Africans have not in the past been empowered to take charge of their environmental destiny and a realistic appreciation of the economics is vital, in order to do the subject justice in an African context.

Herman has been a UK resident for nine years, working in software consultancy and education/training and has written various articles and short stories, published in the Rand Daily Mail and other newspapers in the 1980‘s in South Africa, where he lived up to 1993.