Cut growth dash

With reference to Martin Francis' tongue-in-cheek observations in

(Talking Point, 16 July) regarding ways to dispose of his money, I suggest two more options.

He could give it to me — I promise to bury it.

Alternatively he could buy up large amounts of US housing stock, preferably large and remote and miles from anything useful, and watch his funds evaporate.

He would be doing the sellers a great favour, although he could not prevent them spending (maybe on more houses).

But on a more serious point regarding carbon reduction, limitations in the availability of resources, especially energy, will prevent the continued growth of the economy. And growth is essential for the maintenance of the current debt-based financial system.

I expect the world output of all sources of the world's energy to peak within the next couple of decades. If we 'bumble on' as Mr Francis suggests, as soon as investors cotton on to the concept of 'no profit', we will see financial collapse along with all the consequences that entails.

There are alternative money systems, however, which eliminate the need for continuous economic growth and consequently continued increased resource consumption. Daily currency would maintain its value, as would savings and inflation (tax), and interest would be eliminated.

Work would be created in response to need, not in response to greed. Things would be built to last and would be repaired, re-used and as a last resort recycled, (no waste), thereby minimising work.

Unfortunately, oil (for tractors) and gas (used in fertilisers) will be in short supply and expensive. consequently we are likely to be spending more time growing food manually.

But there are optimum ways to do this — run a search using the keywords 'permaculture', 'no-dig' and 'mixed complementary crops'.