One of the most common obsessions almost all political leaders is to increase the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which are registered increasingly higher rates of economic growth. But using GDP to measure the growth of our economies can provide only a very rough measure of what actually is growing and how it affects us all. The human being has to do not only with what they have monetary value but with things like safety or material or spiritual satisfaction, happiness, which today are not counted in GDP. The GDP growth shown is fictitious, it does not reflect the costs, whether or not monetary, are clearly related to economic activity. Does not tell us anything about how to spread as it is growing. The economy can divinely go but really only do well or even better a few, as has been happening in recent years of large increases in inequality. Filed under: PCRM. "In the years of economic crisis or, in other words, recession, when unemployment rises, mortality tends to decrease more quickly, "says Professor Joseph A. Spanish Tapia.

And, in turn, years of strong economic growth, which reduces unemployment, are associated with increased mortality. The perversity of the idea of economic growth measured by GDP only shown clearly when the activity that is generated is as messy and irrational as the construction and urbanism that predominate today. Some researchers, such as WM Hern, have compared the cancer spots left on the scanner and the mapping of land occupation. It is amazing to confirm that the processes of urban growth that we are seeing around us actually have the same characteristics of cancer diseases: rapid and uncontrolled growth, differentiation of malignant cells, metastasis in different sites and invade and destroy adjacent tissues. What happens is that foster a kind of economic activity that is predatory and fatal to our whole ecosystem. The human being has emerged as the apex of the pyramid of global predation. When making master plans, and in general when establishing the forecast of growth of economic activity, not taken into account the volume of waste to be generated, or consumption of energy or materials needed to carry it out. Cement populate our lands and coasts, natural channels walled, air and poisoned water, consume without replenishment ancestral deforested without limit or simply exhaust the conditions that are essential to human life and we have nothing of it into account when displaying the cost activity being carried out.

All that matters is to increase the monetary value of what we do and we think that means that everything is smooth sailing. When institutions, social leaders, those responsible for justice and the citizens themselves take unblinking it is desirable to grow in any way, one can then wonder around us multiply the uncertainty, anxiety and fear. Today should be no doubt that the problem of economic growth lies in its intrinsic nature. Not so, neither the pace so far to halt social progress and life on this planet. The enemy is our own growth and therefore must be conscientious objectors. It is essential to the complaint, the clearest manifestation of the problems. The growth of our civilization is irrational results 'uncomfortable', as shown in Al Gore's film, but what matters is that it causes and has purposes and, especially, is very direct responsibility. All this must be put on the table because if not, can impact but will not be able to determine in what other direction should guide social and economic life of this planet wounded. Juan Torres Lopez Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Malaga