The Rev Roland Barnes of Blaenau Ffestiniog makes some interesting points in a recent letter to the Cambrian News. He writes, “When are we going to realise that happiness/wellbeing is not related to material wealth?” He argues further on in his letter that, “all governments and political parties” have growth as their mantra and that this is unsustainable. I totally agree with him. It’s the reason I joined the Green Party in 1989. That party spoke about the limits to growth.

When I was in my final year of secondary school, we had a visit from a scientist who came to talk to us about the work done for ‘The Club of Rome’. The report written for them was called ‘The Limits to Growth’. The subtitle is interesting. ‘Project on the Predicament of Mankind’. That was 1972. The researchers who worked on this report came from across the globe and contributed to areas such as pollution, agriculture, population and resources. These well-educated scientists, economists and humanists had one purpose, “to foster understanding of the varied but interdependent components – economic, political, natural, and social – that make up the global system in which we all live.”

One reason this highly influential book caused a critical storm is their discussion on how to keep the world population from growing. Most people were living longer due to better sanitation, housing and healthcare. In 1972, when all the warnings of collapsing ecosystems were sounded, the world population stood at less than 4 billion. In 2026 it’s more than 8 billion.

The warnings and predictions are sadly proving to be correct. Double the population and consumption levels far higher than in 1972, but our planet is still the same size. Economic growth, the human species having more and more, it’s the elephant in the room. Every generation wants their offspring to have a bigger house, a larger car, more holidays and more exotic holidays to boot, faster food and better healthcare. Economic growth is seen as the magic bullet that will get us out of every hole we’ve created. But where do the riches come from?

School children on strike a few years ago had placards stating, ‘There is NO Planet B’. Exactly! All we consume ultimately comes from our one and only planet Earth. Projections are that population levels will peak around 10 billion in a few decades. If we all consume at the rate of average UK per capita consumption, we’ll see far greater declines in our natural habitats that support us. And I don’t think that technologies will bail us out. The predictions made in 1972 are scarily real.

Wealthier countries currently have declining populations, creating short-term problems with too many older people needing to be supported by too few younger ones. One way of dealing with this is by importing labour from abroad. Gwynedd’s Meddyg Care director Kevin Edwards has to source staff mainly from the Philippines. And he’s still short-staffed. Immigration’s seen by many people as an awful thing, yet by others as the solution to the lack of carers. But what about the effect on the people of the Philippines?

I wish to address the other main point that the Rev Barnes made. Does all this consumption actually make people happy? Most economists and political parties think that the economic growth index is a good measure but they’re only measuring the amounts of goods and services consumed, useful ones and awful ones alike, such as pollution clear-ups and war. This measure clearly doesn’t indicate happiness. Never before do we have so many unhappy people, people suffering depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses, especially young people. People are running around like blue-arsed flies, working to run a car, needing a car to get to work, some have three jobs, others can’t find work at all, parents with no time for their children, people addicted to their mobile phones, one in five kids in schools have some sort of special needs, the waiting lists for health services are enormous, people can’t afford a home of their own, others own two or even three. What a crazy society we live in! And that is here in the 6th largest economy of the world. Is there a level of consumption that is enough? And how about tackling the obscene inequalities?

New Zealand’s former Prime Minister, Jacinda Ardern, created a wellbeing index besides the growth one. Can we look to new Senedd Members to offer us something similar? I have written a list of what makes me happy at this time of year: hearing the birds sing at dawn; seeing the first daffodils open; watching happy children’s faces in their St David’s Day outfits; the scent of hyacinths in a vase; feeling the earth between my fingers as I plant new plants; spotting seeds sprout; the taste of wild garlic. Have a go, write your own.