Article written by Chris Seto, Guelph Mercury

Everyone loves a good debate.

But while much of the country kept their eyes locked on the battle between democrat and republican south of the border, a group of 450 people decided to focus instead on the match up between economist and ecologist, here in Guelph.

Yet, although their backgrounds and ways of thinking may be at odds with one another, former bank economist Jeff Rubin and renown environmentalist David Suzuki have come to the same conclusion — the constant push for economic growth at the cost of the health of the environment cannot continue.

Moderated by Evan Fraser, an associate professor of geography at the University of Guelph, the two experts in their own respected fields teamed up to discuss the relationship between the economy and the environment in front of a sold-out crowd at Lakeside Hope House on Tuesday evening as part of their national tour called The End of Growth.

Rubin argues the economy walks hand-in-hand with the price of oil — it relies on cheap oil in order to keep growing.

“Feed it cheap oil, and it runs like a charm. But ration in expensive fuel and the engine of growth seizes up, literally, overnight,” he said.

The economic growth over the last 40 years cannot be sustained because the cost of this finite resource is getting more and more costly to extract — both in a financial sense and in an environmental sense.

“The cost of the fuel that our economy runs on is no longer within our economy’s reach.”

Suzuki also took aim at the constant need for economic growth, but from a different angle. He said humans are animals and must first take care of the natural world we live in.

“We live in a world that is shaped and constrained by the laws of nature,” he said. “But what we’re trying to do is shoehorn nature into our agenda.”

The speakers then took questions from members of the audience who lined up halfway down the aisle of the church.

When asked about their thoughts on the future, Suzuki said there would likely need to be a massive die-off in the human population for us to live within our means.

Rubin agreed that the population is becoming too large. To address this issue, and avoid having population growth outpace agricultural production, he called for “the political and economic emancipation of women.”

Following the event, 15-year-old Emily Power and 16-year-old Shahrzad Gharabaghi waited in line to have a book signed by Suzuki.

“The whole ‘mass die-off’ thing was a bit disconcerting,” said Power. “But it was not all doom and gloom.”

The two students said they grew up looking up to Suzuki and were thrilled to see him on stage with someone so opposite from him, and yet, tell the same story. They said it was inspiring.

The presentation was part of the Café Philosophique series, put on by The Bookshelf and the College of Arts at the University of Guelph.

Their next event will be held at the end of November when they host Neil Turok, director of the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics, as part of the 2012 CBC Massey Lectures.