Current discussions about "ethical advertising" will, hopefully in the not too distant future, be seen in the same light as discussions in the 18th Century about "ethical slavery" are now. (Ad men are human, too, 11 February 2003).

A slave owner who treated his slaves well was certainly better than one who didn't, and in the same way today, an advertising agency which applies moral criteria to what products it will help promote is better than one which doesn't. Although, of course, "how much better" depends on what its moral criteria are and how strictly it applies them.

Unlike slavery, not ALL advertising is bad. However - and this is the point I wish to make - most advertising (at least 95 percent of it) is.

I'm not suggesting that it should be done away with completely - just the immoral 95 plus percent!

I'm joking, of course, just as Aristarchus  and Copernicus were when they suggested that Earth is a "wandering star" which orbits the Sun and turns on its axis, rather than being stationary at the centre of the universe . . .

It may seem like a crazy idea at first, but after a bit of consideration you will find that it starts to make more than just a little sense.

Advertising is a major component and pillar of our economy, which depends on it as a means of maintaining and creating consumer demand, as well as being the major source of finance for the media.

Advertising developed as a natural and necessary part of our market economy, but because of the huge (exponential) increase in the scale of economic activity which has occurred, and is continuing apace, it is now a major obstacle to us achieving sustainability on our planet, Spaceship Earth, with its limited resources, finite carrying capacity and a human population soaring towards 8 - 10 billion.

While achieving sustainability demands that we restrict, for example, individual motorisation and mass air travel (since any attempt to attain the levels already current in the West globally would be quite unsustainable and catastrophic), the advertising industry, and the economy it serves, demand that we do just that.

The untenability - indeed, the insanity - of this situation has yet to be faced up to, with most people, economists and politicians foremost amongst them, still being in a state of denial, because they see no alternative to things continuing more-or-less as they are at present. Only things cannot continue as they are - at least, not for much longer.

We are not just caught between a rock and a hard place, they are closing in on us, and we have to get out from between them before being crushed.

If we continue to compromise the demands of sustainability it will be at our peril. It is our economy and lifestyles we must change (along with the values, attitudes and aspirations upon which they are based and on which they depend).

What to do?

No ONE can change the world, because what each of us does is just a proverbial drop in the ocean. But when enough drops come together . . . .