Green Growth or No Growth: Charting a sustainable economic future

EMJ · Post by **EMJ** » Sun Jan 30, 2011 6:08 pm

"We face serious environmental and economic challenges. People are looking for answers in a green economic future.
Can the Earth support an ever-growing economy? Can we shift to ‘green growth’ for a healthier environment and economy? What would it look like?
Four of the world’s top economic experts debate one of the critical questions of our time. CBC Radio's Paul Kennedy, host of Ideas, moderated a live debate at the University of Ottawa on January 20th, 2011.
CBC Radio One will broadcast the episode on February 2, 2011 at 9:00 pm (CBC Ideas airs at 9 pm across Canada). A podcast of the episode will be available February 28th, 2011 on the Ideas website."

http://www.sustainableprosperity.ca/debate

AlexOliver · Post by **AlexOliver** » Sun Jan 30, 2011 9:19 pm

"Can the Earth support an ever-growing economy? Can we shift to ‘green growth’ for a healthier environment and economy?"
No.

Post by **jacob** » Sun Jan 30, 2011 9:45 pm

Yes.
But not by the minds who created the industrial economy, where "green" means slapping a sticker on the newest CPU and markets it as 10% more efficient even as it uses twice as much power.
I alluded to the way forward in chapter 7. We need to complete the cycle and get away from the producer-consumer to a producer-consumer-decomposer-abiotic cycle. Such a cycle can run efficiently and wealth (complexity, efficiency) can be created. The biggest problem to solve is how to turn consumed objects into something that can be produced again.
From my work with the sustainability nonprofit shows that "official channels" are FAR away from understanding this. I think initial initiatives are far more beneficial. I think that the founders of permaculture have gone further in the right direction than Toyota with its Prius---in fact the Prius accurately illustrates the problem with "green".

sky · Post by **sky** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 1:03 am

Eliminating waste (on many levels) will not grow the economy but will reduce costs without reducing quality of life. If you measure the economy by GDP, it looks bad. If you look at it from the perspective of someone investing in something to get a cost reduction and long term payback, it makes sense.

Post by **jacob** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 1:29 am

Money could be made be recycling. There's tremendous GDP growth available simply in accounting for the cost of nature. I think of money simply as a way to measure and decide who gets what. Currently, natural resources are considered free at the source. Cutting down a tree isn't registered economically until it's sold as furniture. If it was registered at the cutting, you could add to the GDP right there.
The big failure or shortcoming of modern economics is in not accounting for the loss of free services from nature as we turn it into hamburgers and napkins.

EMJ · Post by **EMJ** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 3:01 am

And in the long run? Is a "green economic future" only delaying the inevitable decline of resources?

Post by **jacob** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 3:04 am

It depends on how you define green.

Surio · Post by **Surio** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 4:47 am

OK, I'll bite (or is it bait?

)!

Jacob, How does one define an appropriate shade of "green"?

Post by **jacob** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 5:43 am

There's no bait. It's just the the words "green" and "sustainable" are used in so many different ways that they are practically meaningless.

EMJ · Post by **EMJ** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 6:07 am

Limits to an ever-growing economy:
Say there is a lack of x natural resource (oil, water, lithium, energy - pick anything) which is limiting growth/economy. A new technology is developed that makes x redundant or uses x much more efficiently.
If water is limiting agriculture, access to unlimited water would allow farming to take place in many more areas. But then fertilizers or poor soil quality limits growth.
Can anyone give an example of a lasting, ever-growing economy?

Post by **jacob** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 6:17 am

@EMJ - Nature itself did fine for almost 4 billion years before humans came along. There's an example of a lasting and ever-growing (depending on how you define growth) economy.
I guess what I'm hoping for is for the "economy" to recognize the "ecology". Then all will be well; if it's not too late of course.

Currently, the "economy" uses ecological solutions with "zeroes" and "infinities" thrown in as assumptions. These assumptions are now wrong. The symptoms are species extinction, climate change, peak oil, peak everything, etc.

Surio · Post by **Surio** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 6:20 am

Short answer EMJ,

Those that could give you a solid, well-informed answer of a lasting, ever-growing economy are all busy posting in other forums

. Only Malthusian (that term has been badly used, Read Kunstler for more..), curmugudgeonly gits(*) are logged here....
(*) AKA Jacob's disciples/fanboys as one Mr. Rufousdog derisively put it here in the forum once.

Surio · Post by **Surio** » Mon Jan 31, 2011 7:21 am

Jacob said:

> I guess what I'm hoping for is for the "economy" to

> recognize the "ecology". Then all will be well;

> if it's not too late of course.
Hope Springs Eternal indeed!

frankwolf · Post by **frankwolf** » Mon Apr 02, 2012 10:02 am

Although this topic is a year old, I would like to add a comment. I think a problem that occurs often in discussion like this one is that there are two types of growth mixed up.
Growth in terms of the 4 billion yrs old ecology is not the same growth as we still perceive it and consider it normal throughout the world.

The ever-looping changes that occur over the course of the yr are some kind of steady-state growth: there is no growth inasmuch as the boundaries of the planet are overgrown but there is growth insofar as we have new stuff in spring (growth) after stuff decayed in winter (this of cause only applies in this way in areas where winters and springs occur, in the tropics no such distinct time-shifted decay-growth cycles occur between the dry and rain seasons - but the principle holds anyway).
I think in terms of economics it is often talked (or at least thought) about absolute growth: Boulder is going to approach LAs size in X years (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFyOw9IgtjY) whereas nature resides within its boundaries.
So a growing population insofar as its number of people stays constant - yes (at the moments number better: maybe) - but a growth insofar as the absolute number steadily rises - no.

Or: Usage of wood of forests that yield a 3-4% surplus of wood every year and regarding that as growth (or income/interest, while the forest is regarded as capital) - yes. But cutting whole forests and regarding that as economic growth (or income) - which is surely unsustainable - no.
Important: Decaying and growing within the limits of a system can certainly lead to new things (a.k.a. innovations(*)) - which is the most often heard objection when discussions come to the point if everlasting growth (in terms of absolute growth as outlined above) is a good thing or not.
I think there is a good lot of contemplation needed on what real innovation means. At least in my eyes it is no innovation to solve 'exciting engineering challenges' in exploiting liquid natural gas resource as they have become the next easiest resource to exploit after the dawn on easy to extract oil has begun as long people did not realize that the excessive usage of such fossil fuels on intercontinental flights and comparable hogwash wasn't a good idea in the first place.

I agree with Jacobs statement that we need more cradle-to-cradle like production systems - whereby I have serious doubts about a lot of materials that we use - e.g. metal-alloys whose decomposition would be a hell of a task.

Tungsten-steal alloys and many composite materials (like concrete, diverse semiconductor materials, fiberglass reinforced plastics and so forth) - to name just a few - are not really recyclable.