The End of Growth
Several of us who have been watching the world oil production and depletion picture closely for the last few years are now concluding that the world has now seen the highest rate of production ever. Matt Simmons agrees: It’s all downhill from here.
The worldwide financial crisis, and the decline in available energy, mean that we may also have seen the final year of aggregate world economic growth.
This is a breathtaking statement. I found myself uttering it yesterday at a strategy meeting of some environmental and economic justice organizations organized by the International Forum on Globalization; I surprised even myself, and immediately began wondering whether what I had said could possibly by true.
There are obvious objections. Perhaps the wealthy nations could still wring out a few years of growth by increasing global economic inequality. But this is essentially what they did over the past two decades with the strategy of corporate globalization—and that strategy is losing steam because of high transport costs due to Peak Oil.
Perhaps economic growth could still be maintained by smoke and mirrors—in either a good or a bad way. All that would be necessary is a little fiddling with the definition of “growth.” Just look at how the US government has altered its way of defining “inflation” over the years by largely excluding energy and food prices: if the old rules were still in place, the country would be seeing double-digit inflation. The same has happened with “unemployment.” Why not “growth”?
On the other hand, growth really should be redefined. Many organizations have been pressuring governments and official agencies to measure growth not with GDP, but with a mixture of indicators related to public health, education, environmental integrity, and so on (the Genuine Progress Indicator is one suggested alternative scheme). If world governments decided to redefine growth this way, and then actually funded improvements in public services, perhaps growth could indeed continue.
A final objection has to do with regional impacts of the economic crisis. Some would argue that the growth momentum of China is such that it cannot be stopped immediately, and will therefore continue to contribute to overall global growth for the foreseeable future. Others might point out that the oil exporting nations are likely to continue experiencing high rates of growth as prices of fuel eventually resume their stratospheric climb. But will China or Saudi Arabia be able to offset the economic collapse of the US and Europe? And will China be immune for long?
The more I think about it, the more it seems to me that my blurted comment may be right. Growth is gone. Over. Kaput. Finished. Get used to it.
If so, there will be an ocean of consequences. For those in the tiny universe of environmental NGOs, one of the consequences is this: The time for arguing against economic growth may be over. Yes, everyone who understands our human impact on the environment, and the disastrous implications of our economic growth imperative, knows that it is absolutely essential that the world find an alternative to growth; that instead, the human economy must contract to a point that it no longer threatens the viability of ecosystems. This is the essence of sustainability.
But imagine yourself talking to someone who has just lost her job. You tell this person, “You need to voluntarily further reduce your income and standard of living.” How’s that likely to go over?
Effective strategy demands recognition of the opportunities and limits of the unique historical moment. It seems that we have just moved from one historic moment to a very different one. In this situation, it’s more helpful to tell people (including policy makers) how to effectively deal with their immediate problems in a way that is consistent with long-term sustainability. Anything else will be irrelevant at best, extremely unwelcome at worst.
Growth is dead. Let’s make the most of it. A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.
Image: (AFP: Scott Olson/Getty Images)
I personally agree to the author and I think that situation (End of growth) will have devastating effects on our social lives.
As the number of the people living on this planet increases in every tiny second, there must be a permanent growt to support these new comers with new job opportunities, more food, more social activities..etc
If there wont be economic growt anymore, the one and only alternative is WAR! I am almost sure that this economic crisis will lead the human race to a gigantic war. Most of us will lose our lives for nothing. This system (capitalism) will be fed by our blood and move on.
I see this situation like a person with an incurable disease. We know the disease but we are unable to find a cure. Enyoj your lives fellas, the "BIG DISASTER" is coming to your cinema soon.
The opposite of despair is hope.
For several decades the environmental movement has been perceived, fairly or not, as agents of despair. The message of environmentalists has been perceived as "Stop growing so much, stop consuming so much, stop wasting so much, or we are doomed". Taken to extremes by conservative minded folks this message is perceived as "hating everything that makes America great."
What better example of this dynamic then the so-called "malaise speech" given by president Jimmy Carter shortly before the 1980 elections, thrown into stark contrast by Ronald Reagans message of hope and optimism, that it was "Morning in America". Guess who won by a landslide.
How then to convey a message of hope - not a false, hollow hope - but a message of genuine optimism? Even as the global ecological crisis intensifies and the mostly hallucinated paper wealth of the worlds financial markets evaporates in the face of relentlessly declining physical wealth, is it possible to craft a message of inspiration?
One possibility is to challenge people to imagine a better future.
Sound pointless? After all, what good is a fantasy world in the face of such a grim reality?
First, any good negotiator will tell you that the most critical step in resolving any conflict is to find common ground. If two sides can find a common goal, no matter how small, it immediately establishes a dynamic of "we both want the same thing" which serves as a solid foundation upon which further progress can by built.
If you sit an environmentalist and a conservative down and ask them what they really want, not just for themselves, but for their families and for future generations, I have no doubt the answers will be roughly the same: peace and prosperity.
Second, fort the first time in human history we have the tools, in the form of computers and software, to build complex models of how the world actually works and to simulate those models over time. One of the first attempts at this was the now infamous book Limits To Growth, widely discredited when it was first published 30 years ago, but now slowly being recognized as prescient.
Put these two factors together and you arrive at an exciting new possibility: Challenge people to imagine the best possible future - given our current resources and realities - and then put in their hands the tools they need to figure out exactly how we get from here to there.
A computer simulation of the world presented in a fun and intuitive game like format would serve as the ultimate message of optimism, as an inspiration to unite people all over the world in the common goal of building a better world, a world that actually works not just for themselves and their families but also for future generations, and as a toolbox to get people's creative juices flowing and figure out exactly what we have to do to get from here to there.
Cheers,
Jerry
The end of economic growth can likely have several positive effects - including the beginning of "real growth". That is, growth based on biological systems. To rise above this challenge, Americans, Europeans and others who are hardest hit by the economic challenges ahead of us should take heed and plant "victory gardens". The victory could be over the domination of the oil-based food economy - a shift from the global back to the local. A mind shift away from thinking of food as a commodity to thinking of food as a basic building block of life - something to engage in - a symbiotic relationship between human beings and the plants that nourish us, that we should be caring for.
I see Peak Oil not so much as a crisis, but as an opportunity. For far too long humankind has been steadily depleting this planet of its reserves. Now it is time to start living within our means. This can include using only the energy that we are creating - whether through solar, wind, bicycle, or other forms of locally produced energy. Additionally, why not start growing and gathering our food and water locally? It may seem unrealistic, perhaps idealistic, but it can also be incredibly satisfying, and a great way to get involved with our community. For those of us who have been longing for an alternative paradigm to emerge - perhaps it is our time to rise up and usher in the new era. For inspiration and ideas, visit http://www.pathtofreedom.com.
This crisis, wich might turn out to be the largest and darkest crisis faced by humanity can be seen as an opportunity to find a better foundation for our existance.
We who have experienced the upsides of growth have been living breathing and loving consumerism ignoring the damages it has done to the ecosystem and to the less fortunate around the world.
Now it could turn out that we are all about to become less fortunate togeather. The hope would be that instead of turning the frustration into anger and even large scale wars it will be turned into creativity and consern for not just your close relative but for all your neighbours around the globe.
I disagree that growth in principle is likely to be over. I do see a severe economic depression ahead and it might be harder to work ourselves out of it now that we have no abundance of oil. But in the fact that oil is not as easilly available as in earlier financial crisis lies a huge opportunity to focus our attention on other sources of energy.
I belive this crisis will give birth to the greates global endevour ever. To convert our fossile and non renewable energy sector into one that is entire renewable and sustainable. It might take 20 or 30 years to reach energy levels as we have today. But if becomes a number one priority we might get there even sooner.. Think of the moon program or the manhattan program.
I read some time back that there already existed solar energy systems that were competitive with oil if buildt on a MASSIVE scale in sunny deserts.
The irony of this possible renewable revolution is that we can get back to our current energy level but at perhaps 1-2% of CO2 emmisions... But also with the sunlight being so much more abundant than oil we might be able to grow our material economies much larger than they are today, impacting the environment and the ecosystem in even more devestating ways than we currently do. I do know there are very real physical limits to growth but innovative technology have many times surpriced the ecologists with how much more materialgrowth it is possible to sqeeze out of our small planet.
So I think its both overly pessimistic that growth would probably end, but I think one must be careful about the ecological and human impact of my suggested cleantech bounceback into the growth paradigm.
There will be pain in all change. The party may be over, if not now shortly.
What are we really losing. The richness we think we experience now is a function of essentially corporate values advertised into our heads.Is my kayak trip on the Delaware River into a large fresh water tidal area any less rich than a cruise in the open ocean? Is my casual 8 mile bike ride to work on a county road any less an experience than driving the Beamer on route 1 to Princeton in work hour traffic? Are the eggs my 8 Barred Rock Chickens lay any less than the pale yellow yoked ones we buy at the Acme. Are the Tomatoes,Squash,green Beens and other vegetables grown in our gardens less tasty than the store purchased variety.
Will the heat generated by solar panels and geothermal systems be any less warm than the heat from fossil fuel? Will the electric generated by ocean and mountain fixed wind mills, tidal generated turbines, and bio fuels have less amperage per watt? Will we have to stop breeding like rats? I hope so. Will driving my car 2,000 miles a year instead of 14,000 a year cause injury to my ego? Will looking at the Mennonites and Pennsylvania Dutch life styles be such a crime. I do not think we will lose sex,wine,rocken roll ,sports,horse and car racing all the truly religious things we worship. But we need to get off our asses or we are going to hurt coming off this addiction we have become used to.
Has not "growth" been a somewhat hazy concept anyway, at least over, say the last half century?
What kind of growth? For whom? Who has benefited?
I live in the United Kingdom, and our politicians have for decades - perhaps forever? - been lauding themselves as the creators of the great god GROWTH. But what has been the reality?
The big change was the industrial revolution, founded on fossil fuels. The capitalists from that time on promoted the "trickle down" thesis, and still do. Everybody gets better off if you let a tiny minority get obscenely rich. But it doesn't work does it?
The current troubles in the finance industry prove that. The riches created by the industrial revolution stayed in the hands of the few.
What happened, around the turn of the 19th/20th Century was the development of movement amongst those lower down the riches list which was finally effective at re-distributing the profits derived from the burgeoning energy expenditures. It was only then that proper growth occurred - better education, better healthcare, better living conditions.
Admittedly the Victorians had done something worthwhile with the proceeds, railways and sewers being two real winners. But what have we done with the proceeds since? Wiis. Stupidly expensive cars to prop up our wilting self esteem. Polythene bags. Globalisation for Heaven's sake. And everything on credit because WE DESERVE IT.
All that has proved to be selfish. The riches stayed in the West, we didn't share it.
The Trades Unions got like the capitalists - I well remember the disgust of my father, a trade union representative, at the way, during the Thatcher era that the trade unions worked to represent their membership, and only their membership. If you lost your job and were no longer a member, you were not longer their responsibility. So they dwindled to nothing, because they ended up with nothing to defend. They had come into being because they defended everybody, but they gradually got more selfish.
Richard's thoughts on growth (para 6) illustrate this perfectly. Some economies will grow, for a short while, and while they do they will waste the opportunities (look at Dubai, it's disgraceful), while it looks like it's our turn to get poor again.
In the end of course growth HAS to end, Meadows, Randers and Meadows made that clear at the beginning of the 1970's. The idea that wind turbines and algae will facilitate "business as usual" is just yet more political spin.
My world has gone mad, or perhaps it always was. I am surrounded by well meaning folk who actually believe in the politically driven "Man-made Global Warming" nonsense which, surprise surprise, is making a very small minority of people rich at the expense of the rest. Have we been here before?
so co2 not a greenhouse gas, and we are not depositing 25 gigatons of the stuff into the air every year.
yes, yes. that is not physics, those are not facts, it's all just politically-driven propaganda.
Maybe we can eliminate the reason we have so much waste in our society now.
We have become a throw away society because we have to continuously generate capitol to pay the interest on our debts. The basic commodities we "need" to sustain ourselves do not cover the costs to pay back the interest on the debts we create. Therefore we have to throw away massive amounts of material goods and services, far more than we can ever use, to make way for more interest generated debt repayment in the future. This also includes interest money destroyed with the advertising, distribution, payment system overhead, storage and destruction costs of the throw away items and services.
If we can eliminate interest debt we can get control of our environmental problems.
Thanks for the article Richard.
Hubbert had an idea for a steady state economy, google it.
For candidate Ronald Reagan, it was "Morning in America".
Well, the sun rose a week ago and we find it is "socialism in America".
For an admitted progressive liberal, I welcome more and hopefully more resourceful government into my family's life. We know the penalty of trusting that hedge fund with our earnings. Now, we are putting our faith in the Federal Reserve to bail out our and the global economy. Look around at the imploding institutions and nation-governments looking to government-funded rescues.
So, lets get used to the future of depending upon each other's wealth to get us through this rough and likely extensive global economic contraction. If the private sector is not willing to lend to its private sector brethren because there is no confidence the borrower will survive, it is time to abandon that ship and climb aboard a ship of state.
Lets take this new (revised) state of affairs a long leap forward into US and OECD energy policy and eventually into global energy policy. Exit the private sector. Enter the public sector.
Wind farms and planned wind farms need access to the large urban electricity markets and that requires thousands of miles of expensive transmission lines. US utility dereg has put those investments into the hands of private power line companies who profit from less wire because that causes power transmission congestion at certain times and in certain areas of the country so they can charge more to power suppliers with excess power to sell a high demand customer. Why do we not put an end to this predatory line-lending practice by nationalizing the nation's three un connected grids, Eastern, Western and Texas into one Interstate wire system just like we did for the interstate highways.
Too much to swallow in one bite? I agree. Huge costs for taxpayers to buy up the privately held transmission wires and towers. Lets put this idea into overdrive and suggest we simply expropriate those wires for the public good. The owners can write off their losses in tax breaks over time. The State and federal governments (we, the people) enjoy condemnation rights of private property when we deem the owner is holding out for an extortionist selling price. But, the public needs that land and we will not be denied when it is in our collective interest.
Getting control of the wires, we, the people can now use our tax dollars to build what a shaky capitalist system of investors are not willing to do; we can build the wind and solar farms to get that likely 20% max of non-CO2 emitting new power into the grid and start to replace aging and dirty fossil fueled capacity with cleaner, more efficient generating capacity (including next generation nuclear reactors) to assure reliable power in a growing renewable power future.
Does that sound too radical? Ever heard of TVA?
I can stop here and let you add some ideas about getting back control of our energy future by owning it through our tax dollar purchases.
Then, lets get on with propping up the UN system to expand our future think into the global community.
John McCormick
The end of growth article is the most confused piece of navel gazing I have read on peak oil/economics.
"On the other hand, growth really should be redefined. Many organizations have been pressuring governments and official agencies to measure growth not with GDP, but with a mixture of indicators related to public health, education, environmental integrity, and so on (the Genuine Progress Indicator is one suggested alternative scheme). If world governments decided to redefine growth this way, and then actually funded improvements in public services, perhaps growth could indeed continue."
Well exactly, if you change your definition of what growth is you are going to get a very different answer every time. And definite it you have not. And what is growth? In simple terms its the opposite of entropy. It's life on earth. Obviously the rapid decline of a much relied upon source of energy is going to have a very destabilising effect, short term and generations into the future (on humans).
But even economic growth is not solely dependant on raw energy inputs. There are myriad other inputs (weather, usually called an externally being another!). Knowledge and moral conduct (ethics) are two more very important influences on economic growth. Just look a the effect of mobile phone technology in India where most people have unreliable power and water yet now everybody can communicate over long distances with very low per head costs (shows how we are paying through the nose in AUstralia).
As Bucky Fuller said (and he was right 95% of the time) it's metaphysics that's the capital of today not who owns what lumps of rocks.
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