Should Scientists Embrace Economic Growth?

The assumption of continuous economic growth lurks behind most scientific endeavors. Should scientists embrace this growth which is often presented as a panacea for the relief of poverty, the stability of society and even the improvement of the environment? Or is unbridled growth increasingly undermining these important aims?

Many scientists find their work financed by corporations, governments, and even nonprofits whose orientation by default favors continued economic growth. For corporations growing markets mean more profit. For governments growing economies mean more prosperity for those who elect them and the ability to sidestep the tricky issue of redistributing wealth, an issue that would almost surely be front and center in a no-growth economy. For nonprofits world economic growth is seen as a way to lift the poor from their misery through increasing economic opportunity.


Does any of this pose a problem? “No” might be the answer were it not for several inconvenient trends in the global environment that are the direct result of unbridled economic growth. Global warming is perhaps the most visible, but other trends include energy depletion, soil erosion, water depletion, fisheries collapse, deforestation and rapid species loss. And, of course, all of these are correlated to population growth.

Perhaps the most cogent spokesperson in favor of continued economic growth is Bjorn Lomborg, the self-styled “skeptical environmentalist” and Danish political scientist. In a recent interview on The News Hour with Jim Lehrer Lomborg explained his view that global growth would inevitably provide the increased wealth and new technologies needed to deal with the myriad environmental challenges we face.

This begs two questions: 1) On what is growth based and 2) can technology really address disruptions in complex natural systems? Growth, of course, is based on access to increasing inputs from the very natural systems which are now in decline. Lomborg seems to embrace the economist’s view that natural systems can provide whatever the economy needs for its growth. An ecological economist would see it differently noting that all of society is dependent on agriculture, forestry, fisheries, and mines for food, fiber, minerals, and especially energy. If these foundations are being perpetually degraded and undermined, say, by climate change, water shortages and depletion, all the other wealth-creating and technology-creating parts of society will have increasing difficulty functioning.

Scitizen