Growing Pains

Goosing growth is the only way out of this mess.

…Lester Brown, founder and chief visionary of the Earth Policy Institute, goes Krugman one better. In an article in Scientific American, Brown raised the specter of food shortages that destroy civilization. Rising populations and rising incomes, he warned, mean rising food prices, falling water tables, and eroding soils. Rising temperatures compound the problem, he added.

“The world is in a race between political tipping points and natural ones,” Brown announced. “Can we close coal-fired power plants fast enough to prevent the Greenland ice sheet from slipping into the sea and inundating our coastlines?”

Beyond the apocalyptic rhetoric, there is an economic truth: China’s use of coal, particularly to generate electricity, is very inefficient. The country produces half as much as the U.S. and generates more carbon dioxide in the process. But this is also an opportunity: Chinese prospects for sustainable economic growth include more efficient use of energy and labor. India, Vietnam, Indonesia and other developing countries also can meet the challenge of energy efficiency as well as or better than the U.S. (which itself is 50% behind the world’s leader in energy efficiency, Japan).

Growing Up Faster

The idea that America can grow at 8% a year is not usually open for discussion. The U.S. is already the world’s richest nation. It has an economy twice as big as China’s, and its per-capita GDP is 10 times greater than China’s. The U.S. is criticized around the world for sucking up resources, not praised for creating them.

Imagine what Krugman and Brown and their ilk would think of a restarted American economic engine, growing at 8% a year by the application of some unexpected technological advance, such as fusion energy, highly efficient batteries, or widespread biotechnology. They would see it as disaster.

Barrons