Peak Oil: The Limits of “Techno-Optimism”

This is the second part of an examination of the outstanding working paper entitled A Critique of Techno-Optimism: Efficiency without Sufficiency is Lost by Dr. Samuel Alexander * in which he examines the longstanding belief that no matter what society’s problems in an endless quest for more and better, technology will provide and resolve in due course.

Nice thought, isn’t it?

[The] ‘green growth’ approach, based on a profound faith in technological solutions, has come to define our times. Reducing overall population and consumption are notoriously difficult and unpopular policies, so the world shies away from them no matter how necessary they may be. But technology is there to save the day, at least in theory. While lip service is occasionally paid to the challenge of population, and while occasional comments are made regarding the importance of not over-consuming, the reality is that mainstream environmental discourse, especially in the political realm, has placed its faith, explicitly or implicitly, almost entirely in techno-fixes. That is, it is widely assumed that reducing environmental impact – reducing emissions, in particular – will be achieved not by reducing population or consumption, but by producing and consuming goods more efficiently. In this way, economies can still grow in terms of GDP, and affluence can be universalised, while environmental impact reduces. This, in essence, is the vision encapsulated within notions of ‘sustainable development’, ‘green growth’, and ‘ecological modernisation’. (links/citations in the original quote)

Seems fairly straightforward, right? What’s the problem?

Alexander’s response to that inquiry is also simple and straightforward:

… empirical support is lacking, which is a most inconvenient truth for those consciously or unconsciously committed to the ideology of growth.

This close to solving the problems associated with finite resources and limitations inherent in promoting endless growth using said finite resources! The last glimmer of hope Alexander extends is just as quickly snatched away:

There is, however, the theoretical possibility that in the future our economies are able to achieve sustainability by decoupling their economic activity from environmental impact, through efficiency gains. It is this seductive line of reasoning that now deserves deeper consideration. After all, the fact that technology and growth have not been able to produce a sustainable economy does not mean that it is not possible to do so in the future. As Nordhaus and Shellenberger (2011) argue, ‘The solution to the unintended consequences of modernity is, and always been, more modernity – just as the solution to the unintended consequences of our technologies has always been more technology.’ While this can be accepted as a theoretical possibility, there are dynamics at play – including the laws of physics – that suggest that decoupling through efficiency gains will not reduce the overall ecological impacts of economic activity if global growth remains the primary economic goal. (links/citations in the original quote)

That whole “law of physics” argument really sucks the life out of a good story….

As the report explores in great detail, one of the surely unintended consequences of increased efficiency is that it often leads to greater use of the very resources which efficiency gains are intended to reduce!

[E]fficiency improvements can provoke behavioural or economic responses (‘rebounds’) that end up reducing some of the anticipated benefits of the efficiency improvements. When those rebounds are significant enough they can even lead to increased resource or energy consumption, which is sometimes called ‘back-fire’ (or the Jevons Paradox **)….
[E]fficiency-promoting technologies often facilitate the consumption of more energy and resources even as energy and resource intensities reduce, as Jevons observed long ago.

If that theoretical assessment isn’t meaningful or convincing, Dr. Alexander offered up some sobering numbers-crunching to paint the picture of what we face in years to come:

Throughout much of the 20th century, developed economies achieved around 3% growth in GDP per annum, meaning that they doubled in size roughly every 23 years. This has become something of a reference point for signifying politico- economic ‘success’, so let us assume that when the United Nations talks of ‘growth’ it means continuing levels of growth that have been experienced in recent decades. Furthermore, for social justice reasons, let us assume that the aim of ‘development’ is ultimately to bring the poorest parts of the world up to the living standards enjoyed by the developed world….
Over seventy years, at 3% growth, the economies of the developed world (populated by roughly 1 billion people) would have doubled in size three times, meaning they would be eight times larger, in terms of GDP, than they are now. If we also assume that by 2080 the world population is going to be around 10 billion, and that this population has caught up to the living standards of the developed world by this stage, then the global economy would be around 80 times larger, in terms of GDP, than the size of the developed world’s aggregate economy today….
Who, then, could seriously think our planet could withstand the equivalent of an 80-fold increase? The very suggestion is absurd, and yet this very absurdity defines the vision of the global development agenda. It is the elephant in the room. (links/citations in the original quote)

That is one hell of an elephant, and in a very small room.

Opportunities beckon, as does (unfortunately for some) serious considerations about change. We have choices, but our clock is ticking….

I’ll have some final thoughts on this terrific report next week.

No postings on Monday. Enjoy the holiday weekend!

* Dr. Alexander is a lecturer with the Office for Environmental Programs at the University of Melbourne as well as co-director of the Simplicity Institute, among other professional endeavors.

** As Dr. Alexander explained: The Jevons Paradox acquires its name from the classical economist William Stanley Jevons, who was the first to formalise the idea that efficiency gains would not necessarily lead to a reduction in resource consumption, and could even lead to increased consumption.

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