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Page added on September 16, 2018
Why Growth Can’t Be Green
Warnings about ecological breakdown have become ubiquitous. Over the past few years, major newspapers, including the Guardian and the New York Times, have carried alarming stories on soil depletion, deforestation, and the collapse of fish stocks and insect populations. These crises are being driven by global economic growth, and its accompanying consumption, which is destroying the Earth’s biosphere and blowing past key planetary boundaries that scientists say must be respected to avoid triggering collapse.
Many policymakers have responded by pushing for what has come to be called “green growth.” All we need to do, they argue, is invest in more efficient technology and introduce the right incentives, and we’ll be able to keep growing while simultaneously reducing our impact on the natural world, which is already at an unsustainable level. In technical terms, the goal is to achieve “absolute decoupling” of GDP from the total use of natural resources, according to the U.N. definition.
It sounds like an elegant solution to an otherwise catastrophic problem. There’s just one hitch: New evidence suggests that green growth isn’t the panacea everyone has been hoping for. In fact, it isn’t even possible.
New evidence suggests that green growth isn’t the panacea everyone has been hoping for. In fact, it isn’t even possible.
Green growth first became a buzz phrase in 2012 at the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development in Rio de Janeiro. In the run-up to the conference, the World Bank, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, and the U.N. Environment Program all produced reports promoting green growth. Today, it is a core plank of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals.
But the promise of green growth turns out to have been based more on wishful thinking than on evidence. In the years since the Rio conference, three major empirical studies have arrived at the same rather troubling conclusion: Even under the best conditions, absolute decoupling of GDP from resource use is not possible on a global scale.
A team of scientists led by the German researcher Monika Dittrich first raised doubts in 2012. The group ran a sophisticated computer model that predicted what would happen to global resource use if economic growth continued on its current trajectory, increasing at about 2 to 3 percent per year. It found that human consumption of natural resources (including fish, livestock, forests, metals, minerals, and fossil fuels) would rise from 70 billion metric tons per year in 2012 to 180 billion metric tons per year by 2050. For reference, a sustainable level of resource use is about 50 billion metric tons per year—a boundary we breached back in 2000.
The team then reran the model to see what would happen if every nation on Earth immediately adopted best practice in efficient resource use (an extremely optimistic assumption). The results improved; resource consumption would hit only 93 billion metric tons by 2050. But that is still a lot more than we’re consuming today. Burning through all those resources could hardly be described as absolute decoupling or green growth.
In 2016, a second team of scientists tested a different premise: one in which the world’s nations all agreed to go above and beyond existing best practice. In their best-case scenario, the researchers assumed a tax that would raise the global price of carbon from $50 to $236 per metric ton and imagined technological innovations that would double the efficiency with which we use resources. The results were almost exactly the same as in Dittrich’s study. Under these conditions, if the global economy kept growing by 3 percent each year, we’d still hit about 95 billion metric tons of resource use by 2050. Bottom line: no absolute decoupling.
Finally, last year the U.N. Environment Program—once one of the main cheerleaders of green growth theory—weighed in on the debate. It tested a scenario with carbon priced at a whopping $573 per metric ton, slapped on a resource extraction tax, and assumed rapid technological innovation spurred by strong government support. The result? We hit 132 billion metric tons by 2050. This finding is worse than those of the two previous studies because the researchers accounted for the “rebound effect,” whereby improvements in resource efficiency drive down prices and cause demand to rise—thus canceling out some of the gains.
Study after study shows the same thing. Scientists are beginning to realize that there are physical limits to how efficiently we can use resources. Sure, we might be able to produce cars and iPhones and skyscrapers more efficiently, but we can’t produce them out of thin air. We might shift the economy to services such as education and yoga, but even universities and workout studios require material inputs.
We might shift the economy to services such as education and yoga, but even universities and workout studios require material inputs.
Once we reach the limits of efficiency, pursuing any degree of economic growth drives resource use back up.
These problems throw the entire concept of green growth into doubt and necessitate some radical rethinking. Remember that each of the three studies used highly optimistic assumptions. We are nowhere near imposing a global carbon tax today, much less one of nearly $600 per metric ton, and resource efficiency is currently getting worse, not better. Yet the studies suggest that even if we do everything right, decoupling economic growth with resource use will remain elusive and our environmental problems will continue to worsen.
11 Comments on "Why Growth Can’t Be Green"
onlooker on Sun, 16th Sep 2018 6:05 pm
Green growth is an Oxymoron
Theedrich on Mon, 17th Sep 2018 3:38 am
Note Nature’s pre-programmed limits to growth: resource exhaustion, aquifer depletion, air and water pollution, climate worsening (which includes more and ever greater storms), exploding male infertility due to plastics (cf. https://www.gq.com/story/sperm-count-zero), vaccine-resistant diseases, extinction of higher wild animals, desertification and deterioration of arable land, and so forth.
But the insensate demand for a “better life” and “equality” drives the world to ignore and exceed those limits. For the psychotic Left in the West, nothing is worse than White “racism,” which must be countered by importing ever more non-Whites, especially those that support “socialism” and increase the burden on the environment. Various politicians and “opinion leaders” call for a “guaranteed annual wage” for the lower life forms polluting the megacities, so that growth can be accelerated, the darkies made more content, and the White goyim made to feel loved by Jeezus. The TV-hypnotized mushrooms of the West dare not protest against the religion of Growth; that would cause them to be cast into the outer darkness where there is nothing but wailing and gnashing of teeth.
And so the human race, led by the anti-eugenicist United States, is turning into an anti-planetary criminal species. And the crime it is committing is a capital one.
Antius on Mon, 17th Sep 2018 6:02 am
Interesting slide-show here on pneumatic capsule pipelines for use in freight transport. These are narrow pipelines carrying wheeled freight vehicles, blown along using compressed air.
http://onlinepubs.trb.org/onlinepubs/archive/conferences/jointsummer/2006/ports/session4liu.pdf
The plan is to use shallow rectangular conduits in rural areas outside of cities and circular pipelines deep underground (or water).
As oil becomes scarcer, this provides a completely fossil free means of transporting large amounts of bulk cargo between hubs at high speed. Battery powered trucks can then deliver containers to customers over distances <100km.
The hydraulic pipeline is likely to be a cheaper and technologically simpler alternative that is more compatible in many ways with a renewable energy economy. But it would be 10 times slower, with top speed no more than twice walking speed.
pointer on Mon, 17th Sep 2018 6:44 am
What we need is to let nature provide without any of our clever technological assists.
Davy on Mon, 17th Sep 2018 7:11 am
The best we can do is be greener but real green is a different way of life. Real green involves going back to natural cycles of seasons and intermittency. This involves using animals and putting waste products back into the system. Preservation of foods and the foods we eat would change. It goes back to localism and slow living. It means more spiritual and culture activities in community and less individual discretionary pursuits. This life involves more physical discomforts in regards to heat and the cold. Locational differences mean some places are not fit for settlements. It means much less populations. Finally it means walking away from warfare which is the dirtiest of human activities. This of course is an ideal world of the best we can do in finding a place in the planetary system of ecological and geological harmony. This is very difficult for modern man because it means walking away from what got us to modern and that is civilization. In the past we believed civilization was the answer but it is now the problem. At a certain point there is too much of it and we are there. What we need is a man with an evolutionary niche not a dead end. We can have intelligence but it must be tempered by wisdom and in man’s case the most important aspect of wisdom is being able to say no to our emotions and desires. It means more control even though the world control is offensive to the individual.
If we take a step away from true greenness we have no choice but to accept technology and population pressures because they are not green. They can’t be made green. Since we have such large populations we must accept competitive cooperation that allows bad behavior because of compromise. Man has never agreed on what is right and just how are we going to agree on what is green? We can come to agreements and we can accept a degree of fairness but this is a muddle. This means bad behavior will be a consequence. Bad behavior on steroids is not green. With so many people then bad behavior that is a consequence of cooperation becomes problematic. We can make an effort with technology at demand management and efficiency. We can do this with more intermittency if we embrace renewables. We can still try to localize where we can because the delocalization of globalism has its downside. In this respect some localization can be marketable. We can eat greener in many ways that are really not that great a sacrifice and most of the time more healthy. Market based capitalism is part of the problem. Decisions based on economic wants and price with an underlying basis of private property has to give way to respect for the commons and public needs. This means more control and more sharing which sounds socialistic. Let’s be clear more green means less unbridled capitalism. There are tradeoffs that cannot be avoided. More green means less economic activity and activity that is less intensive. This means technology and even efficiency must be adapted. We may be able to do something much better and efficient but it will still be less green. Industrial agriculture comes to mind.
We are at a point where we have created a global system locked into high consumption with high populations. At least in the near future this is a trap with catch 22 predicaments. Unless we chose draconian policies to limit this we will have to adapt to being dirty. The system we have probably cannot be made much greener and still produce at the levels needed to take care of so many people. Even bad behavior in regards to green often makes economic sense because it contributes to economies of scale and economic velocities. These bad behaviors support good behaviors. So it becomes a catch 22 of even when we try to be greener we are disrupting. The best we can do is slowly over time adjust behaviors towards less globalistic activities and more planet friendly ones at the same time populations drop. Unfortunately we may not have the time for this. It is not clear we even have the will for it. We have many talking about wanting a cleaner way of life as we try to become more advanced. It becomes the other guy’s sacrifice or society’s problem. A greener life mean being more advanced mentally but with less of the physical advancements. We are doing the opposite with less mentally advancement and more physical enjoyments. Why, because it is easy. It is easy to allow people to lay around while technology produces. Capitalism capitalizes on wants and humans want more and they want comfort. Techno Capitalism makes it easy to bypass the human requirements of adapted behavior and physical work. Adapted behavior is the hardest part of this whole issue. We want something for less instead of working harder.
This then comes to the point if you want to be greener as an individual. Society as we know it is likely too far gone to green up much. There is much that can be done but nowhere near enough to matter with the ecosystem and the planet. We can slow down the damage like the maintenance of a terminal illness. Much is being done now with renewables and efficiency but that has limits if behavior does not change and behavior is not changing enough. What you can do as an individual if it matters is you can change. Your behaviors can change because you care. You can set an example to others even though your efforts at green really are not going to make that much impact. The energy you save will be used elsewhere just because it is the nature of the system. Since it is likely the system will bifurcate at some point from passing through thresholds of sustainability you can adapt and change now in anticipation for that time. This adaptation is green. You may be able to leave something for the young. Since green has meaning you can leave the next generation meaning. There is no high activity than this. Greener is more resilient and sustainable which means a better chance at survival. So if you care about survival than start greening now and get green for the right reasons. Don’t be fake green which is just a lie.
fmr-paultard on Mon, 17th Sep 2018 8:02 am
friends, please read what supertard leo 3 had to say about jihad
https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/leo-iiis-1300-year-old-lesson-understand-islam-to-defeat-jihad/
Jef on Mon, 17th Sep 2018 9:35 am
Tard-Tard – The article you link is totally irrelevant. The so called Jihad of today is entirely caused by blowback from decades of US killing and bombing back into the stone age, and building permanent military bases all over their lands.
fmr-paultard on Mon, 17th Sep 2018 10:48 am
brother jef (pbuh), i respect and love you brother but you can’t keep tarding like this. it hurts me that you’re this way. i’m a tard and a former paultard and i’m intimate with supertard ron paul’s blow back theory. don’t you think i don’t know being a former paultard big brother jef? please give this tard some credit ok
how can you call 1400 year jihad a blow back when supertards america only happened 240 years ago? what do you call an isolationist supertard jefferson waging barbary wars against jihadi mulsims in the mediterranean? you’d rather we paid jizya like the eurotard nations at the time?
but i’m being harsh on you brother jef. yes it’s true and also false because jihad is what bin laden was after when he said
I am one of the servants of Allah. We do our duty of fighting for the sake of the religion of Allah. It is also our duty to send a call to all the people of the world to enjoy this great light and to embrace Islam and experience the happiness in Islam. Our primary mission is nothing but the furthering of this religion. …
you can say it’s just bin laden but who can we pin it on? we can’t because there are millions of them out there. See for yourself
https://thereligionofpeace.com/attacks/in-the-name-of-allah.aspx
How many terror organizations in the world past and present? thousands. all muslims
so if you think bin laden is unreliable. well then you need to go to the sources quran, hadith, sira
why is it irrelavant? there’s a lot of land to conquer by getting rid of islam. supertard will have 1 million acres instead of just 1000 acres in MO he currently owns
fmr-paultard on Mon, 17th Sep 2018 10:52 am
big brother jef (pbuh), i admire teh muslism becuas they’re straight forward. they have no fear and they know no setback
just 3 minutes of your time and you get the gist of jihad here
watch?v=KcwokHau8Xk
fmr-paultard on Mon, 17th Sep 2018 11:08 am
brother jef if u can’t read what supertard leo 3 had to say maybe u should enjoy this instead ok
/watch?v=DuWX1XDwsoA
Jef on Mon, 17th Sep 2018 7:05 pm
Tardy tard tard – If you measure modern circumstances by what was happening a thousand years or more ago you would be condemning christianity as they hold the record for mass slaying. Modern middle east was comparable to suburban US prior to US invasion.
Yes shit was bad thousands of years ago but in case you missed it the world moved on.