Tim Jackson: The High Price Of Growth

News & Current Events Public News & Current Events
, , , ,
1

Modern society is addicted to and engineered for perpetual economic growth.

Now, a fourth-grader can tell you that nothing can grow forever, especially if you have finite resources. But that simple realization is eluding today's central planners, despite multiplying evidence that growth is becoming harder and harder to come by.

This week's podcast guest is Professor Tim Jackson, sustainability advisor for the UK government, professor of sustainable development at the University of Surrey and Director of CUSP. Tim is also a full member of the Club of Rome.

He explains why the exponential growth rates of today's economies, and their associated rates of resource extraction/consumption, will not be able to continue for much longer -- and why a pursuit of "prosperity" (defined much more broadly than simple consumerism) is a much healthier goal for humanity.

Anyone who thinks that exponential growth can go on forever on a finite planet is either a madman or an economist.

Those very steep lines that rise very sharply as we approach the 21st century and show us that we are exceeding our carrying capacity in all sorts of ways are quite compelling. I think people actually feel this to some extent, that having more and more 'stuff' going through the system is somehow unsustainable. And not just in environmental ways, but even in social ways.

It’s the classic challenge of the irresistible force meeting the unmovable object. This pervasive idea of prosperity consisting of exponential growth, while the planet is not getting any bigger, is putting ecosystems under lots of stress. The pressures that human society puts on our environment is increasingly obvious.

This is a conversation that you can have with kids. They get it immediately.

With adults, it's different. They resist the idea. And that's despite exponential growth rates appearing, in the advanced economies at least, to be declining very specifically. And that’s an issue which is not about environmental limits, it’s not about results constraints. It’s actually about the economic model itself.

At this point in time, the 'new normal' is an era that may just not have exponential growth in it. Fortunately, though slowly, very well established mainstream conventional economists are now beginning to recognize they may have to rethink all our assumptions about our current 'normal' idea of economic growth.

Click the play button below to listen to Chris' interview with Professor Tim Jackson (47m:24s).

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://peakprosperity.com/tim-jackson-the-high-price-of-growth/

2

The Limits to Growth work was more than an analysis of resource limits. It was an analysis of the earth as a system, studying the interaction of population, food, industrial output, pollution and a few other things. They examined the behavior of the earth system under variations of the various parameters in the system (things like rates of pollution, birth rate, etc.).
It helps to have a background in systems theory to fully understand the implications and to fully appreciate the phenomenal job they did.
Their results have been attacked as clearly false since what they predicted did not come true. However, these assaults were blatant lies as their predictions have actually tracked quite well. Their book described the results under several sets of behavior, including making no changes and varying degrees of change in an attempt to prevent the negative outcomes.
I have reproduced their “no major change” graph below. I have added a vertical line at the year 2000 and put tic marks at 2010 and 2020.

3

Here is the corresponding graph from their follow on book. The curves have little qualitative change.

4

I guess there are options; be they somewhat limited:

5

I think it may have been the charts on the wall.

6

I belong to an NGO called Sustainable Population Australia, or SPA. Its current president is an academic at the University of South Australia. He wrote this in the August eNews:

At the time of writing (Thurs 3rd Aug) I had just completed a lecture to a class of urban and regional planning students, in which I showed them the simple maths underpinning the limits to growth (my tribute to the late Al Bartlett), alerted them to the impending peak and decline of world fossil fuels, and ran through the basics of how a steady state population and economy might work as an alternative to the failed growth model. A lot for the students to take in at 9 o’clock in the morning! In the two-hour lecture, I repeatedly drove home the point that the relationship between people and land is crucial to sustainability and planning, especially as it relates to food supply. I also explained that our inevitable transition to a steady state population will have major implications for housing and planning. And I presented a graph (from our published paper here) showing that global energy supplies are very likely to enter a decline phase within 5 years and will continue to decline for the entire duration of these students’ careers. Despite my efforts to drive home the relevance of the topic to these particular students, not a single one raised a question at the end of the lecture. [emphasis mine] The reason could be that this was simply too much to take in, but I fear that the deeper issue is that young people in general – and I would include my generation in this, not just because I am clinging to the idea that mid-30s is still “young” – are becoming increasingly detached from reality, thanks to digital media. As we spend more and more time connected to our virtual world – viewed through our various screens and devices – we seem to spend less and less time in the real world. When I was a university student (I undertook a double-degree in Civil Engineering and Environmental Management from 2000-2004), it was pre-Facebook, pre-Twitter, in fact pre-smartphones altogether. It was also pre-VSU (voluntary student unionism) and I recall university as a much more vibrant hotbed for concerned young environmentalists. The causes for concern certainly haven’t gone away; I just hope we can somehow rekindle the passion.
How else might we label this: Cognitive Dissipation? Cognitive Usurpation? Cognitive Collapse? As an ex-town planner I'm slightly worried.
7

If they are waiting for magic they’d do well to remember how nature has dealt with a scarcity of resources in the past: starvation, disease and war. They generally occur in combination.
Absent an active management of the de-industrialization we are likely to encounter those three this time around as well.

8

Also referenced: Robert Theobald (June 11, 1929 – November 27, 1999) was a private consulting economist and futurist author. In economics, he was best known for his writings on the economics of abundance and his advocacy of a Basic Income Guarantee. Theobald was a member of the Ad Hoc Committee on the Triple Revolution in 1964, and later listed in the top 10 most influential living futurists in The Encyclopedia of the Future.
9
ezlxq1949 wrote:
I belong to an NGO called Sustainable Population Australia, or SPA. Its current president is an academic at the University of South Australia. He wrote this in the August eNews:
At the time of writing (Thurs 3rd Aug) I had just completed a lecture to a class of urban and regional planning students, in which I showed them the simple maths underpinning the limits to growth (my tribute to the late Al Bartlett), alerted them to the impending peak and decline of world fossil fuels (emphasis by Geedard), and ran through the basics of how a steady state population and economy might work as an alternative to the failed growth model. A lot for the students to take in at 9 o’clock in the morning! In the two-hour lecture, I repeatedly drove home the point that the relationship between people and land is crucial to sustainability and planning, especially as it relates to food supply (emphasis by Geedard). I also explained that our inevitable transition to a steady state population will have major implications for housing and planning. And I presented a graph (from our published paper here) showing that global energy supplies are very likely to enter a decline phase within 5 years and will continue to decline for the entire duration of these students’ careers (emphasis by Geedard). Despite my efforts to drive home the relevance of the topic to these particular students, not a single one raised a question at the end of the lecture. [emphasis by ezlxq1949] The reason could be that this was simply too much to take in, but I fear ....(rest of text deleted by Geedard, for the purpose of brevity)
How else might we label this: Cognitive Dissipation? Cognitive Usurpation? Cognitive Collapse? As an ex-town planner I'm slightly worried.
Steve St Angelo wrote an excellently insightful report on the declining Oil Industry - that appeared in yesterday's Daily Digest 10/16 entitled:
WORLD’S LARGEST OIL COMPANIES: Deep Trouble As Profits Vaporize While Debts Skyrocket (yogmonster)
Maybe the students will be able to connect the dots more easily if they can visualise the dire trouble of this industry using Steve's clear explanation...and then realise that this industry energises everything else in the world that they eat or otherwise impacts their lives... Just an idea, although I fully realise how hard it is to briefly explain and for people to quickly catch on... Sadly.
10

Thanks, Geedard, I’ll send that link to the baffled academic and see if it helps, although I suspect (and hope) that he’s already aware of it.

11

An in depth review of the “Limits to Growth” World3 model done around 2010 ran scenarios with a variety of optomistic assumption changes. The only assumption change that avoided collapse along with global famine by 2035, was a global limit of one child per family, starting in 2011. Every other scenario resulted in collapse.
Malthusian pesimist that I am, I place sustainable global population with reasonable prosperity between 4 and 5 billion people. This puts Earth in population overshoot in the early to mid 1980s.
Environmental issues like climate change, the sixth mass extinction and the condition of global water supplies, strongly support the belief that we are well into overshoot.
The charts below were generated by the University of Melbourn sometime around 2012. They found the “no change” scenario in the first “Limits to Growth” book published in 1972 to be surprisingly accurate.


12
Anyone who thinks that exponential growth can go on forever on a finite planet is either a madman or an economist.
Is "or" really the appropriate word here? Wouldn't "and" be better?
13

I’m not sure how many more clues nature needs to give us, nor how much more leniency it will grant us.

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-41670472

14

Whether we or our politicians know it or not, nature has a longer memory and a sterner code of justice than we do. Wendell Berry

15
robie robinson wrote:
Whether we or our politicians know it or not, nature has a longer memory and a sterner code of justice than we do. Wendell Berry
I often hear my students exclaim things like "we're killing our planet!" This is true to a certain degree, but I always remind them that this ball of rock has had moon-sized things fly into it, that it used to not have an atmosphere, and that it has experienced many extinctions in its long history. I then follow up with: "We could nuke ourselves to oblivion, and in a million years some semblance of life will be back, in full force, and the planet will continue to orbit the sun. In other words, the planet will be juuussstttt fine, but our species will be long dead."

I care deeply about the environment because I care about my species’ survival, not because I fear we can do lasting and permanent damage to the planet itself.

16
Snydeman wrote:
I care deeply about the environment because I care about my species' survival, not because I fear we can do lasting and permanent damage to the planet itself.
I care because of all the amazing biodiversity that is disappearing. Sure it may come back in a few million years but this is what we have now. It is the real expression of creation, whatever belief system one may hold. I care about all the animals and people that do and will suffer because of the greed of a few individuals at the top, and the billions of sheeple who blindly follow them and accept (enable) it all without question or even a murmer of disapproval. At some point the Sun will burn the planet up and make it uninhabitable for life. I am not sure when this will happen, but I think there is still enough time for another profusion of life after we are gone.
17

A dragonfly is an amazing thing, all unto itself, without any other explanation.
Insects are not icky things that need to be poisoned, but a diverse group of life that is astonishing in its complexity and awe inspiring in its beauty.
One just needs to see them for oneself, not as movies, books and other’s perceptions might have portrayed them.
I carefully watched and nurtured monarch caterpillars this summer (moved them from plant to plant once they had eaten one down).
I was rewarded with finally locating a chrysalis and watched it develop until it hatched (missed that moment, unfortunately).
Check this thing out!

If you look closely you’ll see the gold dots arrayed across the surface of this marvelous act of creation. For what purpose? I cannot imagine that this is somehow connected to fooling a potential predator. Why put shiny things on there if that’s the purpose? Or that it’s a warning…red and/or yellow serves that purpose much better.
All I can think of is that it’s there because it’s beautiful. “Pimp my cocoon!”
Or this beetle…if created as a work of glass by an artist we’d be amazed. Well, go ahead and be amazed by the original artist, nature.

18

I care about the environment on a spiritual level, but I’m under no illusions as to which argument is most likely to convert most people over to environmental causes. Arguing that we should respect life because it’s the “best path” or it’s “spiritually fulfilling” does not allow for leveraging the average person’s self-centered nature and survival instinct for both themselves and their immediate offspring as a good motivator; we kill these things and we and our children will die is a statement that can be easily understood and processed even by the zombies of the modern digital age.

I see, sense, and respect the tapestry of life in all it’s beauty, majesty, and importance every day. However, those of us who do are vastly in minority in our consume-driven economy and culture, so I try to argue utility​ rather than some Pocahontas-song version of how we fit in the web of life.

Baby steps.

19

As an example of me living my life in accordance with the newest article set on PP, I continue to shout the truth on social media. My friends’ list has suffered as a consequence, but I no longer care.

My latest Facebook post:

"Just keep swimming" is actually not a very effective piece of advice. Maybe swim in a different direction, or change the speed of your swimming, or be more efficient with your strokes. Zig-zag, or dive deeper, or go to the surface. Or maybe, just maybe, no matter what you do with regard to your swimming, a predator gets you anyway. Either way, "just keep swimming" isn't always the answer. Dory's strategy only worked because it was a Disney movie, not the real biosphere.

According to reports in Germany and elsewhere, insect populations - especially the pollinators - are declining at a rapid and alarming rate, and they could disappear within a decade or two. Sea life, at the most basic level of the food chain, is dying. I know that most people don’t want to hear it. Well, tough shit. It’s happening, and it threatens all our children and our children’s children.

I fail to understand how this does not engender a national debate or discussion. I fail to understand how "optimism" or ignoring the problem will solve this issue. I fail to understand how so many of my fellow humans can not comprehend the brink we are currently standing upon.

Well, I’m not going down without a fight, if for no other reason than the well-being of my children and your children. So I will keep shouting this from the parapets wherever and whenever I can. I no longer care if this makes me the village lunatic, because I’m beginning to see that maybe he’s the only sane one in the place. But I’m not just a death-bringer. There are things that can be done:

We can stop using biocides and pesticides. NOW. Pressure politicians into banning them outright.

We can pressure our elected officials to start dealing with REAL issues rather than the political nonsense of yesterday.

We can start talking about these kinds of things instead of the crap we usually talk about in this country.

We can stop using chemical-laden detergents and soaps.

We can start buying genuinely organic food, or start growing some ourselves, without using biocides and pesticides.

We can start voting for candidates who give a shit about the next generation.

We can start moving towards a less consumption-based lifestyle by being mindful of the resources we use daily, and then finding alternatives.

Or, we can ignore it and just keep swimming.

20

It isn’t an issue of leniency, it’s an issue of time delays. The thing most people miss in the Limits To Growth model is that the overshoots and undershoots in a feedback system are the result of time delays. Nature isn’t cutting us any slack, we just haven’t seen the full effect of the things we’ve already done. If we stop polluting and stop burning fossil fuels today things would still get worse before they would get better.