Category Archives: Economics

The steady state revolution

Posted on July 9, 2007 | 12 comments

A few weeks ago I reported on conservation and other groups adopting official positions on the fundamental conflict between economic growth and environmental protection. I mentioned that Brian Czech and the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy have been instrumental in helping to bring about this awareness and activism.

As an update, on June 9th, at their annual meeting, the American Society of Mammalogists adopted a similar resolution. From the press release:

The ASM described a “fundamental conflict between economic growth and the conservation of ecosystems” based upon scientifically established principles. The ASM noted that an economy has an “optimal size” and that growth beyond the optimum reduces human welfare in addition to threatening other species…. (more…)

12 Comments

Posted in Biodiversity, Brian Czech, Ecological economics, Ecology, Economic growth, Economics, Ecosystem, Environment, Steady state economy, Sustainability

After a “lost decade,” experts call for renewed focus on population growth

Posted on July 1, 2007 | 36 comments

By John Feeney:

To many, it’s obvious population growth is a key factor, arguably the key factor, in environmental degradation and resource depletion, contributing heavily as well to poverty and human conflict. Unfortunately, some environmental groups and writers, and some fighting for social justice, deny or consciously avoid the obvious. Often they realize population growth is a fundamental driver of ecological and social problems, but choose deliberately to avoid the topic. Their reasons vary, but fit generally under the heading, “politics.”

There are, for instance, women’s groups with whose concerns I sympathize, but which have decided the population issue distracts from their work promoting the rights of women. There are environmental writers who carefully skirt the topic of population growth in the belief that the notion of “population control” has become associated with totalitarian or eugenic measures, making any environmentalist who utters the word “population” vulnerable to easy criticism.

In both instances, activists or writers have opted to play politics rather than speaking the truth. (more…)

36 Comments

Posted in Cairo conference, Ecology, Economics, Ecosystem, Environment, Overpopulation, Population, Population growth, Population-environnment, Sustainability, United Nations, World population

Note on peak oil and population

Posted on June 29, 2007 | 9 comments

As as follow-up to Jim Lydecker’s essay, My World Without Oil, I wanted to remind readers of an essay by occasional GIM commenter, Paul Chefurka. Titled Peak Oil, Carrying Capacity and Overshoot: Population, the Elephant in the Room, it makes the case that our use of oil dramatically increased the earth’s carrying capacity for humans. Paul argues that therefore, post-peak-oil, we will be in serious overshoot of that carrying capacity: “The decline in oil supply will reduce the planet’s carrying capacity, thus forcing humanity into overshoot with the inevitable consequence of a population decline.”

You may have noticed in Jim’s essay his comment, “But it is not going to be a pretty scene as hydrocarbons are depleted. We are talking social strife, mass migration, starvation, epidemics and worse.” Paul’s essay outlines carefully the population dynamics such a scene could involve. (more…)

9 Comments

Posted in Carrying capacity, Consumption, Ecological collapse, Ecology, Economic growth, Economics, Environment, Jim Lydecker, Overpopulation, Paul Chefurka, Peak oil, Population, Population growth, Population-environnment, Resource consumption, Sustainability, World population

My world without oil

Posted on June 22, 2007 | 28 comments

For this post, I’m happy to feature another guest article by Jim Lydecker. I’ve been slow to cover peak oil here more than in passing, not because it isn’t terribly important (It is.) but because I’ve had my hands full researching and writing about population and economic issues. Jim’s essay begins to fill that void. Peak oil links closely with the main themes here, and this piece brings to life its potential impact on our day to day lives.

For a primer on peak oil, try this.

Thanks, Jim.

–JF
__________________________________________________________
By Jim Lydecker:

Napa, California
June 19, 2007

I woke up this morning to the sound I fell asleep to last night: The whooshing of cars going north and south on Rt. 29.

Actually, the whooshing is being replaced by a huge sucking sound… It is the sound of crude oil being sucked out of the ground to allow those cars to go flying by.

In America, unlike the rest of the world, over 1/2 of the oil we use goes to the production of gasoline. Each day, the world uses over 80 million of barrels of oil. The United States, with 7% of the world’s population, uses over 25% of that 80+ million. That’ll happen when a nation of 320 million has almost as many cars and trucks as people.

I lay in bed thinking of all the other things oil and its cousin, natural gas, are used for and how today would go if they were non-existent. This little exercise has been done before and everyone should think about it.

Living in Northern California, we have a fair amount of electricity generated by hydro, but not enough to keep all of us out of the dark all the time. Since it is 6:30 and still dark, I roll over, turn on my light and hope my section of the grid is not blacked out.

The light, in a fixture circa 1890, lit. I noticed the wire from the light needed attention as the fabric covering it was coming frayed… remember, no oil means no rubber insulation.
(more…)

28 Comments

Posted in Consumption, Ecology, Economics, Environment, Jim Lydecker, Peak oil, Resource consumption, Sustainability

Conservation groups speak out on problem of economic growth, and you can too!

Posted on June 15, 2007 | 5 comments

This press release came to me via email:

British Columbia Field Ornithologists take a position on the fundamental conflict between economic growth and biodiversity conservation

At their Annual General Meeting in Lillooet on 26 May 2007, the BC Field Ornithologists (BCFO) adopted a position on the fundamental conflict between economic growth and biodiversity conservation. The BCFO addresses the study and enjoyment of wild birds in British Columbia through research and conservation efforts to preserve birds and their habitats.

The timing of the vote was opportune as Birdlife International announced the previous week that 22% of the planet’s birds are now at increased risk of extinction. A total of 1,221 bird species are presently considered threatened with extinction and an additional 812 species are considered Near Threatened, an increase of 28 species from last year….

The British Columbia Field Ornithologists group is one of a growing number of conservation groups, ecological economics groups, and others which have adopted official positions stating that economic growth is fundamentally incompatible with environmental protection. They include the United States Society for Ecological Economics and the Society for Conservation Biology, North America Section. (more…)

5 Comments

Posted in Biodiversity, Brian Czech, Ecological economics, Ecology, Economic growth, Economics, Steady state economy, Sustainability and the Big picture

Waking up to humanity’s most urgent challenge

Posted on June 6, 2007 | 27 comments

The future: determined by ecological awareness or complacency and denial?

By John Feeney:

It is essential to see the profound peril in continued flagrant misperception of the very nature of the human situation. — William R. Catton, Jr.

I write often about specific topics within the categories, “population growth” and “corporate economic growth” as they link to to environmental degradation. It seems, however, the larger message concerning the broad impacts of these kinds of growth has yet to gain much traction in the media. It’s time, therefore, to consider what’s at stake if we do not address forthrightly the growth of the human population and our unceasing push for corporate economic growth. I hope to make clear that humanity’s most urgent challenge has little to do with the topics currently making headlines. It is, instead, clearly ecological in nature. Of this we need much more awareness if we hope to achieve solutions.

Know this: Population growth and corporate economic growth, in conjunction with excessive and growing per capita consumption rates, are driving ecological deterioration of unprecedented proportions, pushing us ever closer to global ecological collapse. Remember that term. Barring decisive corrective action, you will be hearing more and more about ecological collapse in the coming years.

The most important issues receive little coverage

If you haven’t heard much about it previously, that’s understandable. It hovers in the background of the news, mentioned occasionally, but has so far received little of the attention it warrants. I’ve been critical of environmental writers’ avoidance of the subject of population growth, but it goes further than that. By and large, they seem squeamish about discussing the extent of global environmental decline the possibility of widespread ecological collapse. (more…)

27 Comments

Posted in Biodiversity, Climate change, Corporatization, Deforestation, Ecological collapse, Ecology, Economic growth, Economics, Ecosystem, Environment, Extinction, Glen Barry, Jeffrey Sachs, Overpopulation, Peak oil, Population, Population growth, William Catton

We must lose our arrogance

Posted on June 1, 2007 | 20 comments

A familiar poem, nearly 200 years old, may provide the theme for our future if we, as one among millions of species, do not soon let go of our sense of privilege, and grasp what “sustainability” means.

Ozymandias

by: Percy Bysshe Shelly, 1818

I met a traveler from an antique land
Who said: “Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear —
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”

20 Comments

Posted in Ecological collapse, Economic growth, Ecosystem, Environment, Extinction, Globalization, Population growth, Sustainability and the Big picture

Just when you thought the cornucopians had all gone away, Redditors channel the spirit of Julian Simon

Posted on May 17, 2007 | 13 comments

Recently I submitted a link to an article on Trinifar to Reddit, one of the most active in a category loosely known as “social bookmarking” sites. These are sites where you can share with others links to websites or articles of interest. On Reddit, submissions are voted up or down. If one gets enough up-votes it moves to their front page and can send a lot of traffic to the site. [1] That happened with this one, driving a barrage of visits to Trinifar’s post. That was good as the article had a message concerning population and limits to growth which needs to be seen by as many people as possible.

But that’s not the end of it. On Reddit, users also comment on the links submitted. This one triggered a large and divided discussion on the question of limits to growth. Among the comments were some I found thoughtful and incisive. But there was also a range of arguments representing the “cornucopian” view popularized by the late economist Julian Simon. (Note: the Wikipedia entry is written, in large part, by devotees of Simon.) (more…)

13 Comments

Posted in Carrying capacity, Ecology, Economic growth, Economics, Ecosystem, Environment, Extinction, Overpopulation, Population, Population growth, Population solutions, Population-environnment, Sustainability and the Big picture

Brian Czech and the logic of the steady state economy

Posted on May 11, 2007 | 5 comments

Our physical growth will have to stop. It’s unsustainable. The earth is finite after all. That’s indisputable, isn’t it? Listen to Brian Czech talk about it in this radio interview. (You’ll need either to download it as an mp3, or to listen to it as a RealAudio file. For the latter, if you don’t have the RealOne player, just download Media Player Classic which is less problematic anyway and plays the same files.) Czech is the president of the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy and author of Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train. He has established himself as an important figure in ecological economics, taking on the neoclassical economic model and macroeconomic theorists and their propaganda advocating limitless economic growth. (more…)

5 Comments

Posted in Brian Czech, Ecological economics, Ecology, Economic growth, Economics, Ecosystem, Environment, Steady state economy, Sustainability and the Big picture

A different feminist take on population

Posted on April 11, 2007 | 22 comments

A couple of days ago I spotted something rare — an article from the mainstream press looking squarely at the population issue. Reprinted on Alternet with the title, It’s Time to Fight Population Growth, Which Exacerbates Global Warming and Sprawl, Katha Pollitt’s piece appeared originally in The Nation, as Europeans do it Better.

Pollitt’s feminist perspective on population growth competes with, and arguably trumps that of Betsy Hartmann. Hartmann is so concerned that a focus on population will distract from such problems as women’s rights and class bias that she mostly refuses even to acknowledge that population growth is a problem. Pollitt though, judging from her article, chooses simply to see each set of problems for what it is. There are women’s and other social issues and there is population growth. Yes, they interact in important ways, but each must be acknowledged and examined in its own right to understand and approach it effectively.

Pollitt’s piece is important in part because it has a feminist writer bringing to a wider audience the recognition that the traditional drivers of population growth are disempowering to women. (That is why the need to address population growth should rightly be seen, in part, as a feminist cause.)

Isn’t it weird?

She explains that some European governments, concerned about the prospects of declining populations, have instituted policies aimed at increasing fertility rates. (more…)

22 Comments

Posted in Betsy Hartmann, Climate change, Ecology, Economics, Environment, Globalization, Hegemony, Overpopulation, Population, Population growth, Sustainability and the Big picture

Tagged Katha Pollitt

Ecocide for a quick buck

Posted on March 31, 2007 | 48 comments

The push for continual economic growth is a serious problem. Such growth, as we know it, is unsustainable. In large part that’s because it has a physical component. From the extraction of substances from the earth, to the production of goods, through their disposal as waste, there is a depletion of resources, emission of pollutants, a build-up of “stuff,” and an accumulation of waste. When these activities are carried out at rates faster than the earth’s capacity to regenerate and absorb, they gradually destroy the ecosystem, our life support system. [1]

As if that weren’t bad enough, evidence suggests economic growth no longer correlates with much real progress or makes most citizens any happier. Why then, do our leaders continue to push for economic growth? Why do they continue to promote the illusion of endless growth as a good thing? (more…)

48 Comments

Posted in Anti-globalization, Corporatization, Ecology, Economic growth, Economics, Ecosystem, Environment, Globalization, Population, Population growth, Sustainability and the Big picture

Now that growth is killing us…

Posted on March 21, 2007 | 19 comments

The article I discussed last time, by New Zealander Allen Cookson, was a brief gem with an emphasis on population growth and some mention of the flaws, as well, in our economic model of continual growth. The same day I came across it, occasional GIM commenter, Tim Delaney, sent me a link to an article in Mother Jones by Bill McKibben. Reversal of Fortune, drawn from McKibben’s new book, Deep Economy gives us a more thorough look at the problems with our growth-based economy. McKibben suggests that while a focus on growth did serve us well for some time, now “growth is bumping up against physical limits so profound—like climate change and peak oil—that trying to keep expanding the economy may be not just impossible but also dangerous.” It’s an important article. Here are the Cliff’s Notes plus a little commentary:

It wasn’t always this way

The growth which most of us have come to assume to be necessary and good has its earliest roots in the industrial revolution, but really got cranking in the middle of the 20th century, in the post war boom. Prior to that, Mckibben tells us, “even FDR routinely spoke of America’s economy as mature, with no further expansion anticipated.” (more…)

19 Comments

Posted in Bill Mckibben, Climate change, Consumption, Ecological economics, Ecological footprint, Ecology, Economic growth, Economics, Globalization, Growth, Peak oil, Population growth, Sustainability and the Big picture

A voice of sanity in New Zealand

Posted on March 16, 2007 | 18 comments

Those of us concerned about population growth and economic growth on a finite earth often feel we’re in a small, lonely minority. This feeling is intensified by the discussion of climate change. We hear plenty in that context about the need to reduce consumption. That tackling climate change will necessitate also stopping growth — both population growth and economic growth as we’ve come to know it — is the elephant in the room. It’s the huge topic we can’t avoid, but which, for now, the mainstream media hesitate to touch.

One cannot think about this without being troubled. It means the mainstream media, and in fact most of the alternative media as well, are avoiding coverage of the most destructive activity in which humans are now engaged. (No, I’m not discounting the destruction or tragedy of war at all.) So it’s always a pleasant surprise to come across an exception to this unofficial media ban on these topics.

Kiwi surprise

My most recent surprise of this sort comes from the New Zealand Herald. There, Allen Cookson, a retired science teacher, offers a guest column which reads like a condensed version of The Growth is Madness! Story. (more…)

18 Comments

Posted in Betsy Hartmann, Climate change, Consumption, Ecology, Economic growth, Economics, Ecosystem, Global warming, Overpopulation, Population, Population growth, Sustainability and the Big picture, World population

Admit it Betsy, we agree: part 2

Posted on March 10, 2007 | 14 comments

In Part 1 of this essay, I began to examine Betsy Hartmann’s argument that population growth is not a serious problem, and that it distracts us from real problems of women’s rights, racism, and class bias. Assessing her critique of 1994’s International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo, I touched on her arguments concerning poverty and environmental degradation. For neither does she readily accept population growth as playing an important causal role. I acknowledged her valid points, but disagreed with certain assertions, particularly concerning the environmental issue. Now let’s turn to the question of women’s issues and how they relate to population growth.

Does a focus on population work against women’s rights?

Those who study population know there is a negative correlation between fertility rates and the provision of educational, work, and other opportunities for girls and women. (more…)

14 Comments

Posted in Betsy Hartmann, Carrying capacity, Consumption, Deforestation, Ecological collapse, Economics, Environment, Overpopulation, Population, Population growth, Population-environnment, Sustainability and the Big picture, World population

Admit it Betsy, we agree: part 1

Posted on March 7, 2007 | 8 comments

Readers here know there are those who argue world population growth is not a problem. Most prominent are groups with certain political axes to grind, usually from a right wing economic perspective, often advocating free market capitalism and opposed to government intervention in environmental matters. Some libertarian “think tanks” typify this group. They tout the party line with regard to the current dominant economic model. I disagree strongly with those groups, have touched briefly on that disagreement in previous essays, and will do so in more depth in the future.

A bit less prominent among critics of the environmental perspective on population is a subset of academics writing from a feminist perspective. They argue any focus on population is a distraction from the real issues, works against women’s rights, and promotes racism and class bias. One of the best known authors from this camp is Betsy Hartmann, director of the Population and Development Program at Hampshire College.

Reading some of her online writings, I set out to examine where she and I disagreed. (more…)

8 Comments

Posted in Betsy Hartmann, Consumption, Deforestation, Economics, Environment, Overpopulation, Population, Population growth