GDP Obsession Will Give Us a Dead Planet
Q4 GDP Estimate Will Illustrate Deadly Unexamined Assumptions About Economic Growth on a Full Planet
When the latest U.S. GDP growth estimate comes out on Wednesday, it will be met with another round of irrational exuberance. This is driven by the unexamined assumption that,
“of course, economic growth is an unalloyed good!”
It’s unquestioned, it’s universal, no one could possibly disagree that robust growth of our economy is a good thing.
Only problem is, on a full planet, in ecological overshoot, we need to be pursuing and celebrating CONTRACTION of material throughput and energy use, not EXPANSION.
I’m quite sure economic growth is the most universal public policy goal in the world. This bothers me, because serious scientific analysis tells us it’s impossible to continue achieving growth on a full planet. This post is about two things:
Why (and how we know) continued pursuit of economic growth will leave our kids a dead planet
Why our society has so far failed to shift from a culture of “more, more, more,” to a sustainable culture of “enough.”
My campaign just released this video illustrating #2. It’s a sampling of the stories we tell around the campfire. It’s a good example of why we are stuck in “more, more, more” mode.
Now back to #1:
What We Know About Economic Growth and Ecological Overshoot
The scale of the human enterprise is defined by the size of our population and the size of our economy. Economic activity involves extraction of natural resources, use of energy, and emission of waste. Logic and common sense tell us that there must be a limit to how much of this one planet can support.
Theoretically, perhaps aspirationally, there is a modest, sustainable level at which the Earth can regenerate resources, energy use can be within renewable capacity and avoid depletion of finite resources, and the land, water and atmosphere can assimilate the wastes. In reality, there are significant challenges that probably will not allow our civilization to run on sustainably in perpetuity.
If our population and economy exceed sustainable limits, we are said to be in ecological overshoot – demanding more from the Earth’s life-supporting ecosystems than they can regenerate year after year. I produced a good introduction to overshoot in an episode of the syndicated radio series, Conversation Earth. Listen here, or search for “Welcome to Overshoot” wherever you get your podcasts.
The best available scientific analysis tells us that we exceeded global carrying capacity and went into overshoot in about 1972. Since this isn’t a book, let me point you to further reading in case you want more detail:
Writings by Herman Daly (one of the best educators on limits to growth)
Here’s a chart I created to clarify the “business-as-usual” model from the Limits to Growth study. Good things don’t happen - right about now. Well, maybe they are good, for the planet.
Take a look at the remarkable correlation between greenhouse gas emissions and the scale of the human enterprise:
Most elements of the polycrisis we face today are consequences (and therefore evidence) of ecological overshoot. Here’s a list just off the top of my head:
Climate Disruption
Increased Rate of Species Extinction
Ocean Dead Zones
Ocean Acidification
Fertile Soil Depletion
Increasing Scarcity of Fresh Water Supplies
Toxification of Water, Land and Air
Increasing Scarcity of Critical Resources
We cannot continue our worship of growth everlasting. It is setting our kids up to inherit not a bright future, but a dead planet. That’s why I’m running for U.S. President. We need to treat overshoot as the critical emergency it is. After I’m elected and declare an ecological overshoot emergency, we’ll begin telling different stories around the campfire. Getting out of “more, more, more” mode will be a national project.
We’ll all work together to get our scale and behavior back into balance with nature, because we all love our kids and want them to have a bright future. There will be challenges, but working together we’ll sort them out. We’ll get out of the rat race we’ve been running in service to this crazy, overshoot, grow-at-all-costs economy. We’ll get back in touch with what really matters in life (hint: it’s not GDP!).
Learn more about my National Project to Get Out of Ecological Overshoot
NOTE: I’ve been invited to serve on a panel at a large, international environmental conference the week of Earth Day. My campaign has so far avoided travel expenses, but it’s important that ideas like these are presented at this gathering of scientists, academics, entrepreneurs and political leaders. So I’m asking your help. Please make a campaign contribution to help cover the travel costs.
