In the world, at the limits to growth

[GliderGuider]

In the world, at the limits to growth

It’s been part of the background noise for over half a century, warnings about resource scarcity, biodiversity loss, soil erosion or climate change. But impacts were always on the imaginative horizon. Sometime, far enough into the future to be re-assuring to a species that evolved with a clear preference for the short-term. Or on the hinterland between our safe European home and the barbarian other, where starvation, environmental disasters, angry mobs and crazy despots have always demanded our attention, at least while on TV.

When not distracted by the ever-present, we've responded to these warnings with treaties and laws, technology and exhortation. Of course, every ecological indicator kept getting worse. And we kept on about treaties and laws, and break-through technologies. Our mythic world-views gave us the shared faith that we may not be there yet, but we could, once a brilliant scheme is in place, a climate law passed, technologies adopted, evil bankers restrained, or once people just realised our predicament. Yes We Can! Yes We Can! Indeed, we could transcend our grubby selfishness and short-termism so we tied together the belief that we could will ecological sustainability and global equity. Still, our resource and environmental sink demands keep increasing, ecological indicators decline and inequality rises.

The reality is that we are locked into an economy adapted to growth, and that means rising energy and resource flows and waste. By lock-in, we mean that our ability to change major systems we depend upon is limited by the complexity of interdependencies, and the risk that the change will undermine other systems upon which we depend. So we might wish to change the banking or monetary system, but if the real and dynamic consequences lead to a major bank freeze lasting more than a couple of days we will have major food security risks, massive drops in economic production, and risks to infrastructure. And if we want to make our food production and distribution more resilient to such shocks, production will fall and food prices will need to be higher, which will in the short-to-medium term drive up unemployment, lead to greater poverty, and put even greater pressure on the banking system.

What the Galileos of today are saying is that we are at or near the peak of global oil production now. That as affordable oil declines, the global economy must contract. That we do not have the time, nor resources to keep the economy growing by substituting for oil with efficiency measures, renewable or nuclear energy, or technology. That talk of an electric car future, advanced IT-renewable energy convergent infrastructure, and global super-grids is a fancy. The most obvious problem with focusing on this vision at the horizon is that you don’t see that the ground is opening up beneath your feet. We will not get to that horizon because all the things you need to get there- monetary and financial systems, purchasing power and economies of scale, production systems, infrastructure and global trust networks-will be undermined by the convergence of a peak of global oil production, a peak of food production, and a giant credit bubble. The ground is already opening up, we will fall, and our visions will retreat further and further from our grasp.

I'm just discovering the writing of David Korowicz. I wish I'd run into him much earlier.

[DCKit]

1. "...we do not have the time, nor resources to keep the economy growing by substituting for oil..."

We pulled out all the stops for WWII. We can do it again, if we have the will.

It's not as if we don't have the available labor force or lack resources.

[GliderGuider]

2. So put the entire world on a war footing?

Maybe we could, but only if everybody was convinced of the threat. Have you ever tried to convince 7 billion people of something that's against their economic interest?

In any event, other factors may soon intervene to prevent this. I highly recommend Korowicz' latest paper for a sober, detailed look at what those factors are:

Trade Off: Financial system supply-chain cross contagion (PDF)

[XemaSab]

4. Getting off fossil fuels IS in the economic interest of 7b people

It's just not in the interest of our corporate massas.

[pscot]

3. If Ifs and buts were candy and nuts

Oh what a Christmas we would have.