The Myth of the Endless Economic Growth

Don't tell it is "exponential"...

It is interesting to see how very smart people, who I hold in high regard and with whom I agree on almost everything, are triggered when one questions some basic assumptions that permeate our consumerist culture. Something that I could observe lately (and not for the first time) during a brief exchange of tweets (see here) with Prof. Michael E. Mann, director of the Center for Science, Sustainability & the Media at the University of Pennsylvania and a well-known climatologist and geophysicist.

Someone asked what “tools” will reduce heat (global warming) and lack of sufficient water?

Prof. Mann answered that to accomplish that we need the following
1) renewable energy transition,
2) smart grids & energy conservation,
3) decarbonization of societal infrastructure.

So far, so good. I completely agree with that. But felt to add another one, which, if absent, may render the above insufficient:

4) put an end to the exponential growth.

Prof. Mann lamented my careless and incorrect use of terminology, asking what growth I am referring to. In a tweet that I write on the fly, I refrain from going into rigorous technical descriptions and assumed that it is obvious what we are talking about. I was referring mainly to the worldwide economic growth quantified in terms of GDP, the growth of energy consumption, the growth of the exploitation of natural resources, population growth, etc. Someone else, in fact, understood immediately that, what I was talking about, is a “mindless growth in consumerism/extraction/exploitation” and that “There’s no point in talking about what is scientifically necessary without acknowledging what is socially and politically possible.” In other words, the idea of a sustainable green economy that can stay green inside an endlessly growing paradigm is wishful thinking.

It is certainly not a new argument that comes from my wild speculations. The so-called ‘degrowth’ idea is an old and hotly debated topic (e.g., see link, link, link).

Pointing this out did not lead to any further consideration. It seems to be a taboo subject, also among those who are highly engaged in saving the planet from climate change.

Whereas, the discussion digressed to my use of the word “exponential”. A clarification mathematically relevant but that, in this context, doesn’t add anything to the point. I won’t go into the technical details (something you can read in the thread), and I was obviously not correct in saying that long-term population growth is exponential, it rather follows a sigmoid curve, see the article here. Population growth is only short-term approximately exponential growth, and then the curve flattens. Didn’t every one of us learn this very recently? We were all waiting with trepidation, covid exiting its exponential growth rate to a linear, or flattened, or ideally decaying curve. Remember? While, so far, the world GDP growth rate (with the exceptions of 2008 and 2020, for obvious reasons) remains inexorably positive at an average of about 3% (see here): It is by all means still “exponential”.

But I think this misses the point. The question is how are we supposed to get to that curve flattening or decay? In the case of covid the race was between finding a vaccine limiting the transmission/disease/death rate and letting Nature take its course. While, in a natural context of population growth, the above article essentially confirms what the degrowth supporters fear so much: what begins with exponential growth is suppressed by the depletion of natural resources, overshooting the environment’s carrying capacity, which in real systems can be determined also by the spread of diseases with cycles of overpopulation followed by population crash or extinction.

Wow! Then we have nothing to worry about. Right? Indeed, the system self-regulates itself! We don’t need to do anything. Nature has adopted clever solutions.

Is this the kind of future we envisage??

This is how it plays out in the animal kingdom. A somewhat different story tells us the human world population growth. Fortunately, it is in a degrowth phase, transitioning from the exponential to linear growth, and will, presumably, reach a maximum of about 10.43 billion in 2086.

Frankly, a world of 10 billion, dominated by greed and the unlimited exploitation of natural and human resources, with probably some billions displaced by climate change and other environmental disasters, doesn’t sound to me like a scenario we should celebrate as a success story. However, leaving that aside, also true is that it seems that we are getting overpopulation slowly under control.

Indeed, this demographic transition is a result of an economic development where wealthy families have fewer children, due to lower fertility rates, and (something rarely considered) also because education and women’s rights play a role (e.g., see here.) It is precisely because we are going (willingly or unwillingly) slowly but steadily toward a society, culture, and system that implements mechanisms that slow down the constant population growth rate, that we can avoid, at least in part, the brutal clampdown by natural selection. We are not there yet, but the signs are promising.

Assuming, however, that, by doing nothing, the same will magically happen with economic growth, is a dangerous working premise. If this economic development continues with its exponential phase, it will later not transition to the flat+decaying curve smoothly, and we are going to hit the wall of limited resources and/or because of nature intervening with its own style and methods. The resources are limited and either we learn to adapt or we will be forced to adapt.

For the time being, there is no sign that our consumption of resources is leaving an endless (exponential or linear or whatever…) growth curve (e.g., see here). It will, of course. But it is up to us which path we would like to follow to realize the sigmoid curve. That of taking the problem seriously and learning to create BOTH a green technology AND sustainable economy, or that of indulging in an unlimited consumption and exploitation of Earth’s resources with a viral or cancer-like development (even cancer ends its exponential growth: by killing its hosting organism.)

Prof. Mann, however, pointed out that “carbon emissions is the pertinent topic at hand (climate change) and which have leveled and are projected to decline.” And, at that point, he closed the thread, silencing any reply.

I hope he is right. But I highly doubt that we can decouple carbon emissions from an endless economic growth, which inevitably implies an endlessly growing energy consumption (for similar reasons that show how the improvements in the efficiency of resources do not grow with the same pace of resource extraction and consumption.) But, even if so, once the issue with carbon emissions will be settled, some other “emission”, “pollution”, “health impact”, “environmental degradation,” etc. will result from clinging to a ‘green growth’, throwing us back to the drawing board.

So, no. Just no. We won’t have it both. Items 1), and 2), will not meet the expectations, and will not lead to 3) without item 4).

At any rate, I think that when people get so upset about the precise use of words, they are not really caring about terminology. It is a (a more or less unconscious) defense mechanism that allows them to avoid getting to the heart of the matter. These are the kind of techno-delusions of infinite expansion typical of modern materialism that I addressed also in other contexts (e.g., see here and here.) However it is, you might agree or disagree, but I find it interesting how the issue triggers emotional reactions that make people bar you or call you a ‘fascist’ or ‘communist’ (something I could observe on other occasions when the issue was raised.) There is something that activates atavistic instincts of resistance to change when one proposes a post-growth paradigm, and that, paradoxically, are not so dissimilar from the resistance opposing a transition to renewables, climate change denialism or the anti-mask sentiment that preferred to do nothing against a pandemic. It is time to …well yes, grow… but inwardly, and expand our vision beyond an irrational consumerist obsession.

PS: My quarrel with Prof. Mann continued later here. He agrees that a ‘resource-driven growth’ is an issue. But once I pointed out what he said previously, he didn’t reply.