Global Change and the End of Growth

William E. Rees, PhD, FRSCUniversity of British ColumbiaSchool of Community and Regional Planning

University of Western Ontario2 April 2009

Context 1:The State of the WorldGlobal Environmental Outlook, “the final wake-up call to

the international community.” (October 2007) UNEP. “The human population is now so large that the amount of

resources needed to sustain it exceeds what is available at current consumption patterns” (Achim Steiner , UNEP Exec Director).

The Age of Consequences (November 2007). Washington, Center for Strategic and International Studies

“We predict an [inevitable] scenario in which people and nations are threatened by massive food and water shortages, devastating natural disasters and deadly disease outbreaks” (John Podesta, contributing author).

Rich countries could “go through a 30-year process of kicking people away from the lifeboat” as the world’s poorest face the worst environmental consequences (Leon Fuerth, contributing author).

Context 2: Clash of Paradigms

Ecological containment: Biophysical laws constrain human activities, limiting material throughput (resource consumption, waste production).

Humanistic expansionism: Human ingenuity—efficiency gains and technological improvements—will prevail.

Malthus’ Great Insight: (Human Carrying Capacity)

“…I say that the power of population is indefinitely greater that the power in the earth to produce subsistence for man.”

(Rev.Thomas Malthus 1798).

Opposed by (along with the majority of mainstream economists)

Lawrence Summersthen Chief Economist, World Bank (1991)

“There are no... limits to the carrying capacity of the earth that are likely to bind any time in the foreseeable future… The idea that we should put limits on growth because of some natural limit, is a profound error [with] staggering social costs.”

Rees’s Hypothesis: Modern H. sapiens is inherently unsustainable

Unsustainability is an inevitable emergent property of the systemic interaction between techno-industrial society, as presently conceived, and the ecosphere. :Certain human behavioural

predispositions (‘genetic presets’) leading to unsustainability are evident throughout human history.

These biological predispositions are currently being reinforced by cultural factors.

Universal Biological Drivers

Unless or until constrained by negative feedback, humans, like all other species will:

expand to fill all accessible habitat;consume all available resources (to limits

imposed by contemporary technology).

H. sapiens: Not a Good Resource Manager“Although there is considerable variation in detail, there is remarkable consistency in the history of resource exploitation: resources are inevitably overexploited, often to the point of collapse or extinction.”(Ludwig, Hilborn and Walters, Science 1993)

The Cultural Factor: Socially Constructed Stories and Myths

We claim to to be a science or knowledge-based society, but myth-making is a universal property of human societies and plays a vital role in every culture including our own (Grant 1998).

Prevailing Economic Myth: Optimistic Expansionism“Technology exists now to produce in virtually

inexhaustible quantities just about all the products made by nature…”, and: “We have in our hands now… the technology to feed, clothe, and supply energy to an ever-growing population for the next seven billion years…” (J. Simon 1995).

N.B. Simon was challenged on this statement and promptly backed down to “seven million years,” a three orders of magnitude retreat. Nevertheless, starting from 5.7 billion people in 1995, growing at just 1% per year, the human population after ‘only’ seven million years would be 2.3 x 1030410. This is an unimaginably large number, something like “thirty-thousand orders of magnitude larger than the number of atoms estimated to be in the known universe!” (Bartlett 1998).

Consequence of Nature and Nurture: Estimated Human Population over the Past Two Millennia

Continuous growth—population and economic—is an anomaly. The growth spurt that recent generations take to be normal is the single most abnormal period of human history.

2009 Population: 6.7 billion

In the 19th Century, fossil fuels took the lid off population and economic growth.

The Ultimate Limiting Factor: The Second Law of ThermodynamicsAny spontaneous change in an isolated

system increases the system’s entropy—concentrations disperse, gradients disappear, structure is lost. I.e., the ‘randomness’ the system increases as it moves closer to thermodynamic equilibrium, a state of maximum entropy in which nothing further can happen.

The same basic forces of entropic decay also apply to open systems including ecosystems and the economy. All systems have a tendency to erode, decompose, crumble and disperse.

Degradation/dissipation may be the primary process in the universe.

Far-from-Equilibrium ThermodynamicsLiving systems (ecosystems, the economy)

are open self-organizing systems.Self-organizing systems are dissipative

structures. They self-organize and grow by consuming, degrading and ‘dissipating’ gradients of available energy (exergy). That is:

Living systems produce, grow and maintain themselves in a ‘far-from-equilibrium’ state by extracting exergy from their host ecosystems and by dumping their wastes (entropy) back into their hosts.

Comparing ‘Natural’ and Human-Dominated Ecosystems and the

Human-less Ecosystems

Develop by assimilating and dissipating extra-terrestrial solar radiation (exergy or negentropy)

Anabolism (production) exceeds catabolism (respiration)

Biomass (negentropy) accumulates

Increase entropy of the universe

Human-Dominated Systems

•Human component grows by consuming and dissipating resource gradients including supportive ecosystems

Catabolism exceeds anabolism

Cultural artifacts accumulate at the expense of ecosystem integrity (net dissipation)

•Increase entropy of ecosphere

All economic activity represents net degradation (entropy increases)

From the biophysical perspective, every act of economic ‘production’ is mainly a consumptive process. Economic goods and services are a small part of the output. The major product is degraded energy/matter, an increase in global entropy.

Nickel Tailings #32: Edward Burtynsky

Material Dissipation: Who Knew? (Dissipative processes are mostly hidden from view)

Annual non-bulk waste discharges from the economyJapan: 11 tonnes per capita. US: 25 tonnes per capita

If we include material flows (soil erosion, over-burden, construction debris, etc.) not actually used in productionJapan: 21 tonnes per capita. US: 86 tonnes per capita

Both gross and per capita processed output (solid, liquid and gaseous discharges) are generally increasing even in the most efficient economies.

The extraction and use of fossil energy resources dominate waste flows in industrialized countries.

Status of the Second Law“[Thermodynamics]…holds the

supreme position among the laws of nature… If your theory is found to be against the Second Law of Thermodynamics, I can give you no hope; there is nothing for it but to collapse in deepest humiliation” (Sir Arthur

Eddington).

[Thermodynamics] is the only theory of a general nature of which I am convinced that it will never be overthrown” (Albert Einstein).

Meltdown: A hundred years ahead of schedule?

IPCC Projections: Way Off! (but in the wrong direction)

Recent findings turn the screws “Reframing the climate change challenge in light of post-2000 emission trends”

To stabilize GHGs at even [a catastrophic] 650 ppmv CO2e, the majority of OECD nations must begin to make draconian emission reductions within a decade.

Unless we can reconcile economic growth with unprecedented rates of decarbonization (in excess of 6% per year), this will require a planned economic recession.(Anderson and Bows. 2008. Phil. Trans. R. Soc. A doi:10.1098/rsta.2008.0138)

P.S. 650 ppmv CO2e implies a 50% probability of a catastrophic 4C degree or greater increase in mean global temperature.

Initial attractor(supportive to humans)

New attractor(may be hostile to humans

Controlling Variable

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System ‘flips’ from its initial state to a new stable state

Economic Growth on its Own TermsPutative benefits Actual performanceGenerates wealth

required to reduce pollution and restore natural capital.

Improves general well-being.

Needed to eliminate poverty (avoids redistribution).

Ecological degradation is accelerating. Richest individuals (and countries) have largest per capita eco-footprints.

Negligible relationship between income growth and well-being in rich countries.

Absolute numbers of people in poverty has never been greater. Most income growth goes to already wealthy. Income gap within and between countries is increasing.

20% of population

75% of world income

1.5% of world income20% of population

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Per Capita GDP (income)

Turning Point

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Per Capita Ecological Footprints of Selected Countries(2003 data from WWF 2006)

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Biocapacities and Ecological Footprints of Selected Countries Compared to World Averages

Domestic Biocapacity

Ecological Footprint

All countries that run eco-deficits are dependent on ‘surplus’ biocapacity (exergy) imported from low density countries (like Canada) and the global commons.

Sunrise in Suzhou, China: what is Canada’s contribution to eco-degradation in China?

Missing: Four Phantom PlanetsIf today’s entire world population enjoyed the same consumer lifestyles as residents of North America, it would take four additional Earth-like planets to accommodate everyone sustainably! Problem: “Good planets are hard to find.”

(Siegel 2006)

Human Ecological Footprint1961-2003

Human demand now exceeds long-term global carrying capacity by 25-30%

Living Planet Index1970-2003

The current rate of biodiversity loss is approximately 1000 times the pre-industrial rate.

The Really ‘Inconvenient Truth’: There’s no substitute for consuming less

For sustainability with equity, North Americans should be taking steps to reduce their ecological footprints by 80% from about 9 gha to their equitable Earth-share (1.8 gha).

The technology to achieve much of this reduction is available but we lack the market or policy incentives to see it implemented.

We should be designing a ‘steady-state’ economy that maintains itself at a sustainable distance from equilibrium to avoid tipping points.

This need not be painfulIn many rich countries

neither objective nor felt well-being are still associated with rising GDP/income per capita.

On the contrary, “here we see US data showing “…the strange, seemingly contradictory pattern … of rising real income and a falling index of subjective well-being” (Lane 2000).

(Siegel 2006)

Limits to Growth RevisitedTurner, G. (2008) A Comparison of ‘Limits to Growth’ with Thirty Years of Reality. CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, Canberra

“Contrary to popular belief, the Limits to Growth scenarios… did not predict world collapse by the end of the 20th Century.”

“The analysis shows that 30 years of historical data [1970-2000] compares favourably with key features of a business-as-usual scenario called the ‘standard run’ scenario, which results in the collapse of the global system midway through the 21st Century.”

“The masses have never thirsted after truth. They turn aside from evidence that is not to their taste, preferring to deify error, if error seduce them. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim” (Gustave Le Bon 1895).

“For us to maintain our way of living, we must… tell lies to each other, and especially to ourselves… the lies act as barriers to truth. These barriers… are necessary because without them many deplorable acts would become impossibilities” (D. Jensen 2000).

Mainstream society tends to ignore both models and reality

An Explanatory Cognitive MechanismDuring individual

development, sensory experiences and cultural norms literally shape the human brain’s synaptic circuitry in patterns that reflect and embed those experiences.

Subsequently,people seek out compatible experiences and, “when faced with information that does not agree with their [preformed] internal structures, they deny, discredit, reinterpret or forget that information”(Wexler, 2006).

Closing Words of the 2007 Tällberg Forum (Sweden)

“Do we know what to do? Probably yes. Will we do it? Probably not.”