I just had a look at the ESA Position Statement on the economic growth and their Strategies for Achieving Ecologically Sustainable Growth.
It's very difficult to believe that ecologists, of all people, composed such a document and, if that's the way a majority of ecologists within the ESA think, then we're really in more trouble than I thought. "Sustainable economic growth" is simply an impossibility. "Economic growth" refers to an increase in a country's output (production and consumption) of goods and services usually measured by an increase in real GDP. The key point here is that it is an increase proportional to the amount that was produced before! Therefore, economic growth at a constant rate amounts to exponential growth. But we know through thermodynamics that you can't make something from nothing (nor can you make nothing from something). Since virtually all the goods—including all the goods required to support the services—come directly from ecosystem structure, economic growth is also an increase in throughput, or flow of natural resources, through the economy and back to the environment. When the GDP goes up, invariably an ecosystem somewhere has been appropriated, polluted, or otherwise degraded and, along with it, the biodiversity it holds and the services it provides. Arguments about technological solutions seem suspect here. We are the most technologically advance civilization in the history of humanity and yet the global environment is the most degraded in our history. When is this technology going to kick in? Likely never, so long as economic growth is an imperative. The World Health organization, as part of their contribution to the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, concluded: "In the 200 years for which we have reliable data, overall growth of consumption has outpaced increased efficiencies in production processes [improved technologies], leading to absolute increases in global consumption of materials and energy [ecosystem resources]. This means that, in practice, economic growth tends to increase consumption of energy and materials." Why doesn’t the ESA position quote this fact-based finding? Instead it selectively quotes one musing of the Brundtland Commission (or one of its members) that “sustainable development…can be consistent with economic growth, provided the content of growth reflects the broad principles of sustainability.” Greening the economy is another myth. Josh Schimel states, "The development of hybrid cars, solar cells, etc. all involve economic growth and development, and yet they reduce human impacts on the world (at least where they replace existing technology)." But also, they all involve producing more goods which requires more resources (more than the previous year if economic growth occurs) from some component of ecosystem structure. Imagine the resource requirements to replace the NA vehicle fleet with electric cars. Then try and imagine how the vast increased demand for electricity will be met. As Josh Schimel notes, "Other kinds of "growth" may enhance our well being without degrading the global support system as well," and he's right. But that’s not economic growth. He’s really talking about a qualitative development, and only in one sector. But remember that economic growth, in academia, in the public, in legislatures and administrations, means more production and consumption of goods and services, as indicated by increasing GDP. It is a cumulative measure – it makes no sense to speak of the growth of an automobile sector, a services sector, or a pizza business as “economic growth.” Economic growth occurs only if the aggregated production and consumption is increasing.” And Schimel's truths: "1. Humans in the developing world have a moral right to try to improve their well being. 2. There is a finite capacity of the planet to support humans and increasing resource consumption and waste production will degrade the planetary carrying capacity. are absolutely correct; however, they are *not* to be balanced. (i.e., "Thus, we felt that the statement had to argue that we needed to balance those conflicting truths.") The priority has to be truth 2 and it should be weighted significantly more than truth 1 for without healthy ecosystems providing their life-support services, truth 1 is moot. This is why the concept of a sustainable, steady state economy is important to understand for it addresses the scale of the economy, just distribution of resources (which would address truth 1) and allocation of resources, in that order. We need to solve the macroallocation problem: how much of the Earth's ecosystems must we leave in a natural state to supply the life-support services and how much can we use for throughput to the human economy? Ecologists can play a key role here. I can understand an organization, such as The Wildlife Society or the Association of Professional Biologists of BC, being reluctant to vigorously oppose such an ingrained paradigm as economic growth by either taking a soft approach in their position (TWS) or not wanting to comment at all (APBBC) but to actually come up with a statement that includes phrases such as "The sustainability of economic growth," or "Strategies for Achieving Ecologically Sustainable Growth," suggests a disconnect between their understanding of how the economy actually works and how the real world works. These are ecologists, for god's sake! I've been asking myself, why does this seem to be such a difficult concept for biologists and ecologists to get? It's baffling. For anyone trained in ecological principals it should be a no-brainer, yet it isn't. I can only guess that they don't grasp the thermodynamic aspects of economic growth and/or have bought into the green or technological solutions propaganda. How else would one explain the statement, "The problem is not economic growth, per se, but the ways in which it is implemented" when the problem is, in fact, economic growth, per se? I'm afraid I'm at a loss here as to what went wrong in ESA, but as ecologists, at least we have the forthright position of CASSE to fall back on. I encourage all ESA members disappointed in the weakness of the ESA position to consider signing the CASSE position ( http://www.steadystate.org/CASSEPositionOnEG.html). Neil K. Dawe, Director of Canadian Operations Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy
