Infinite growth

DRAFT page

Hi all, I’m still exploring the literature and how other environmentalists define the concepts below. Basically if I come out against the Degrowth movement – it’s because there are some definitions of it that are too Doomer. But in listening to other “Degrowthers” on the Club of Rome there’s a lot of clever insights and much to embrace. So at the moment I am not “Degrowth” – but as always I reserve the right to change my mind and edit this page later.

  1. DRAFT page
  2. “Infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible!”
  3. Not infinite growth but Demographic Decoupling
  4. Collapse is not the solution
  5. The energy transition itself is not the ONLY answer

“Infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible!”

Well, of course. You feel that needs to be said? Out loud? If I rave about the exponential growth of solar panels – I’m not saying that’s forever. It’s until the market is saturated with clean energy. Near the end it will drop off like other disruptive technology adoption S-curve.

I’m a “Bright Green” environmentalist that sees hope in renewable energy adoption rates – but still acknowledges that is only the energy front of the sustainability challenge. I’m not into the infinite growth on a finite planet schtick of the ridiculous Techno-Optimist Manifesto. Instead I’m saying – like the other S curves in history – the climate and broader sustainability challenge requires SMART growth. Yes – that old business acronym that is almost cliché these days. Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Realistic and Time-bound? As a Transitionista – I of course support the exponential growth of clean energy and other circular technologies. It’s about meeting the specific goal of solving climate change by 2050. As we know from exponential maths (see the Speed of Growth page), nothing seems to be happening for the longest time – then it all happens at once.

Not infinite growth but Demographic Decoupling

If infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible, what’s the alternative? I do not think going the whole other direction into Degrowth is attractive or defensible either. The industrialised world is not going to just pack up and call it quits and let billions of us starve. The human race is not going to agree – from the goodness of our hearts – to suddenly die back to just 2 billion of us “for the environment”. (William Rees – 2023). It is not necessary and is completely untenable as a political position.

(It is obviously very doomer and may cause more suicides.) Instead, I prefer a middle ground. I think I’ll call it Demographic Decoupling. That is:-

We must Decouple our industrial civilisation from its impact on nature while meeting all human needs, living the majority world out of poverty as fast as possible. As we meet the needs of “People and Planet” – the goal is to meet all human needs with vastly less impact per person. When the world moves into a modern Industrial Ecosystem, powered by clean energy and advanced recycling systems, known Demographic factors will reverse population growth. With the right welfare and taxation policies we can even accelerate the population decline back to 6 billion by 2100. That would mean nature and humanity both thriving in a vastly cleaner civilisation. The challenge is to take as many species and as much of the biosphere with us as we fit through the bottleneck of the coming few decades. Fortunately there are many Regenerative systems that can help bring biodiversity through the bottleneck with us.

Collapse is not the solution

In many ways the doomer is like a religious cult that hides outside society in their Monasteries (sorry – I meant Prepper Compounds). They wash their hands of the whole awful business of activism and engaging with society and just wait for the apocalypse to wipe out the ‘sheeple’ in a sort of “Greenie Judgement Day.” But if they think peak energy collapse is inevitable – they’re deceiving themselves. The peer-reviewed science is in, and renewables can and will do the job!

What I fear is that so many young people become despondent because of doomers that we lose the activists we need to get the biosphere through this ecological bottleneck. They do not have a viable alternative plan for solving climate change and Overshoot. Everyone agreeing to hand over half our money to the poor and then die back to 2 billion is just. Not. A. Policy.

So while the Doomer stamps their foot and insists this is the only way – and then spreads lies about the energy transition – they’re actually working against the only viable method of fixing this mess!

The energy transition itself is not the ONLY answer

What if we’re all still here in 30 years and the energy transition is complete – but we all forgot to be conservationists and many of our beautiful nature reserves and favourite critters went extinct?

Scolding the energy transition for not fixing all other aspects of biosphere decline is like yelling at the fridge because it will not cook your meal! It’s just not the fridge’s job to cook your meal. The fridge and whole cold chain behind it is to keep your food and medicines fresh and offer up a whole variety of menu choices you might not otherwise have in your diet. That’s the same with the energy transition. It’s job is to save us from global warming, peak fossil fuels, fossil fuel particulates that cost the world $5 TRILLION a year in extra health costs (W.H.O.) and to finally free us from Petro-Dictators! I say those 4 HUGE things are enough! If it does all that we should be grateful and move on to solve other issues other ways.

Try the Earth4All material that have 5 major transition pathways – with clean energy only being one of them. Earth4All is a sister organisation to the Club of Rome, Potsdam Institute and others.