It is not difficult to design a viable alternative Simpler Way of this kind … but it could not work unless there was general willing acceptance of far simpler systems and lifestyles and thus the abandonment of the pursuit of monetary wealth, property and ever-rising GDP. It is not possible to imagine social systems that enable satisfactory quality of life on extremely low per capita levels of material consumption unless we accept that most of us must live in communities that are small, highly self-sufficient and self-governing, very collectivist and above all content with very simple materially lifestyles. That would mean astronomical change in our present economic, political social, settlement and cultural systems. If these kinds of studies and numbers are at all valid then there can be no solution but to dramatically reduce rich world levels of production and consumption and GDP. So how likely is it that tech fixes could cut impacts to around 10% of present levels while GDP rises to about 2.5 times its present level by 2050? But it’s worse than that because the arithmetic does not take into account the deterioration in resource availability and environmental conditions that will have occurred by 2050. That’s a measure of how grossly unsustainable our present ways are. My study of the issue arrived at the conclusion that if by 2050 all the expected 10 billion people were to rise to the GDP per capita we in rich countries would have assuming 3% economic growth, then rich world per capita consumption would have to be reduced by more than 90%. What very few realise, including most within the Degrowth movement, is the magnitude of the reduction required. There is now a large literature and many agencies and conferences are working on the fact that levels of resource use and environmental impact and thus production and consumption are now far beyond sustainable levels, and thus that the only viable solution has to be significant reduction in these levels and in GDP.
This has emerged from the basic “limits to growth” argument put by Meadows et al fifty years ago yet largely ignored until recently. The demolition of the decoupling faith has been central in the rise of the Degrowth movement. are requiring more effort and resources to maintain output levels. Diminishing resource sources, falling mineral grades, rising energy costs, rising environmental costs etc. The reviews emphasisze that there are not good reasons to expect absolute decoupling in future in fact the trends are getting worse. Despite constant effort to improve productivity and efficiency, in general growth of GDP is accompanied by growth in resource use. The above reviews conclude emphatically that despite constant effort to increase efficiency and cut costs absolute de-coupling of resource use and environmental impact from GDP growth is not occurring, and that greater recycling effort and transition to “service and information economies” are not at all likely to achieve it. But what matters is whether the overall output of an economy can be reduced as its GDP rises, which is “absolute” decoupling. There are some areas in which production is being achieved and/or could be with reduced impacts, and transition to renewable energy is an important instance. The second lists over 300 studies and the third lists over 850.
Anyone still unaware of this should consult the massive studies by Hickel and Kallis, Parrique et al., and Haberle et al.
It is disturbing that this tech-fix faith persists despite the mountain of evidence that it is wrong. This comforting faith is widely held, including by major global institutions. That is, it is claimed that the rate of production and consumption can continue to increase while the resources needed to do this can be reduced to sustainable levels, along with the environmental damage it causes. The fundamental assumption underlying these beliefs is that economic growth can be “decoupled” from resource and ecological demands and impacts. Here is an indication of the main reasons why these assumptions are totally mistaken. Advocates for a Green New Deal are for a collection of admirable goals which it is usually taken for granted can be achieved within a capitalist economy and while the pursuit of economic growth continues.
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