É Indian 1. **Prosperity and Well-being:** - Prosperity is linked to doing well and being well, reflecting mutual concern for each other's well-being. - The understanding of prosperity often involves a sense of continuity and care about the future. 2. **Shared Prosperity:** - Individual prosperity is interconnected with social well-being, emphasizing the importance of family, friends, and community. - Shared concern for prosperity translates into a vision of human progress, including the elimination of poverty and injustice. 3. **Importance of Social Progress:** - Social progress signifies a better future, not only for the current generation but for those to come. - The possibility of social progress provides reassurance about the meaningfulness of individual lives. 4. **Challenges in Achieving Prosperity:** - Raises questions about how prosperity can be attained realistically. - Emphasizes the need for a credible and robust mechanism for achieving progress, aligning hope with reality. 5. **Failure in Achieving Prosperity:** - Argues that current technologies, economy, and social aspirations are poorly aligned with meaningful prosperity. - Critiques the pursuit of the good life today, which may undermine the basis for well-being tomorrow. 6. **Book's Purpose and Focus:** - Highlights that the book seeks viable responses to reconcile aspirations for the good life with the finite nature of the planet. • Focuses on finding a credible vision for human society to flourish within ecological limits and establishing dimensions of a credible economics for this aim. 21prosperityasgrouth 1. **Central Question of the Book:** - Explores the question of what prosperity looks like in a finite world with limited resources and a growing population expected to exceed ten billion. 2. **Conventional View of Prosperity:** - The prevailing response links prosperity to economic growth and rising incomes. - Economic growth, measured by GDP per capita, is considered synonymous with increasing prosperity. 3. **Link Between GDP, Income, and Prosperity:** - The formula associates prosperity with the rise in GDP per capita, assuming higher incomes enhance lives. - Economic growth has been a global policy goal, especially in addressing poverty in developing nations. 4. **Challenges to Conventional Wisdom:** - Questions whether the pursuit of ever-increasing incomes is a legitimate focus for richer nations. - Considers the possibility of halting relentless growth and focusing on equitable resource distribution. 5. **Critiques of Economic Growth:** - Highlights criticism that economic growth perpetuates inequality, benefiting the rich disproportionately. - Rising inequality may lead to social tensions and hardships in disadvantaged communities. 6. **Beyond a Certain Point:** - Acknowledges that continued pursuit of economic growth may not advance human happiness. - Historical and philosophical ideas challenge the notion that more economic growth is always better. 7. **Political Revival of Happiness:** - Notes the emergence of a politics of wellbeing or happiness challenging conventional views of social progress. - Examples include Ecuador's concept of "buen vivir" (good living) embedded in its constitution. 8. **Finite Nature of the Planet:** - Emphasizes the importance of any credible vision of prosperity considering the finite nature of the planet. - Raises questions about the possibility of sustained economic growth without encountering ecological and resource constraints. 23 confronting limits 1. **Historical View on Limits:** - Ancient wisdom often saw limits as the foundation for prosperity, equating limitations with success. - Respecting limits was considered prudent, leading to preparedness for times of want. 2. **Nature's Analogy:** - Perspectives from ancient wisdom often used analogies from nature to convey the role of limits in human affairs. - Nature's fixed limits for seasons, day and night, were seen as giving meaning to the year. 3. **Contemporary Perspectives:** - Modern views tend to perceive limits as inconvenient or illusory. - Advances in technology and a sense of limitless creativity have led some to believe almost anything is possible, challenging the concept of limits. 4. **Debates on Limits:** - Some argue that the concept of limits is economically illiterate, emphasizing limitless human capacity for intelligence, imagination, and wonder. - Examining the assertion that there are no great limits to growth due to unlimited human capacities. 5. **Partial Truth and Fallacy:** - Acknowledges some aspects of human existence, like ingenuity and creativity, may be unlimited. - Argues that understanding human and earthly limits is not constraining but rather induces fullness of relationship and meaning. 6. **Question of Relationship:** - Raises the central question of an appropriate relationship between the limited and the limitless. - The exploration of this relationship becomes a focus in Chapters 5 and 6.K 3.2 The struggle for existence 1. **Origins of Concern for Limits:** - The Club of Rome's "Limits to Growth" in 1972 was a significant work on limits. - Concern for material limits dates back to Thomas Robert Malthus and his Essay on the Principle of Population in the late 18th century. 2. **Rousseau's Influence and Romantic Movement:** - Rousseau's views on social progress and the corrupting influence of private property influenced Malthus and Karl Marx. - Rousseau's rejection of civilization and return to the natural state laid the foundation for the romantic movement. 3. **Malthus's Population Principle:** - Malthus argued that population growth outpaces the growth in resources, leading to a harsh struggle for existence. - He challenged the romantic view of the savage state, asserting that suffering is inherent in nature due to population pressure. 4. **Theological Questions and Theodicy:** - Malthus faced theological questions about a caring god allowing inescapable suffering. - He presented a complex theodicy, suggesting that the struggle for existence is part of a divine plan to awaken human beings and achieve a higher purpose. 5. **Modern Debates on Limits:** - Philosophical aspects of Malthus's work remain relevant to modern sustainability debates. - Despite being condemned for various reasons, Malthus's ideas contribute to the history of limits debates. 6. **Critiques of Malthus:** - Malthus is criticized for his jaundiced view of poverty and opposition to the Poor Laws, earning economics the reputation of a "dismal science." - He failed to foresee structural inequalities and was wrong about the math, as the global population and economy grew contrary to his predictions. 7. **Technological Changes and Resource Use:** - Malthus missed the longer-term implications of technological changes and the slowing rate of population increase due to development. - Despite advancements, concerns arise about the massive increases in resource use associated with a vastly expanded global economy. 4.2 Betting on our future 1. **Club of Rome and Limits to Growth:** - In 1968, Aurelio Peccei and Alexander King initiated the Club of Rome to address global predicaments. - The Club, concerned with exponential consumption in a finite world, collaborated with MIT's Jay Forrester, leading to the influential 1972 report "The Limits to Growth." 2. **Limits to Growth Analysis:** - The MIT team, including Meadows and others, presented a model focusing on the relationships between population, technology, capital, agriculture, and environmental quality. - They argued that industrial development, coupled with increased affluence, leads to resource overconsumption and, eventually, environmental collapse. 3. **Resource Quality and Decline:** - Resource collapse doesn't result from complete disappearance but from the declining quality of resources. - US ecologist Charles Hall's 'Energy Return on Energy Invested' (EROI) demonstrates the challenges as resource extraction becomes financially and energetically unviable. 4. **Criticism and Misunderstanding:** - Critics accused the team of scare-mongering and scientific illiteracy. - A famous wager between Paul Ehrlich and Julian Simon highlighted misunderstandings about resource scarcity, with the market's volatility complicating the assessment. 5. **Recent Studies and Concerns:** - Recent studies analyzing population, production, resource consumption, and pollution align with the Limits to Growth predictions. - Resource scarcity analyses suggest that peak production for essential materials may occur before 2050, challenging assumptions about continued GDP growth fueled by natural resources. 6. **Volatility in Commodity Prices:** - Economic landscapes have witnessed increased commodity price volatility, with oil prices fluctuating dramatically due to supply bottlenecks, climate change concerns, and geopolitical tensions. 7. **Predicting Resource Scarcity:** - It remains challenging to predict when resource scarcity will significantly impact the world. - Recent studies give grounds for concern, suggesting that wealth may peak around 2017–2022, and resource dependency could lead to irreversible changes. 8. **Dynamic Nature of Scarcity:** - The MIT team emphasized the dynamic nature of scarcity, highlighting the critical distinction between positive and negative feedback loops. - In rapidly expanding systems with positive feedback, managing change becomes harder, emphasizing the importance of understanding and responding to feedback loops. 9. **Challenges in Managing Change:** - Driving economies faster complicates responses to scarcities due to the challenges posed by strong positive feedback loops. - The key lessons are the need for early planning and acknowledging that success lies in addressing scarcities long before they become critical. 10. **Current State and Action:** - The world is moving towards the scenario predicted by Limits to Growth, and there are concerns about reaching peak wealth around 2017–2022. - Questions should focus on whether scarcity is approaching in the foreseeable future, prompting the need for early actions to address emerging scarcities. 5 2 Running out of planet 1. **Planetary Boundaries:** - The Stockholm Resilience Centre's 2015 report on 'planetary boundaries' identified nine critical biophysical boundaries that, if crossed, could lead to disastrous consequences for society. 2. **Environmental Threats:** - Four critical boundaries—nutrient loading, species loss, ocean acidification, and climate change— already pose serious threats beyond the planet's 'safe operating space.' 3. **Climate Change and Political Attention:** - Climate change gained global attention in the late 1980s, notably with climate scientist James Hansen's contributions. - The Stern Review, led by economist Nicholas Stern, emphasized the economic impact of climate change, suggesting an early investment to avoid more significant future costs. 4. **Seductive Message of Economic Continuity:** - The notion that climate change and environmental challenges can be fixed without significantly altering the economic model gained momentum post the Stern Review. - The concept of 'green growth' emerged, suggesting that economic growth with lower carbon emissions could outpace 'brown' growth. 5. **Challenges in Climate Policy:** - Despite optimistic messages, historical climate policies faced challenges. The Kyoto Protocol's goal to reduce emissions by 5% by 2012 did not prevent a 60% increase in CO2 emissions by 2015. 6. **Copenhagen Accord and Emission Reductions:** - The 2009 Copenhagen Accord aimed to limit global warming to less than 2°C above pre-industrial levels. However, individual nations' 'intended nationally determined commitments' (INDCs) fell short. 7. **Paris Agreement and Temperature Goals:** - The 2015 Paris Agreement set a goal to limit global warming "well below 2°C" and pursue efforts to limit it to 1.5°C. This marked a significant strengthening of the Copenhagen goal. 8. **Carbon Budget and IPCC's Calculations:** - The IPCC indicated that to meet the 1.5°C target, cumulative carbon dioxide emissions since 1870 must stay below 2,350 billion metric tonnes. - With over 2,000 billion tonnes already emitted, the remaining 'carbon budget' is limited, posing a significant challenge to achieve emission reductions. 9. **Uncomfortable Reality:** - Rising global temperatures and the urgency of dangerous climate change demand immediate action. - The 'carbon budget' is depleting rapidly, necessitating a transformation of energy systems. Bill McKibben warns that we're running out of the planet even before exhausting fossil fuel reserves. 10. **Urgent Need for Transformation:** - The uncomfortable reality underscores the need for an accelerated transition away from fossil fuels to avert the dire consequences of climate change. - Bill McKibben's assertion emphasizes the urgency of action to address climate change and its impact on the planet. limbs the 6 2 Beyond 1. **Economic Growth Model**: Centers around continual, exponential expansion. 2. **Historical Growth Rate**: Global economy grew at an average of 3.65% annually since the mid-20th century. 3. **Projection**: If growth persists, the global economy could be over 200 times larger by 2100. 4. **Environmental Consequences**: This unprecedented growth has led to the degradation of an estimated 60% of the world’s ecosystems. 5. **Assumption Challenges**: Despite ecological limits, the prevailing assumption is that growth will continue indefinitely. 6. **Structural Reliance**: The modern economy is structurally reliant on continuous economic growth for stability. 7. **Decoupling Efforts**: Attempt to decouple economic growth in dollars from environmental impacts, but success is limited. 8. **Failure of Growth Myth**: Growth hasn't delivered stability, prosperity, or livelihoods for a significant portion of the global population. 9. **Upcoming Challenges**: Challenges include the end of cheap oil, volatile commodity prices, climate change, and ecological degradation. 10. **Call for Renewal**: Urgent need for a new economic approach that prioritizes justice, shared prosperity, and environmental sustainability.
