Untitled Document
THE LIMITS TO GROWTH PERSPECTIVE:
A 3 page summary.
For a 7 page outline of components of the "Poly crisis" see Poly-crisis.7p.
16.1.2025
Our society's most fundamental mistake is our commitment to affluent-industrial-consumer lifestyles and to an economy that must have constant and limitless growth in output, on a planet whose limited resources make these impossible goals.
Our way of life is grossly unsustainable. Our levels of production and consumption are far too high. We can only achieve them because we few in rich countries are grabbing most of the resources produced and therefore depriving most of the world's people of a fair share, and because we are depleting stocks faster than they can regenerate. Because we consume so much we are rapidly using up resources and causing huge ecological damage. It would be impossible for all the world's people to rise to our rich world per capita levels of consumption. But most people have no idea how far we are beyond sustainable levels.
Although present levels of production, consumption, resource use and environmental impact are unsustainable we are obsessed with economic growth, i.e., with increasing production and consumption, as much as possible and without limit!
Most of the major global problems we face, especially damage to the environment, poverty in poor countries, armed conflict and social breakdown are primarily due to this limits problem; i.e., to over-consumption. (This does not mean over-population is not a serious problem.)
Following are some of the main facts and arguments that illustrate the limits situation.
1. The World Wildlife Fund’s “Footprint” measure (2022) indicates that the amount of productive land required to meet the demand of the average Australian is around 6 ha. This means that if the 10 billion people likely by 2050 rose to Australian “living standards” we would need around 60 billion ha. But the planet has only about 12 billion ha of productive land. Thus if one-third of it is left for nature the per capita amount available would average only 0.8 ha. In other words Australians today are using over 7 times the per capita amounts that would be available to all in 2050.
2. The Footprint measure takes into account only a limited number of factors. A full accounting of the sustainability overshoot would reveal a much higher multiple than is indicated above. The Planetary Boundaries approach identifies limits in 9 realms and states that sustainable limits have already been exceeded in 6 of them.
3. Almost all global resource sources are dimishing. Mineral ore grades are falling, water resources are increasingly scarce, most fisheries are over fished, forests are diminishing, agricultural soils are being lost or damaged causing concerns about global food supply. It is likely that petroleum supply will peak within a decade.
4. The loss of the planet's biological species is alarming and accelerating. It is due primarily to loss of habitats, a consequent of economic growth.
5. The climate crisis. There is now no possibility of limiting temperature rose to 1.5 degrees. The world rate of transition to renewable energy sources (about a 4% p,a. increase) is a very small proportion of what would be required to replace fossil fuel pair by 2050. There is a strong case that renewables cannot sustain energy-intensive societies. (See below.) Carbon emissions continue to rise. Global energy supply seems to be at a peak while the energy cost of supplying it continues to rise. Again gross overshoot is evident and the answer must be very large reduction in demand.
6. Finally rich world affluence is built on exploitative resource extraction from poor countries, estimated by Hickle to be worth a net annual flow of $2.5 trillion (2021) from poor to rich countries, not including the environmental damage, low wages and social disruption left in poor countries. The global capitalist economy inevitably generates this outcome. Again it cannot be remedied without vast degrowth in rich countries.
Too few realise the magnitude of the sustainability and injustice predicament set by these figures. Solutions cannot be achieved by action on the supply side; that is by attempting to find more resources or reduce impact or meet existing demand. The overshoot is far too great now. They can only be achieved by enormous and radical transition to a very different social form, primarily defined in terms of much simpler lifestyle systems.
However this has only been an indication of the present grossly unsustainable situation. We must add the effect of economic growth. If by 2050 the expected 10 billion people were to rise to the GDP per capita Australians would have then given 3% p.a. economic growth, then total world economic output would be over 12 times the present amount.
But the present amount is grossly unsustainable: the WWF estimates that as present we’d need 1.7 planet Earths to meet the present global resource demand sustainably.
The “decoupling” myth.
The common argument against this limits to growth analysis of our situation is that growth of GDP can continue because it can be “decoupled” from resource demand an environmental impact. But this faith is contradicted by much recent evidence. The lengthy reviews by Hickel and Kallis (2019), Parrique et al., (2019) (300 studies reviewed), and Haberl et al. (2020) (800 studies) conclude unambiguously 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 it is most unlikely to be achieved in future. In fact the trends are getting worse. For instance, a 1% increase in world GDP (measured in PPP) is now accompanied by a 1.9% increase in metal consumption. (Lenzen et al. 2022, Zhang 2018.)
The inescapable conclusion.
Consumer-capitalist society cannot be fixed. It cannot solve the problems that its basic structures and commitments generate. It has to be largely replaced by a society that will allow us to live well on a small fraction of the present levels of consumption.
The Simpler Way argument is 
that such a society must involve simpler lifestyles, mostly small and local economies under local participatory control and not determined by market forces, no economic growth, and the abandonment of competitive, individualistic and acquisitive values.
The coming era of scarcity will push us in the required direction. The Ecovillage and Transition Towns movements are more or less pioneering this emerging shift towards localism.
The best way to contribute to the transition is to help raise awareness of those issues, especially by working to build local community gardens and co-ops. No significant change in society can be achieved unless and until most people understand the limits to growth predicament and the fact that we must develop cooperative, self-sufficient alternatives, with economies that are not driven by profit or the market. (See The Alternative Society.)