**Growth Bad – Topshelf

Growth is unsustainable—default to empirical analysis—even if Krugman’s argument is theoretically true, it’s not historically and there’s no justification for why now is different

Which is fine. And obvious. No sane person would argue against this. History is full of technological advances or just clever ways of using things differently which let us do more with less energy; there are many more to come in the future. We now have better light bulbs and LEDs, more fuel-efficient engines, etc. We could, conceivably, produce more of lots of things while actually reducing our use of energy. Could.

But what “could, conceivably” happen in an ideal theoretical world isn’t the issue. When we look at our world, and the way economic growth has always worked in the past, we find that increases in energy efficiency don’t ultimately lead to less energy being used, but to more. The main point of my article was about what has happened, and what is continuing to happen in the real world, not what might happen in the nirvana of abstract economic theory. We’re getting ever more efficient in using energy, but we’re still using more and more of it. As I wrote:

Data from more than 200 nations from 1980 to 2003 fit a consistent pattern: On average, energy use increases about 70 percent every time economic output doubles. This is consistent with other things we know from biology. Bigger organisms as a rule use energy more efficiently than small ones do, yet they use more energy overall. The same goes for cities. Efficiencies of scale are never powerful enough to make bigger things use less energy.

In retrospect, I now see that the final sentence is the thing Krugman jumped on to make his (misleading) point. I intended the sentence in the spirit of “this has never happened yet and we have no decent reason to expect it will in the future” rather than “and I have a theorem to prove it never can.”

In my Bloomberg piece I also mentioned, very briefly, that there are reasons to think this trend might be quite difficult to break out of, as it arises from basic natural processes. There’s a well known relationship in biology known as Kleiber’s Law which describes an empirical (and now theoretically understood) relationship between an organism’s metabolic rate and total mass. It turns out that for a huge number of organisms, total energy use scales as mass raised to the ¾ power — virtually identical to the pattern noted above for total energy use and GDP for nations. A fluke? Maybe.

But something like this pattern doesn’t hold only for nations of various sizes, it extends down to individual cities as well. You can look at how various quantities scale with city size — length of transport networks, speed of individual movement, total energy use, etc.—and the results are quite regular across a huge range of scales and cities in different geographical settings and nations. From this (now somewhat old) talk by Luis Bettencourt, a leader in this field, you find that Metropolitan GDP grows as city population to about the 1.1–1.3 power, while total use of electrical energy and petroleum grows more slowly, roughly in direct proportion to population. Put them together and you get — very crudely, I admit—a similar trend: as cities grow they get ever more efficient at generating GDP, but also increase their use of energy (more slowly).

So, I can’t PROVE that higher GDP will always necessarily mean more energy used, but that’s the way it’s been so far, and even in the very recent past. Of course, I’d be surprised if a determined search through history couldn’t dig up a few special cases, especially over short periods of time, where GDP up and yet energy consumption went down. The point is that this doesn’t typically happen, especially for economic activity on national or global scales. Make things more energy efficient and we end up using them to consume more energy overall. That’s a broad empirical reality. One of the people commenting on Krugman’s New York Times piece put it quite well:

… if you look at Krugman’s own graph, you can see that there is a LIMIT to slow steaming. Marginal fuel savings decrease at slower speeds — the curve flattens out at low speeds. And of course there is a zero lower bound of zero knots. Ships can’t go negative speeds and magically produce fuel while doing so. So we can play these games for a while, until the LIMIT is reached.

And don’t forget, this all assumes we are moving the same amount of stuff around year in and year out. But Krugman wants growth, so we will be moving ever more stuff around as the years pass. More stuff means more ships means more fuel. This is why economic growth has always lead to greater energy and resource consumption despite efficiency gains.

Krugman says it can be different. He might be right, but it seems to me the burden of proof is on those claiming the future will be different from the past, and if Krugman has made such a case, I missed it.

So did I.

I’ll end with one more thought — and an irony. Yesterday the New York Timeshappened to run an essay by Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus (where have I heard that surname?) examining the potential for the rapid global spread of energy-efficient LED technologies to lead to vast energy savings. This year’s physics Nobel Prize went to three physicists who helped develop this wonderful technology, and, as the Institute of Physics noted, “With 20 percent of the world’s electricity used for lighting, it’s been calculated that optimal use of LED lighting could reduce this to 4 percent.”

Schellenberger and Nordhaus aren’t so hopeful:

… it would be a mistake to assume that LEDs will significantly reduce overall energy consumption.

LED’s are but the latest breakthrough in lighting efficiency. Consider the series of accelerated lighting revolutions ushered in by the Industrial Revolution. In the early and mid-1800s, for instance, “town gas” made from coal was developed and used to illuminate streetlights. Whale oil became the preferred indoor lighting fuel for upper-income Americans until it was replaced by more efficient kerosene lamps. And then, finally, in the late 19th century, the electric light bulb emerged.

Along the way, demand would rise for these new technologies and increase as new ways were found to use them. This led to more overall energy consumption.

From outer space, you can see the results of this long progression of illumination. More and more of the planet is dotted with clusters of lights.

There is no reason to think that the trend lines for demand for LED lighting will be any different, especially as incomes rise and the desire for this cheaper technology takes hold in huge, emerging economies like China, India and Nigeria, where the sheer volume of the demand will be likely to trump the efficiency gains.

… The growing evidence that low-cost efficiency often leads to faster energy growth was recently considered by both the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the International Energy Agency. They concluded that energy savings associated with new, more energy efficient technologies were likely to result in significant “rebounds,” or increases, in energy consumption….

The I.E.A. and I.P.C.C. estimate that the rebound could be over 50 percent globally. … lower energy costs because of higher efficiency may in fact result in higher energy consumption than there would have been without those technologies.

In fact, it wouldn’t be surprising; just a continuation of past trends.

Krugman’s argument is internally inconsistent and is motivated by an optimistic political agenda in order to persuade politicians to attempt piecemeal climate protection policies—he functionally acknowledged the limits to growth

Like Paul Krugman, we at Post Carbon Institute are deeply concerned about climate change and want officials to adopt policies to avert it. It’s true: if informed opinion leaders pretend that full climate protection can be achieved without any real cost, politicians are more likely to sign on to available no-cost policies. But they’ll only be agreeing to weak pledges that will fail to achieve the levels of emissions cuts that are actually required. By misleading policy makers and the general public this way, we merely waste time and opportunity.

Let’s get real. The Earth is a bounded sphere, and the human economy is an engine that extracts raw materials and produces waste. If we keep that engine’s operation within the bounds of what our planet can absorb or replenish through its normal ecosystem functions, all is well. But if the economy continues to grow year after year, at some point the planet’s systems will be overwhelmed—even if we’re using renewable energy to extract and transform raw materials. Our uses of energy and materials can be made somewhat more efficient, but only up to a point. If the Earth itself were expanding at an ever-increasing rate, perpetual economic growth would pose no problem. Yet last time I checked, the planet hadn’t gotten any bigger—while our demands upon it continue to increase.

In his latest op-ed, Mr. Krugman derides “hard scientists who think they are smarter than economists.” I can think of several snide responses to that characterization, but actually I don’t think one is required. The phrase speaks volumes about economists’ own hubris.

A2 “Renewables”

Squo not ready for a renewable shift

Heinberg, Senior Fellow-in-Residence of the Post Carbon Institute and is widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost Peak Oil educators, 5 June 2015

(Richard, “Renewable Energy Will Not Support Economic Growth”, http://www.postcarbon.org/renewable-energy-will-not-support-economic-growth/)

The issues surrounding the renewable energy transition are complicated and technical. And there are far too many of them to be fully addressed in a short article like this. But the preponderance of research literature supports the conclusion that the all-renewable industrial economy of the future will be less mobile and will produce fewer and more expensive goods. The 20th century industrial world was built on fossil fuels—and in some ways it was built for fossil fuels (as anyone who spends time in American suburban communities can attest). High mobility and the capacity for ever-expanding volumes of industrial production were hallmarks of that waning era. The latter decades of the current century will be shaped by entirely different energy sources, and society will be forced to change in profound ways. That doesn’t have to be a bad thing. The globalized consumer society was always unsustainable anyway, and we might be happier without it. But unless we plan for the post-growth renewable future, existing economic institutions may tend to shatter rather than adapt smoothly. The fossil fuel and nuclear industries have an understandable interest in disparaging renewable energy, but their days are numbered. We are headed toward a renewable future, whether we plan intelligently for it or not. Clearly, intelligent planning will offer the better path forward. One way to hasten the energy transition is simply to build more wind turbines and solar panels, as many climate scientists recommend. But equally important to the transition will be our deliberate transformation of the ways we use energy. And that implies a nearly complete rethinking of the economy—both its means and its ends. Growth must no longer be the economy’s goal; rather, we must aim for the satisfaction of basic human needs within a shrinking budget of energy and materials. Meanwhile, to ensure the ongoing buy-in of the public in this vast collaborative project, our economic means must include the promotion of activities that increase human happiness and well being.

Renewables can’t solve- too many barriers

Heinberg, Senior Fellow-in-Residence of the Post Carbon Institute and is widely regarded as one of the world’s foremost Peak Oil educators, 5 June 2015

(Richard, “Renewable Energy Will Not Support Economic Growth”, http://www.postcarbon.org/renewable-energy-will-not-support-economic-growth/)

The electricity sector: Solar and wind produce electricity, and the fuel is free. Moreover, the cost of electricity from these sources is declining. These are encouraging trends. However, intermittency (the sun doesn’t always shine, the wind doesn’t always blow) still poses barriers to high levels of solar-wind electricity market share. Grid managers can easily integrate small variable inputs; but eventually storage, capacity redundancy, and major grid overhauls will be necessary to balance inputs with loads as higher proportions of electricity come from uncontrollable sources. All of this will be expensive—increasingly so as solar-wind market penetration levels exceed roughly 60 percent. Some of the problems associated with integrating variable renewables into the grid are being worked out over time. But even if all these problems are eventually resolved, only about one-fifth of all final energy is consumed in the form of electricity; how about other forms and ways in which we use energy—will they be easier or harder to transition? The transport sector: Electric cars are becoming more common. But electric trucks and other heavy vehicles will pose more of a challenge due to the low energy density of battery storage (gasoline stores vastly more energy per kilogram). Ships could use kite sails, but that would only somewhat improve their fuel efficiency; otherwise there is no good replacement for oil in this key transport mode. The situation is similar, though even bleaker, for airplanes. Biofuels have been an energy fiasco, as the European Parliament has now admitted. And the construction of all of our vehicles, and the infrastructure they rely upon (including roads and runways), also depends upon industrial processes that currently require fossil fuels. That brings us to . . . The industrial sector: Making pig iron—the main ingredient in steel—requires blast furnaces. Making cement requires 100-meter-long kilns that operate at 1500 degrees C. In principle it is possible to produce high heat for these purposes with electricity or giant solar collectors, but nobody does it that way now because it would be much more expensive than burning coal or natural gas. Crucially, current manufacturing processes for building solar panels and wind turbines also depend upon high-temperature industrial processes fueled by oil, coal, and natural gas. Again, alternative ways of producing this heat are feasible in principle—but the result would probably be significantly higher-cost solar and wind power. And there are no demonstration projects to show us just how easy or hard this would be. The food sector: Nitrogen fertilizer is currently produced cheaply from natural gas; it could be made using solar or wind-sourced electricity, but that would again entail higher costs. Food products—and the chemical inputs to farming—are currently transported long distances using oil, and farm machinery runs on refined petroleum. It would be possible to grow food without chemical inputs and to re-localize food systems, but this would probably require more farm labor and might result in higher-priced food. Consumers would need to eat more seasonally and reduce their consumption of exotic foods.

Data shows that renewable energy cannot maintain growth models

Sebri, Faculty of Economics and Management, University of Sousse, Tunisia, 8 November 2014

(Maamar, “Use renewables to be cleaner: Meta-analysis of the renewable energy consumption–economic growth nexus”, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032114008673)

As for the model specification, examining the causal linkage between renewable energy consumption and economic growth within a bivariate model (not including control variables) tends to significantly increase (decrease) the probability of finding the growth and neutrality (feedback) hypotheses. Nevertheless, when the causal relationship is investigated within a multivariate framework, particularly when the CO2 variable is controlled for, substantial changes occur to the last findings. There is a little chance to maintain the growth hypothesis, while supporting the feedback hypothesis is insensitive to consideration of the environmental dimension within the causal dynamics. On the other side, investigating the stability of empirical results by taking into account the structural breaks in the datasets seems to have also a significant effect on the probability of maintaining any hypothesis (except the growth hypothesis). Relatively to studies employing per capita data series, those using data at the aggregate level appear to have a lower (greater) probability of getting both the conservation and neutrality (growth) hypotheses. Regarding the nature of data series, the probability of getting unidirectional causality from economic growth to renewable energy consumption (conservation), unidirectional causality from renewable energy consumption to economic growth (growth) and bidirectional causality (feedback) is insensitive to whether the study uses time series or panel data techniques. Contrarily, the probability of finding an absence of causality (neutrality) significantly decreases when using panel data. This is expected, since many studies use a heterogeneous group of countries that have different and sometimes opposite economic patterns and energy policies, which may lead to find no causal relationship between energy and growth.

A2 “Tech Solves”

Prefer our models—they’re key to effectively analyzing the environment. Their tech-optimist lens fails to recognize the fundamental uncertainty, irreversibility, and path-independency of ecological systems—default to a precautionary principle

Althouse, Masters in economics, 2015 (Jeffrey, with advisors Carloes Young, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro economics associate professor, Dany Lang, University of Paris 13 associate professor, and Eckhard Hein, Berlin School of Economics and Law professor, “Post-Keynesian Ecological Economics: Towards Greener Pastures,” EPOG Master’s Thesis, defended 6/23/15, p. 8-9, IC)

Neoclassical economics, however, has tended to perceive these ecological theories as masked neo­malthusianism, arguing that the creative capacity of entrepreneurs to find substitutes or create more efficient technology is virtually unlimited. Their analysis builds upon microeconomic foundations which necessarily separate the economy from the social and environmental spheres. Individuals are seen as perfectly forward­looking, boundlessly rational, and possessing perfect information within perfectly free and competitive markets. As such, price signals coordinate market actors to avoid potential environmental threats and achieve “equilibrium” (Douai, et al. 2012). Essentially, the neoclassical paradigm skirts past normative issues related to the environment because the market equilibrium is considered the social optimum. Market efficiency is turned from a socially constructed value into mathematical truism by assuming current individual preferences always trump collective (future) needs. At the core of Robert Solow’s (1973; 1974) neoclassical growth model, for example, lies the assumption that non­renewable material inputs could be easily replaced by labor or capital, thus allowing environmental concerns to fall by the wayside (Holt 2005). According to Solow (1974, p. 11) himself, through new technological capabilities and factor substitution, even complete destruction of natural resources could be rendered “an event, not a catastrophe”. The concept of sustainability becomes useful, therefore, only in as far as people protect what they value now as essential for well­being for future generations (Solow 1993), even if those values are incommensurate with their true nature (Norton 1995). In this view of sustainability, all goods are essentially fungible and replaceable with substitutes and natural elements are decontextualized from the systems upon which they depend and which depend on them, in turn. Concern for optimization and reliance on Say’s law have impacted some of the most influential climate models, distorting policy priorities by allowing smooth returns to equilibrium without significant social costs. Nordhaus (2008), for example, developed a model that is widely used in US policy discussions, finding that even without any abatement efforts, a social optimum is achieved. Increasing funding for climate mitigation merely means shifting spending currently destined for consumption, with no effect on investment expenditures and unemployment (Rezai et al 2012, p. 3). 2.2 The Benefits of the Post­Keynesian Paradigm While neoclassical economists have been stuck publishing under old dogmas, heterodox economists ­ and especially post­Keynesians ­ are particularly suited to understanding the intricacies of ecological problems. The post­Keynesian focus on historical time, path dependence, irreversibility, uncertainty and effective demand are particularly apt for environmental analysis. Furthermore, while there exists no universally accepted set of principles within the camp, post­Keynesians have also adopted more realistic set of microeconomic fundamentals that can similarly help to shed light on environmental issues (Lavoie 2009b). 2.2.1 Historical time, Path Dependence, and Irreversibility One of the most important aspects of the post­Keynesian lens for ecological economics is its understanding of time as a historical process. With historical time, present actions are endogenously determined through complex and organic processes which occurred in the past. This view is favored over “neo­-Walrasian” or “logical time” found in neoclassical models, in which all considerations are made instantaneously by market actors. As Harcourt and Kriesler (2012) point out, the recognition of historical time may actually be the foundational principle upon which post­Keynesian economics rests, opening up the field of vision to political, institutional, and environmental variables that intervene. The authors quote Joan Robinson, who defines post­Keynesian theory as “a method of analysis which takes account of the difference between the future and the past” (p. 1). Because of the focus on historical time, the conceptual “long run” is understood as a collection of short runs, which creates path dependency (Kalecki 1968, p. 263). Though long-­run equilibriums can exist, they are dependent upon past events and subject to both positive and negative shocks that do not necessarily bring the system back to its original starting point. Historical time therefore leads post­Keynesians to similarly focus on the irreversibility of time and actions in hysteretic systems. Hysteresis in post­Keynesian analysis is a particularly strong 1 form of path dependency because, rather than converging to a single equilibrium, 1) multiple equilibria are achievable for different variables while 2) paths are dependent on previous cumulative outcomes from other time periods (Kronenberg 2010b, p. 4; Holt 2005, p. 6). 2 From an environmental standpoint, growth can therefore be limited in the future either by pollutants released presently, industrial lock­-in of resource use, or gradual degradation achieving critical thresholds. The sustainable development path of an economy away from a scarce resource today (eg. fossil fuels) may make it all the more susceptible to environmental shocks from something else further down the road (eg. scarce minerals used in solar panels). For this reason, some heterodox economists have adopted evolutionary parameters into their models to demonstrate path dependency even along environmental lines. Van den Bergh et al. (2006) demonstrate the microeconomic foundations of evolutionary economics as they apply to technological development in the context of resource scarcity. They cite the need to focus on structural changes which underlie growth, and the coevolution of systems which lead to innovation and selection of technologies, with some resources being over- or under- utilized by the market because of bounded rationality and path dependence. Some of these same principles may even stand in the way of lasting positive environmental change. A number of climate mitigation policies, for example, subsidies of clean energy, reliance on technical standards, support of public transport and even local solutions to climate change all can bring about a number of unintended rebound effects (so-­called “escape routes”) that lead to further structural shifts which may even worsen CO2 emissions in the long run (Van den Bergh 2012). 2.2.2 Fundamental uncertainty Because of historical time and the irreversibility of actions, Keynesian “Knightian” uncertainty is adopted over probabilistic risk. As Keynes puts it, one must “....distinguish what is known for certain from what is only probable. The game of roulette is not subject, in this sense, to uncertainty; nor is the prospect of a Victory bond being drawn. Or, again, the expectation of life is only slightly uncertain. Even the weather is only moderately uncertain. The sense in which I am using the term is that in which the prospect of a European war is uncertain, or the price of copper and the rate of interest twenty years hence, or the obsolescence of a new invention, or the position of private wealth owners in the social system in 1970. About these matters there is no scientific basis on which to form any calculable probability whatever. We simply do not know.” (Keynes 1937, p. 113­14) Not only does fundamental uncertainty in the Keynesian sense preclude the capacity for individual “optimizations” and rational expectation found in neoclassical analysis, but also muddies the water for policy recommendations related to how best direct environmental mitigation efforts on either the collective or individual scale (Aldred 2012). Indeed, ecological disasters are uncertain because the complex systems in which they develop serve to either reinforce their vigor in some cases (as in the “butterfly effect”) or blunt it in others. Nonlinearity is the rule, rather than the exception, in matters of the environment and serves to amplify the importance of uncertainty (Rockström, et al. 2009, p. 12). In many cases fundamental changes can occur almost instantaneously in natural systems where problems were nearly imperceptible for extended periods (Arrow et al. 2004). Reaching certain thresholds, in the case ocean acidification, for example, can cause whole colonies of organisms to collapse, with additional effects for other biomes. The full effects of warmer weather from climate change are even more unimaginable ­ reversal of tidal forces and currents, animal extinctions/relocations/evolutions, soil degradation, weather changes, etc. ­ and any attempt to fully calculate the risk of any one of these, let alone understanding their interconnectedness, would be bewildering. In essence, climate change is both the result and cause of Keynesian uncertainty about the future. It is partially a result of uncertainty because easily identifiable probabilities about its effects and the potential benefits of mitigation policies would likely spur coordinated action. Instead, leaders have tended to buckle down on “business as usual”, hoping that the best guesses of scientists about catastrophic fat tail scenarios have been incorrect (Gifford 2011). Climate change is a cause of uncertainty because the way in which it manifests, and will continue to manifest itself, is constantly modified by any number of environmental and economic variables, which themselves are altered by climate change, thus again transforming its ongoing effects, ad infinitum. The complexity of environmental interactions and general uncertainty about the future have led post­Keynesians to adopt a “strong sustainability” approach based on the precautionary principle and fixed factor proportions (Aldred 2012). That is, labor and human made capital do not easily replace each other in the short-­run, and generally serve as complements to, rather than substitutes of, natural capital. At its base, the precautionary principle requires either positive action if faced with threat of harm, and inaction if there is potential for that effort to cause harm. As such, Holt (2005, p. 184) has suggested that post­Keynesians adopt a model of sustainability that natural capital should never be depleted beyond sustainable yields, unless clear substitutes are available. This allows the desired stock of natural capital to be altered over time, along with the “buffer” level of sustainability to absorb shocks.

Growth causes ecological collapse—tech can’t solve

Brown, Clark University environmental science and policy professor, and Vergragt, Clark University senior research scientist with a PhD in Chemistry from Leiden University, 2015 (Halina Szejnwald and Philip J., “From Consumerism to Wellbeing: Toward a Cultural Transition?” Journal of Cleaner Production, 5/12/2015, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959652615004825, p. 2, IC)

Since the end of the Second World War the USA has been transformed into a society where the national economy depends to a large extent on private consumption; and where mass acquisition and use of material goods is the dominant lifestyle, the centerpiece of social practices, leisure time, cultural rituals and celebrations. We refer to it as consumer society.

The ecological costs of this transformation have been high. While technological improvements in resource efficiency have slowed down the relentless growth in demand for materials, water and energy, they have not kept up with the growing demand, much less attain radical reductions in demand. It is becoming increasingly apparent that technology alone will not solve the ecological unsustainability problem. The returns on energy investments in producing useful energy sources – both fossil-based and others – are much lower than in the past (Zehner 2011; Gupta and Hall 2011; Murphy 2013). The rebound effects of various types are now a widely acknowledged and quantified phenomenon (Owen 2011; Jenkins et al. 2011; IRGS 2013). And the institutional and organizational barriers for rapid technological changes are formidable (Sterman 2014a). Reductions in consumption levels are necessary as well.

Consumer society is a complex system of technology, culture, institutions, markets, and dominant business models. It is driven by the ideology of neoliberalism and infinite growth. It has evolved through a sophisticated exploitation of the fundamental human quest for a meaningful life and wellbeing (Skidelsky and Skidelsky 2012; Sterman 2014b; Speth 2008; Lorek and Fuchs 2013). To consider reducing its ecological costs is to question this entire complex system, and especially consumerism as the organizing principle for the economy, culture, and political process. In essence, a transition beyond consumerism would entail a society-wide evolution toward different lifestyles and conceptions of wellbeing, as well as a transformation of the system.

Technological innovations are failing to sustain growth in the squo

Laeven, et. al, Haas School of Business University of California, 21 April 2014

(Luc, Ross Levinec, Stelios Michalopoulose, Financial innovation and endogenous growth, http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1042957314000229)

The core implications of the theory are that (1) technological and financial innovation will be positively correlated and (2) economic growth will eventually stagnate unless financiers innovate. In terms of positive synergies between technological and financial innovation, first note that technological change increases the returns to financial innovation. As technology advances, any given screening technology becomes less and less effective at identifying capable technological innovators as informational asymmetries grow. Thus, the benefits – and hence profits – from improving the screening of entrepreneurs grow with technological advances. The synergies work in the other direction too. Better screening boosts the expected profits from technological innovation, because the expected returns from investing in technological innovation grow when financiers are better at identifying the most promising projects (innovators). In terms of stagnation, the model stresses that existing screening methods become increasingly inadequate at identifying promising technological innovations as the world’s technological frontier advances. Consequently, unless financiers innovate and improve screening technologies in tandem, the probability of finding successful entrepreneurs declines, slowing growth. With appropriate policies, laws, and regulations, however, the drive for profits by financial and technological entrepreneurs alike can produce a continuing stream of financial and technological innovations that sustain growth.

Market adaptations cannot solve the rapidly expanding globalized economy from destroying the environments, they just get caught up in profits to care about the environment

Robbins, Hintz, and Moore. Paul Robbins is the director of the Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, Hintz got his Ph.D. in Geography at University of Kentucky ,Sarah A. Moore got her PhD in geography at University of Kentucky and an Assistant Professor at University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2013

(Paul, John, Sarah A., Sarah A. Critical Introductions to Geography : Environment and Society : A Critical Introduction (2nd Edition), pg 149)

Carbon’s common role in a fully globalized economy also makes it a difficult problem to solve. One country might impose limits on carbon, forcing entrepreneurs to develop ingenious but expensive methods to make products that emit less carbon. But these products compete on a global market where the firms of the inactive nation market their cheaper carbon-dependent products for far less. One country acts aggressively, while the other “free-rides,” enjoying both the benefits of the first country’s reduced emissions and the better market position from having not imposed carbon limits. At the same time, not all countries start their bargaining from the same point. The industrial revolution that occurred in Europe and the United States turned these regions into major carbon emitters for hundreds of years. Over that time, Europeans and Americans enjoyed greatly increased standards of living but at tremendous costs in terms of atmospheric change. Poorer countries may have large and/or more rapidly growing populations but their per capita carbon emissions are a tiny fraction of those of their counterparts in wealthy nations (Chapter 2). Why should a poorer nation, with its low per capita carbon emissions, agree to stringent controls when they have not yet enjoyed the fruits of a carbon economy? Why should a richer nation sacrifice its economy to reduce emissions while poorer nations, with their larger populations, stand to become the largest emitters over the medium or long term? Carbon’s mobility exacerbates this conflict since it disconnects its places of emission from its locations of impacts: one person in the United States enjoys the benefits of emitting carbon through daily car commuting, while the costs are borne in a failed crop harvest among farmers and countries in West Africa, a half-world away. One country has an incentive to act, the other does not (Figure 9.5). Finally, add to this the fact that there is no effective higher authority than the individual nations themselves to enforce any agreement: a de facto “state of anarchy” (Thompson 2006). While the United Nations is a powerful deliberative body, it does not represent a central power that can easily force international compliance with a regulatory statute. Instead, the model of international law must be followed, and the negotiators themselves must enforce the rules. Taking all of this into account, it would be hard to believe that international agreement of any kind might be reached. And yet one has

A2 “Too Late”

Collapse is coming now, but it’s not too late—transition is key to prevent irreversible tipping points

Rockstrom, Stockholm University environmental science professor, 2015 (Johan, “Bounding the Planetary Future: Why We Need a Great Transition,” Great Transition Initiative, April 2015, http://www.greattransition.org/images/GTI_publications/Rockstrom-Bounding_the_Planetary_Future.pdf, p. 6-7, IC)

This shift of paradigm must promote anticipatory action, since triggers that set irreversible change in motion can occur much earlier than the later catastrophic tipping points. For example, the East Siberian Arctic shelf holds a vast stock of sea floor methane hydrates (potentially 50 to 500 Gt of carbon compared to the 550 Gt emitted since the industrial revolution). Methane, which is roughly twenty times more potent a greenhouse gas than CO2 even though it stays in the atmosphere for a shorter time, has started to leak in low volumes as the seabed and tundra thaw. The risk lies in a changing climate crossing an irreversible threshold (if it has not done so already) at which methane will flow in rising volumes. Paleo-climatic data shows that rapid global warming of 5 to 6 ºC (9 to 10.8 ºF) within one or a few decades has occurred in the past, phenomena that can only be explained by Earth system feedbacks, such as the abrupt release of methane hydrates from continental shelves.16

The self-reinforced warming that results from melting ice sheets as the reduced albedo (reflectivity) feeds back to enhance climate change offers another example of a triggering process in action. In 2012, for the first time, the entire surface of the Greenland ice sheets was observed to be melting in July for about two weeks. Correspondingly, the climate feedback from Greenland shifted from net cooling (negative feedback) to net warming (positive feedback), as the albedo dropped by close to 50%. Approximately 300 EJ of heat, equal to half of global annual energy use, were injected into the atmosphere during this two-week period.

Under business-as-usual projections, the window for stabilizing global warming below 2 ºC (3.6 ºF) will close by 2023, even without sudden surprises like methane outbursts.17 The same narrow timespan holds for biodiversity loss, where critical functions in ecosystems (such as pollination and the ability of coral reefs to remain stable) may be irreversibly destroyed.

The world thus urgently needs a great transition that rapidly bends the curve of negative global environmental change. Such a turn toward sustainability demands a deep shift in the logic of development away from the assumption of infinite growth toward a paradigm of development and human prosperity within Earth limits. It will require transformations in energy systems, urban development, food systems, and material use. Achieving all this will entail fundamental institutional changes in economic arrangements, financial systems, and world trade.

Now is key

Rockstrom, Stockholm University environmental science professor, 2015 (Johan, “Bounding the Planetary Future: Why We Need a Great Transition,” Great Transition Initiative, April 2015, http://www.greattransition.org/images/GTI_publications/Rockstrom-Bounding_the_Planetary_Future.pdf, p. 11-12, IC)

Our historical condition does, whether we like it or not, change everything. Our current economic logic no longer works, as we confront potentially infinite costs at the planetary scale, rendering concepts like “externalities” and “discounting” useless. The nation-state becomes questionable as a useful unit for wealth creation when policy at the local level depends on regional and global actions and feedbacks. Governance shifts upwards in scale, but still needs rooting and interaction across scales. Sharing finite planetary budgets will require fundamental value changes. Planetary regulation needs to spur innovation and technological breakthroughs. Ethical norms need to evolve to embrace a universal belief that all citizens in the world have the right not only to an equitable share of the available environmental space, but also to a stable and healthy environment. No facet of contemporary society will be unaffected by the Anthropocene.

The window for a prosperous future for humanity on a stable planet remains open, if just barely. We have not yet tipped the planet away from its Holocene equilibrium. Whether we are able to navigate the world back into a safe operating space, thereby creating a chance for a world of nine to eleven billion co-citizens to live and thrive, is up to us. In the Anthropocene, we are in the driver’s seat.

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