Subject: Climate change - Prosperity without Growth?

Posted by Terren Suydam on 12/8/2009
In Reply To:Climate change - Prosperity without Growth? Posted by Diana Fisher on 12/7/2009

Message:

Hi Diana and Stuart,

Thanks for your responses. I am by nature an optimistic person but that may not come across here. If exponential population growth is the root of the problem (coupled with increasing output per capita), I'm not sure that problem can be solved proactively without a radical restructuring of our economy - something that would be met with total resistance.

It is certainly true that poor women have more children, so lifting the world's poor out of poverty seems like a good way to slow growth. However, (according to http://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-stats) as of 2005 80% of the world's population lived on less than $10/day. Combating population growth by lifting these 5.15 billion people out of poverty would represent an enormous increase in resource usage over current levels. It solves one problem by causing another.

I think the big problem that needs to be solved is how to structure a working economy that isn't based on growth. Growth is so key to our modern system because if we cannot expect the economy to grow, there's little incentive to invest capital in the market. Without investment, jobs dry up, etc. So how do we keep people productive and earning without the capitalist incentives to invest? Communism has already been shown to be a failure.

Without that problem addressed, imo, all other talk about population growth is avoiding the core issue.

Terren

Follow Ups:

Climate change - Prosperity without Growth? - Karl North 12/9/2009 
Climate change - Prosperity without Growth? - Niall Palfreyman 12/10/2009