Reinventing Prosperity. Graeme Maxton
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for flower arrangements, ecotourism opportunities found, and maybe a cure for cancer discovered.
But the real reason we were fighting to protect the forest from logging was that all the plants and trees were removing carbon from the atmosphere and replacing it with oxygen, not a bad service for animals like us that can’t exist without photosynthesis, yet economists dismiss it as an “externality,” irrelevant in an economic equation. The forest pumps vast quantities of water out of the soil, transpires it into the air, and modulates weather and climate—another externality. The tree roots cling to soil and prevent erosion onto salmon spawning grounds—externality. The intact forest provides habitat for countless species of insects, microorganisms, amphibians, mammals, and birds—all externalities. What kind of economic system ignores the very things that keep the biosphere habitable for animals like us?
To top off what I think is a ludicrous system is the endless economic growth that is the goal of politicians and corporate leaders. Ask a corporate CEO or political leader how well they did last year and within a microsecond, they will refer to growth in GDP, profit, or jobs as the definition of success or failure. But steady growth forever is the goal of cancer cells, and by emulating that creed, economists doom us to the same end—death. Nothing within a finite world like the biosphere can grow forever, and the attempt to maintain constant growth is the cause of the current wave of species extinction.
As Graeme Maxton and Jorgen Randers explain in Reinventing Prosperity, we need to radically overhaul the current globalized economic system by asking important questions that have been ignored for too long: What is an economy for? What is prosperity? Are there no limits? How much is enough? Are we happier with all the stuff generated in the current economy?
The very word “economy” has the same roots as “ecology,” namely the Greek word “oikos,” meaning household or domain. Ecology is the study of our home to determine the laws and principles that govern a species’ survival, whereas economics is the management of that domain. But when politicians suggest that the cost of reducing greenhouse gases to limit climate change will “destroy the economy,” we elevate that economy above the very atmosphere that keeps us healthy and alive.
Instead of being bogged down by arguments about jobs, corporate profits, GDP, and the national economy, we first have to establish an indisputable “bottom line” on which all sectors of society can agree. So let me make a stab at it. We live in a world that is shaped and constrained by immutable laws of nature that we accept and live with.
Physics informs us that we cannot build a rocket that will travel faster than the speed of light, create an antigravity vehicle on Earth, or make a perpetual motion machine. Only science-fiction writers speculate on surpassing the dictates of physics. Chemistry, too, imposes limits through the atomic properties of the elements, reaction rates, and diffusion constants, so we know what can or cannot be synthesized in a lab. And biology also shapes our lives. The maximum number of a plant or animal species is dictated by the carrying capacity of an ecosystem or habitat. Exceed that number and the population will crash. Because of our intelligence, we are able to adapt to a wide array of ecosystems, from deserts to Arctic tundra, tropical rain forests, and prairies, but the biosphere itself imposes a carrying capacity on our species. For us, the maximum sustainable population will be dictated by both numbers and per capita consumption. So the industrialized world, by virtue of its hyperconsumption, is vastly overpopulated, and most scientists agree that the collective impact of our species far exceeds the planet’s capacity to sustain it.
Human beings are animals, and as biological creatures, we have an absolute need for clean air, water, soil, and food; photosynthesis; and biodiversity. Deprived of air for four minutes, we die; forced to breathe polluted air, we sicken. So protection of clean air should be a top priority in any human-made system. After six to seven days without water, we die; contaminated water makes us sick. So clean water must also be a priority of the highest order. We can survive four to six weeks without food before succumbing, and contaminated food makes us sick. So clean food and soil on which it’s grown is a chief priority. Every bit of the energy in our bodies that we need to grow, move, and reproduce is sunlight captured by plants in photosynthesis and converted to chemical energy. Then we get that energy by eating plants, or animals that eat the plants. When we need that energy, we burn it to liberate the sun’s energy in our bodies.
Finally, the miracle of life on Earth is that the four fundamental elements of life—clean air, water, soil, and photosynthesis—are provided to us by the web of life on the planet. Plants create the oxygen-rich, carbon dioxide–poor atmosphere; soil fungi, microorganisms, and plant roots filter water to make it potable as it percolates through earth; life is both all of our food and the creator of soil on which to grow it; and finally, all of the fuel we use, from wood to peat, dung, coal, oil, and gas, was created by life.
So I believe whatever political and economic systems we create should rest on the foundation that makes life possible: clean air, clean water, clean soil and food, photosynthesis, and biodiversity. Protecting those elements must be the highest priority of all people and their systems, because they determine our very survival and well-being and are defined by laws of nature that we can’t change.
Other things such as the borders we draw around property, cities, provinces, states, and nations do not emerge from nature, and nature pays no attention to them. Think of air, water, even eroding soil—they do not heed the boundaries we kill and die for.
Capitalism, the economy, markets, and corporations are not forces of nature; we invented them. We cannot shoehorn nature into the demands and constrictions of our creations, because we can’t alter the laws that govern the real world. The only things we can change are those that we created, yet we act as if the demands of the economy or the market must dictate the way we act.
Reinventing Prosperity provides a way of seeing past the demands of an unsustainable and destructive system, beginning with a new definition of prosperity that makes sense in our lives. Maxton and Randers chart a persuasive and feasible path into a future that offers greater happiness, equity, and meaning, and a rich environment.
DAVID SUZUKI
– PREFACE –
THERE ARE MANY things to be concerned about in the world, from persistently high levels of unemployment and widening inequality to continued resource depletion, rising pollution, increasing biodiversity losses, and widespread poverty.
The biggest problem, however, is the gradual change humanity is causing to the climate. If nothing is done to stop global warming, progress in almost all areas of human endeavor will gradually slow over the next fifty years because of more frequent, and more scary, climatic events—and worse will follow.
Unfortunately, almost nothing is currently being done to address this problem.
People do not respond because they do not dare to challenge the existing economic system, because they believe that the steps needed to cut greenhouse gas emissions will reduce economic growth. They think that lower economic growth will increase joblessness in the rich world and condemn much of the poor world to decades of poverty, which in turn will increase inequality—a big enough problem already. So, rather than making the transition to a cleaner, more sustainable world, people focus on boosting economic growth because they believe this will increase the number of jobs and improve living standards, even though inequalities have been widening and the climate problem is worsening. Once there are more jobs and people are better off, they seem to be saying, society can take the steps needed to fix the climate problem.
If we could show that it is possible to overcome this hurdle, we reasoned, if we could break the perceived link between economic growth, jobs, and equality, we might change this. If we could show that it is possible to create jobs, boost average living standards, and reduce inequality—even without any economic growth at all—we could overcome the major barrier that stops people from acting.
That is what this book is about. It is about how to cut unemployment