Achieving a Steady State Economy for Canada

What if the way forward isn't?   What if it's time for us to turn around, to go back?

James Lovelock said the future of mankind, if there is to be one, will require that we accept, not sustainable growth, but sustainable retreat.   We need to grow smaller.  It's not a matter of choice either.

There are too damned many of us, each demanding an ever-greater amount of resources, and we're far exceeding our planet's ability to regenerate the natural resources we need.   According to research by the Global Footprint Network, we're already using up an annual supply of renewables in just under nine-months.   That means we're in "overshoot" for three months of the year, consuming resources faster than they're to be had.   To make good the difference we're depleting our stocks, eating our seed corn, draining our aquifers, exhausting our farmland, turning forests into cropland, cleaning out our fisheries, on and on and on.

So, how do we go about achieving sustainable retreat?   Do we all go live in caves and eat mud, guarding the entrance with sharpened sticks?   Not at all.   We may, however, need to follow Japan's lead.

"Japan may economically be the “new normal”. By “new normal” I mean a situation where the economy is in recession for prolonged periods of time, seeing only fleeting periods of growth. My struggle relates to the fact that conventional wisdom would suggest that after two decades of recessionary tendencies, Japan should be an economic and societal wreck. But quite the opposite is the case. In many respects Japan seems to be doing fine. 

"Now what leads me to this latter conclusion? I was struck in particular by the findings of the 2012 Inclusive Wealth Report from the International Human Dimensions Programme on Global Environmental Change (IHDP).  Set up as an alternative to gross domestic product (GDP), the Inclusive Wealth Index reflects the state of natural resources, the economy and ecological conditions, the population’s health and productive capacity, and measures whether or not national policies are sustainable.

"In the report, the authors looked at various indicators in 20 countries, including Japan, over the period from 1990 to 2008, and I was surprised to read the following:

"'Japan depicts the most favorable situation, as it is experiencing wealth accumulation while at the same time increasing its natural capital stocks. This has been achieved primarily through investment in the forest sector. This position is also explained by a slower population growth rate in relation to other nations. This is to a large extent supported by the recent assessment of Japan’s ecosystem services…'

"Four years [after the crash of 2008], after a double-dip recession and with a potential triple dip on the horizon, the return to normality across the globe appears still a distant prospect. In this context, it is easy to understand how in recent years an increasing number of commentators suggest that we are witnessing the end of growth. There is Richard Heinberg, from the Post Carbon Institute and author of The End of Growth , who states that “economic growth as we have known it is over and done with”.

"Experts argue that we are facing the end of global growth and our institutions, policies and individual behaviours and aspirations are going to have to change.

"Jeff Rubin, former Chief Economist with CIBC World Markets, who also has a book with the title The End of Growth, argues that the real engine of economic growth has always been cheap, abundant fuel and resources. But that era is over.

"Energy and finance expert Nate Hagen in a recent lecture also argues that we now face the end of global growth and — although we in advanced economies are still incredibly rich — our institutions, policies and individual behaviours and aspirations are going to have to change.

"Both books and Nate Hagen’s lecture present a rather bleak and depressing assessment of our current situation. We are given three reasons as to why economic growth may be a thing of the past: over-consumption of resources, negative environmental impacts like climate change, and debt. We appear to have maxed out, or to be close to maxing out, the global economy and the biosphere.

"...In the years ahead we are likely also to see more reflection upon what Japan’s transition to the “new normal” might actually look like. And remember, this “new normal” will be the future path for most industrialized and industrializing countries, if people like Heinberg, Rubin, Nagen and Jackson are correct. 

"But the reality is that the new normal may not be as stark as we might expect. There are some who suggest that Japan has not lost anything at all — echoing the findings of the Inclusive Wealth Report.

"...Over at the New York Times, Eamonn Fingleton argues that in recent decades “Japan has succeeded in delivering an increasingly affluent lifestyle to its people despite the financial crash. In the fullness of time, it is likely that this era will be viewed as an outstanding success story.”

"He points out that average life expectancy grew by 4.2 years in the period from 1989 to 2009 while unemployment remains at 4.2 percent, about half that of the United States (US). He also states that the current account surplus has grown threefold since 1989, standing at US$196 billion in 2010.

"...it is important to recognize that Japan continues to invest in infrastructure, to maintain its facilities and to generally keep public places clean and safe. There is still a strong sense of civic pride and social cohesion in the face of economic difficulties. That is not to say that everybody is doing just fine and there are no problems, but the way that the Japanese people pull together in times of crisis is something to be admired.

"One strong proponent of an alternative viewpoint on how Japan is faring is Junko Edahiro, who set up the Institute of Studies in Happiness, Economy and Society (ISHES) in 2011.  She argues that:

"'We live not for economic growth. We live for happiness in our daily lives and we hope generations to come can enjoy their happiness. Economies and societies should do something to serve this purpose and should take on different forms and structures if they fail to meet their goals.”

"This begs the question: if we are witnessing the end of economic growth, not only in Japan but globally, what are the new forms and structures of economic and societal behaviour that we should be searching for? Surely some of the answers can be found in Japan. Heinberg perhaps captures this best when he states:

"'A few nations and communities are already moving in the direction of a steady-state economy. Sweden, Denmark, Japan, and Germany have arguably reached a situation in which they do not depend on high rates of growth to provide for their people. This is not to say these countries have only smooth sailing ahead (Japan in particular is facing a painful adjustment, given its very high levels of government debt), but they are likely to fare better than other nations that have high domestic levels of economic inequality and that have gotten used to high growth rates.”

Reaching a "steady state economy" will entail some measure of sustainable retreat, getting more out of less, undoing counterproductive inequality, breaking our addiction to growth for its own sake.   The forces of corporatism and globalization, within both the public and private sector, will have to be tamed but the writing is on the wall.   Their status quo, living beyond our means, no longer works.

Without Leadership We Will Fail to Act on Global Warming

World leaders put on a brave face at the Copenhagen climate change summit but, in reality, it was a disaster. From a Western perspective we can claim that the talks were sabotaged by China and India. If you doubt that, der Spiegel, has an audio tape of the leaders that reveals how the talks failed. You'll find the tape here. Draw your own conclusions.

It certainly sounds as though India, China, Brazil and South Africa don't want to see the 50% by 2050 emissions cut target put in place. Don't be so sure. There's another side to this, their side.

Their way of looking at it doesn't accept the West's "clean slate" approach. We want to forget about the past, the CO2 emissions going back to the start of the Industrial Revolution, most of which is still in the atmosphere. We're practical people (tee hee), we want to deal with today, the real world. What that means is we want across-the-board percentage cuts, specific percentage targets for all nations, with little tweaks here and there for the emerging economies.

Their approach doesn't let us off the hook for what we've done over the past two centuries. They want a reduction regime that reflects per capita quotas. Of course China and India between them account for a third of the global population so per capita is pretty attractive from where they sit.

Per capita quotas, however, are pretty alarming from our perspective. That's because we North Americans now put out about 20-tons of CO2 emissions per person per year. On a per capita basis we'd have to trim that in very short order to less than 2.7 tons per person per year. Unfortunately that would be the death knell of the fossil fuel industry as we would effectively have to decarbonize both our economy and our society.

But are per capita quotas fair? Well, they're at least as fair as our, across-the-board reductions approach. The deal we want essentially locks in for us a priority to emit greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. Percentage cuts lock in the current inequities ratios. America, for example, would still get to produce 25% of global emissions (at whatever reduced percentages were introduced) with but 5% of global population. That's 500% better than a per capita arrangement where everybody's equal. We want to grandfather our unjustifiable advantage.

So, both sides have good arguments but neither approach will achieve the global consensus that's absolutely essential to make this work. Is there an alternative? I think there is.

As I've argued repeatedly, you cannot solve the global warming crisis in isolation, which is the only approach we've tried. We've tried it - again and again and again - and we've failed - again, and again and again. The Spiegel tape confirms how the industrialized world and the developing countries are at loggerheads both with defensible positions, both defensible positions - without more - irreconcilable. Without More - there's your problem.

As Jared Diamond argues in his terrific book "Collapse", mankind is facing a host of environmental calamities but we haven't come to understand that we absolutely have to solve all of them if we're to have any hope of solving any of them. It's an "all or nothing" world today.

Among these challenges we must confront are overpopulation, resource depletion and exhaustion, all manner of freshwater problems, air/soil/water pollution, desertification, deforestation, nuclear proliferation and other threats to global security - among others. We have to find a means to keep each of these under control or risk losing control of all of them.

Within a generation, two at the very outside, we're going to have to find a way to live within mankind's skin, our biosphere, the only ecology we have, spaceship earth if you like. We're nearing the railway crossing and the lights are flashing. Here's what I mean. On 28 April, I reposted an item from 2006 on World Overshoot Day. That is the day each year on which the world's population consumes the planet's annual production of renewable resources. In 2006 it stood at 9 October. By 2009 it had fallen to 25 September. That ought to be alarming because it means that, just last year, from 26 September to year end, we were eating our seed corn. Want proof? It's easily found in our disappearing forests, our diminishing aquifers, our collapsing fish stocks, our ongoing transformation of arable land into desert. We're exhausting the very resources we need to provide next year's essential resources. We're consuming ourselves faster and faster. We advanced overshoot day two full weeks in just three years which is like driving toward a brick wall with your foot hard on the gas pedal.

We're at the point where we need to make some pretty hard choices and, if we don't, we may not like the default option. One option is a massive die-off of mankind and other flora and fauna. That's the course we're already on. It's coming due to a number of contributing factors. Here are a few.

The collapse of global fish stocks is one example. For a lot of the Third World, fish is their major or only source of protein. We're not merely overfishing, we're fishing our way down the food chain which means exhausting one species after another according to their desirability. The best die first.

Climate change is causing havoc with precipitation patterns, particularly in Asia, South Asia, Africa, Central America, the Great Plains and the American south. Regions are getting whipsawed by cycles of drought and flood. Any farmer will tell you that crops cannot be grown unless you get the right amount of precipitation and the right time. Drought means your crop fails. Floods mean you may not be able to get on the land to plant or you may not be able to get on the land to harvest and your crops rot in the field. Oh sure there's groundwater for irrigation but here's the thing. Those vast underground swimming pools we've been pumping out to water surface crops are beginning to run on "empty" and we don't have any solutions for that, especially in the face of disruptions of natural rainfall patterns.

Maude Barlow warns that our rapidly growing freshwater crisis presents an existential threat to mankind that may rival even global warming.

Then there's soil exhaustion and desertification. Farmland is like a slave. You can only work it so hard before it dies.

There was a time when parts of the world faced grave food shortages. The answer was what became known as the "Green Revolution." This entailed the use of pesticides, fertilizers and lots of irrigation to produce bumper crops with which to feed the hungry masses. The Green Revolution transformed India into a net food exporter. Neat, eh? Well, not so much.

The Green Revolution did introduce hyper-agriculture but we failed to understand it was unsustainable. Part of that arose out of the aquifer/groundwater problem already discussed. Another part was the inevitable impact of those pesticides and fertilizers on the soil. As the Indians are now discovering, Green Revolution farming techniques work the soil so hard that growing crops becomes much harder. Some farmers now have to use twice the fertilizer they needed before and the pesticides are creating highly resistant weeds also. This is like burning a candle at three ends. I guess it really doesn't matter much whether that farmland gives up the ghost from the collapse of irrigation or the sterility of the land itself, does it?

So how are we to find meaningful, effective solutions to these vexing challenges? We have to see the common thread that runs through all of them - reduction. Whether it's reduction of greenhouse gas emissions or reduction of freshwater consumption and wastage or reduction of hyper-intensive but unsustainable agrictulture or reduction of fishing quotas, forestry and, yes, even population, we have to see the answers lie behind us, in stepping back onto terra firma, instead of ahead, growth that can only accelerate our problems and our day of reckoning with them.

We in the West are going to have to accept responsibility for our excessive, unjustifiable carbon emissions. China and India are going to have to acknowledge their population crises. The industrialized countries and the emerging economic superpowers together have to accept their responsibility to compensate the Third World for the very real injuries we've inflicted upon them.

There are no solutions except global solutions to these problems. That's going to be a tough sell in our own Canada where we have vast territory, abundant resources and yet a tiny population of (by my rough calculation) one half of one per cent of the global population. Canada and countries in similar positions need leaders who can engage their publics and make them see they are not immune to the challenges facing less advantaged countries; that these are truly 'global' crises and that we cannot allow ourselves, through false notions of superiority or simple greed, to become the bottleneck that thwarts global consensus.

As James Lovelock proposes in his book "The Revenge of Gaia," there no longer is such a thing as "sustainable growth" and mankind's only hope for coming through this century relatively intact rests on accepting "sustainable retreat."

We have to retreat, we have no choice. The Earth cannot produce renewable resources in the volumes we have already allowed ourselves to become completely dependent upon just to maintain the status quo. We're running out of water, we're running out of arable land, we're running out of forests, we're running out of fish stocks, we're running out here and there and over there too. So how do we expect more unless we're willing to take it from somebody else and what we're talking about here are the very cornerstones of life itself.

So that is the "without more" I mentioned at the outset of this piece. We have to embrace sustainable retreat as the core principle of solutions to each of these environmental challenges, including global warming. We have to see that we cannot keep eating am ever bigger slice out of next year's pie and we have to go back to living within our environmental means because we have no other choice. That means retreat and that means finding an equitable allocation of all the world's resources among all the world's people.

We in the West and the expectant populations of the emerging economies won't much like that idea but they need to be made to understand that ignoring this environmental imperative comes with very real and very ugly costs for us all. This isn't going away and the only option for reaching manageable solutions has to rest on accepting sustainable retreat in our lives, in our society and in our economy.