Don’t fix the economy - change it

PAUL LACHINE/NEWSART Sticking with the model that is driving us toward ecological catastrophe will eventually kill us

Dec 26, 2008 04:30 AM Peter G. Brown Geoffrey Garver

Amid the discordant clash of solutions being served up to address the global financial crisis, a common refrain can be heard: Most global leaders and their economic advisers key their policy prescriptions to "sustained economic growth." The prevailing debate is how to get there most quickly. In Canada, how this debate plays out could bring down the government in a matter of weeks.

Unfortunately, it is the wrong debate. Neither the Conservative minority nor the opposition has proposed anything that will set Canada on a long-term path toward the kind of economy that will both provide for the well-being of Canadians and enhance and preserve the ecological community of which people are but one dependent part.

All eyes may now be on the kind of fiscal budget the Conservatives might produce next year, but a more essential budget also demands urgent attention: the global ecological budget. The financial crisis has brought into sharp focus the need to fundamentally change, not merely repair or rebuild, our economy. Because, quite simply, sticking with an economic model that is driving toward ecological catastrophe will kill us. So, it is essential to address the financial and ecological crises together.

The ecological budget, on which all life and, consequently, the human economy depends, is already in dramatic deficit. Why is this budget ultimately more important than the fiscal budget? Sept. 23, 2008, was Earth Overshoot Day. The period after Sept. 23 represents the time the human population causes an ecological deficit, using up the Earth faster than it can regenerate.

Every year, Earth Overshoot Day comes earlier. This moving date tells the story of a global environment rapidly losing its ability to support life: accelerating climate change; the loss of species and habitats; declining fisheries; the proliferation of ocean dead zones; diminishing freshwater resources; and more. Ecological overshoot is climate change on steroids.

Here are six steps we can take toward a truly balanced budget that will allow Canadians, and all people on Earth, to live fulfilling, healthy, yet more ecologically compatible, lives.

Recognize that the economy is part of the biosphere. A comprehensive economic plan must be based on the scientific fact that the global economy is a subsidiary of the natural order. Economic policies should be attuned to the limited capacity of Earth’s biosphere to provide for humans and other life and to assimilate their waste. Photosynthesis and sunlight are as essential to the framework for economic budgets and expenditures as the laws of supply and demand.

Acknowledge that we need new institutions. An economic renewal tailored to the 21st century would establish institutions committed to fitting the human economy to Earth’s limited life-support capacity. Canada, with its token efforts to address climate change, is far off the track. We need something like the central reserve banks, but which look after shares of the Earth’s ecological capacity, not just interest rates and the money supply. Money should be recognized as a social licence to use part of Earth’s life-support capacity. Some functions of governance would have to operate at a global level, through a federation modelled perhaps on the European Union, with enforceable laws designed to assure that individual nations don’t overrun Earth’s limits. The rules for the developed countries that are responsible for the current ecological crisis should be different from those for developing ones.

Acknowledge that unlimited growth on a finite planet makes no sense. Most people wrongly believe that unlimited growth and wealth accumulation are the "natural laws" of the economy - inviolable, even though together they undermine the Earth’s ecological and social systems. We face a moral challenge: bring the global economy into a right relationship with the planet and its human and non-human inhabitants or suffer the increasing destruction of Earth’s finite life-support systems and social structures. Growth in consumption is a nonsensical response to the sharp decline in Earth’s biophysical systems that is caused by overconsumption. Our new ecological and climate reality demands new ways to live within the means of the Earth.

Fairness matters. A "right" human-Earth relationship would recognize humans as part of an interdependent web of life on a finite planet. The economy must recognize the rights of the human poor and of millions of other species to their place in the sun. In a world awash in money, addressing poverty only with growth reflects a tragic lack of moral imagination. Indeed, in pushing for more "free" trade as it is currently understood, Canada would entrench an ongoing addiction to consumption, pursued in a manner that often ravages the bio-productivity of developing countries.

Expand the discussion. The new knowledge that will forever mark this period in human history is the overwhelming scientific evidence that we are overconsuming the planet and accelerating toward ecological catastrophe. The short-term approaches of most ministers of finance and professional economists don’t account for how the planet works, or even that the economy exists on a finite planet. Scientists morally committed to protecting the global commons and researching ecological limits to the global economy need much more funding and influence in policy-making.

Look beyond technological fixes. Bold new leadership is needed that will focus on all four policy "theatres" relevant to human ecological impact and provide the moral footing that will lead people, individually and collectively, to choose lifestyles with radically lower impact. The four policy variables are: technology; population; wealth and consumption; and morals and customs. These factors should together shape Parliament’s rethinking of the current economic system. Technology can increase efficiency of energy and resources use, yet it is overemphasized as a solution. Pushing technological solutions like hydrogen cars and genetically modified agriculture is much easier politically than asking people to consume less or have fewer children. Unfortunately, technology alone cannot solve the ecological crisis. For one thing, efficiency gains often lead to greater, not lower, consumption. An example is the squandering of Quebec’s underpriced hydroelectric power.

Investments in new "green" technology need to be coupled to a regulatory structure that ensures that efficiency does not result in more impact, along with massive investment in creating or restoring natural systems that build bioproductivity. Economic policy must promote not more affluence as currently defined, but more sufficiency for all Canadians - so that all may live with self-respect, without overconsumption.

Perhaps most difficult to come to grips with is that Canada is an overpopulated country - if you compare the individual impact of each Canadian with what the Earth can withstand. We should escape from the current treadmill that considers more people necessary for more growth.

Lastly, we must greatly increase investment in educational and civic institutions that teach that we are not "consumers," but citizens of the Earth, and guardians of life’s prospect on a small, beautiful and finite planet.

Peter G. Brown is a professor at McGill University. Geoffrey Garver is an environmental consultant and lectures in law at Université de Montréal and Université Laval. They are co-authors of Right Relationship: Building a Whole Earth Economy.

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How I wish it might be so: http://www.thevenusproject.com/intro_main/whatis_tvp.htm

Submitted by Em Cee at 9:21 AM Saturday, December 27 2008

Changing the world......

....economic system must start with changing world overpopulation. Canada can do it’s part by revamping a flawed immigration system wich brings almost half a million people to Canada annually. This is a city the size of Ottawa arriving every 12 months. A large percentage of this immigration comes from countries that don’t heat or cool homes or own personal automobiles. Canada not only assists with unsustainable population growth but dramatically increases the carbon and ecological footprint of a half million people annually. The world will not sustain human populations that are on track to increase by 59% by 2050. The sustainable world population is most likely past the tipping point now!

Submitted by rvguy79 at 1:22 AM Saturday, December 27 2008

excellent article !!

So true but unfortunately the group that is "voted" into office does not give a damn about the future or the environment.I am very interested in your book

Submitted by whatthe! at 11:40 PM Friday, December 26 2008

You’re wasting your breath

"unlimited growth on a finite planet makes no sense. " That is 100% true. Our ’eternal growth model’ has mathematical limits, and other limits before that. However, humans are MUCH less rational than we pretend. Consumerism is a religion, the most rapidly expanding one. The 3rd world races to catch up to our consumption rates. One can’t blame you for trying, but it’s a head-against-brick-wall scenario. About 1/4 of the population [ or -] have little or no conscience, and half the remainder would rather eat dirt than change their consumption habits. There are huge energies pushing growth, population growth, immigration [legal & illegal,] and pollution. Only a huge [and extremely unlikely] plague could slow down the inevitable.

Submitted by weetabix at 9:53 PM Friday, December 26 2008

What I have been saying all along ....

We need a new economic system based on libertarian principle: 1. The atmosphere, does not belong to anyone. No one has the right to pollute it, it runs contrary to Property rights. 2. Central Banks to manage the economy? This is how we got in this mess no one can manage the economy everyone has different economic goals which only the free market can regulate 3. Unlimited growth? nothing wrong with real growth which is the result of savings, innovation and creating, which is slow, gradual and sustained, what we have now is speculation which is economically, socially and environmentally destructive, the only way we can slow speculation is by abolishing central banks that fix the interest rates and by limiting money supply by tying us to to the gold standard. Respect for property rights, and a sane grounded market econnomy is the only solution, it always has been, it always will be.

Submitted by sam villa at 4:42 PM Friday, December 26 2008

@ taragon

All we need to do is the same thing that the US does when Canada wins a NAFTA interpretation. When we win a free trade challenge the Americans ignore it and continue to apply their tariffs and anti-free trade practices. Ex soft wood, beef, Honda’s from Alliston, etc.

Submitted by norinradd at 2:43 PM Friday, December 26 2008

excellent........but

but could we obtain this, legally bound by the FREE TRADE AGREEMENT? NAFTA has some really obscene and disadvantage regulations toward Canada in it, read the fine print. May be we should start this process by burning it.

Submitted by targon at 12:23 PM Friday, December 26 2008

Hear hear, and there is more we can do

It’s good to read such reasoned and reasonable proposals to turn our disastrous direction onto a new course. The global and national policy innovations are necessary... and there is also a great deal that individual citizens can do. If we move now to re-localize communities and meet our needs closer to home, we can reduce dependence on globalized supply chains and increase local resilience. Let’s not wait for top-down action, but instead do all we can, starting where we are!

Submitted by sally a at 11:57 AM Friday, December 26 2008

Bravo

Excellent column, a plain language pathway to new, sustainable approaches and solutions. Unfortunately our current leadership are people whose values and goals derive from fear. And with that we will only ever be mediocre. Canada’s government trains all energies on maintaining the status quo for today’s elite. There is no doubt Canada’s leadership will not rise to this opportunity. No transformational step will be taken here at this most obvious moment in human history when all signals are clearly pointing in a new direction. (Canada has the resources to sustain food supply and energy for the world. One hour of sun at its highest point creates more energy than the global community uses annually. Who will learn to harness that power while Canada’s busy sparing no ecological or financial expense to keep that oil patch going and our cities and towns car-dependent?)

Submitted by Is This The Best We Can Do at 11:21 AM Friday, December 26 2008

Refreshing to read ... and exactly what is needed

Human society is on the destructive overshoot track for sure. We understand that a vat of bacteria, or yeast, has one generation left to live when it has consumed exactly half of its nourishing medium ... in other words, before its population doubles for the last time. We hear our own global population will double in less than a generation, and we already see the results of overpopulation in all parts of the world, including Canada. If we aren’t over-using natural resources, Canada is begging other nations to over-usethem. Now, our politicians are wasting time, energy & money on bailing out speculators, determined to pursue this destructive path to resource depletion & predictable wars over what remains. Time to change course, but will the politicians ever smarten up?

Submitted by veeh at 10:52 AM Friday, December 26 2008

Exactly what is needed

Congratulations to the authors for so clearly explaining the need for this approach and the opportunity presented by the current economic crisis. We are propping up a failed system and would be better served to put our financial resources in a new direction towards a sustainable social reality. We can create such a world, let’s get started.

Submitted by krow at 10:01 AM Friday, December 26 2008

I love the phrase - we are not consumers

We are citizens of the Earth...But a little fine tuning to that is in order - we are merely passengers on a celestial vessel which has capacity limits - and we all have to work our passage if we hope to safely cross the spacial ocean...

Submitted by Wascally Wabbit at 8:48 AM Friday, December 26 2008

good luck

you are getting nowhere with this because the people in power are the most reactionary right-wingers since that austrian guy in germany 70 years ago.

Submitted by gonzo at 8:48 AM Friday, December 26 2008

A Happy and Green New Year

It is refreshing to read a cogent view of the next steps for our country and world. If we do not take real steps to change how we behave on the planet, the planet will take real negative steps to deal with us. Harpers experts on the economy are the same people who got us in this mess in the first place. They will recommend building more new highways and supporting the auto industry to build more "fuel efficient cars". We need to keep the skilled manufacturing jobs in Ontario but we need to build trains, wind generators , busses, solar panels, and those things that will be of great use to us in a post oil economy. If we do not change rapidly the carrying capacity of the Earth will be greatly compromised and the human population will go into a serious decline. James Lovelock author of the Gaia Principal has predicted that if we do not get Carbon Emissions under control runaway climate change will reduce the human population to about one billion by the end of this century.

Submitted by Barry Lipton at 7:50 AM Friday, December 26 2008

Don’t fix the economy, change it

The most comprehensive presentation to date with regard to sustainable life on our planet is a true masterpiece presented by Dr"s" Brown and Garver. Many thanks. I wonder, though, how this will wash among many fundamentalists in our midst who prefer to believe that science is a heresy? Brian Borley

Submitted by Brian Borley at 7:04 AM Friday, December 26 2008

the finite planet

Peter G Brown and Geoffrey Garver have it dead on, that the planet can not go on with huge population, untrammelled consumption, and a reliance on technical gagdetry to get us out of this mess. A budget and a government that doesnt care about the loss of species, will end our species, and it wont matter if communism or capitalism hold sway, the Gods will end this experiment at their convenience. The shift from being consumers to citizens of the world is a crucial one, and I applaud their pointing out its need.

Submitted by macrostyllus at 6:46 AM Friday, December 26 2008