written 3 Oct 2021
published 10 Oct 2021
A recent episode of TUC Radio (tucradio.org) on KZYX was an October, 2019 talk by ecological economist Dr. William Rees. He discussed planetary overshoot: "the consumption of natural products and ecosystems faster than they can regenerate, while filling natural waste sinks to overflowing."
All growth increases consumption of material resources and dissipation of energy. Modern humans appeared 200,000 years ago, growing slowly to a few million 10,000 years ago, at the beginning of agriculture. When the industrial age began in 1800, the global population was one billion, expanding to 2.5 billion by the time I was born after WW2, and now approaching 7.9 billion.
Such exponential population growth in just 8 generations (out of 10,000), is now considered "normal", but resulted from a one-time access to the stored energy in fossil fuels. The nature of exponential growth means half of the fossil fuels ever burned were consumed in just the last 30 years. After being stable for 8,000 years, atmospheric carbon dioxide has increase by half in the last two centuries, a third of that in the last 30 years. Economists optimistically expect this rate to double by 2050!
However, we hit planetary overshoot 50 years ago, consuming 100 percent of the annual productivity of the Earth, and are now in 170 percent overshoot. Humans constitute 34 percent of mammalian biomass and our domestic animals are another 60 percent, leaving little room for other mammals. We are no longer citizens or stewards of the Earth, but act like parasites. Our culture seems willing to destroy the planet trying to keep the economy growing. But that is the self-centered growth model of a cancer killing its host.
The relatively sudden climate change is creating increasingly expensive ecological disruption. Last month the European Central Bank released a report beginning to put cost estimates on the growing emergency. Climate disasters are already threatening the economy and delaying a response will only increase those disasters and make the eventual attempted solutions even more extreme and costly. While cost estimates of global decarbonization exceed $20T, we have more than $1,000T at stake, with the added risk of human extinction.
Dr. Rees concluded his talk with a list of actions necessary to insure a habitable planet. We must reduce atmospheric carbon emissions by half before 2030, with complete decarbonization by 2050, requiring a global green energy transition. But atmospheric carbon isn't the only symptom of an economy out of tune with a finite, living world. Resource consumption is destroying whole ecosystems that are critical to life. We must accept the end of growth as a cultural/economic model and develop sustainable lifestyles, constrained by the regenerative capacities of our natural systems. The remaining carbon budget must be allocated to essential uses: re-localizing economic activity, especially food production. We must plan a global population descent to 2-3 billion people. And all this must be done with social justice awareness.
The magnitude and speed of the current destruction disturbs me the most. Considering the list of significant social changes required to create a sustainable society, I am saddened to contrast that with the social/political constipation that now afflicts this country and most of the world.
Einstein said, "we can't solve a problem from the same mindset that created it". A flawed internal perspective has manifested a dysfunctional society. For millennium, humanity has been in the grip of a narrow egoic perspective, defined by tribalism, fear, limiting concepts, and domination fantasies. This was barely tolerable when the population was small and had modest technological power. But access to the massive energy in fossil fuels amplified this dysfunction to the point where life on Earth is now threatened. The self-centered ego mind has run amuck.
Because we already have global effect, we must evolve from tribal to global perspective. Everyone is constricted by their unexamined ego, so we all contribute to humanity's current suicidal path. By waking up, we change our experience, and reduce our participation in that insanity. Without this intense inner work, no matter what else we do, we have no hope of savings the species. If not now, when?
