Suppose you discover a magical gold coin that doubles every 25 years. After 75 years, you will have only eight coins.
But after 1,000 years, you'll have over a trillion. And in just 4,600 years, your gold coins will outnumber the observable universe.
This constant doubling is an example of rapid growth,
and while we are in no danger of discovering a real-life gold coin, there is something equally consequential that has been growing this way for the past 200 years: the global economy.
Many economists believe that a perpetually growing economy is necessary to improve people's lives, and that if the global economy stops growing, people will continue to use existing resources instead of working to create new value. Will fight more for fixed amount of value.
This begs the question: Is infinite growth possible on a finite planet?
We measure economic growth by tracking the total monetary value of everything produced and sold in a country's (or world's) market.
These products can help us meet our basic needs or improve our individual and collective quality of life.
But they also, crucially, take resources to invent,
build, or maintain. For example this smartphone. It's valuable in part because it contains aluminum, gallium, and silicon, all of which took energy and resources to mine, refine, and turn into phones.
It's also worth it because of all the effort that went into designing the hardware and writing the software. And it's also valuable because a black man got up on stage and told you it was.
So how do we increase the total financial value of all things?
One way is to create more objects.
Another way is to invent new things. However you do it, growing an economy requires resources and energy.
And eventually, won't we be finished?
To answer this question, let's consider what goes into an economy and what comes out of it: its inputs are labor, capital—which you can think of as money—and natural resources, such as water or energy. Its output is value.
Over the past 200 years, economies have become exponentially more efficient at creating value.
If we, as a species, are able to keep upgrading our economies so that they become more efficient than ever before, we can theoretically extract more value using the same—or, we here Be really ambitious—less resourceful.
So, how do we do it?
How can we increase efficiency?
With new technologies.
This is where we hit a snag. New tech, in addition to making things more efficient, can also create new demand, which ends up using more resources. We are not actually in danger of running out of most resources.
But we have a bigger and more urgent problem: the global economy, and especially the economy of rich countries, is driving climate change and destroying the precious natural environment we all depend on—soil, forests. , fishing, and countless other resources that help run our civilization.
So, what should we do?
This is where economists disagree. Most economists believe that new ideas will solve most of these problems. They argue that just as rapidly increasing resource and energy use has fueled rapid economic growth, so has human intelligence, and evolved in ways to meet these challenges.
That we simply cannot predict.
For example, between 2000 and 2014, Germany increased its GDP by 16%, while reducing CO2 emissions by 12%. That's impressive, but it's not cutting emissions fast enough to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
For this reason and others, some economists believe the solution is to completely reengineer our economies. They make the case that what we really need to do is wean ourselves off the addiction to growth and move to a post-growth economy.
What will he look like?
A post-growth economy will not assume that the economy must grow; Instead, we need to focus on improving the things we really need—things like renewable energy, health care, and public transportation.
To do this, post-development economists suggest that rich countries should guarantee a living wage, reduce wealth and income inequality, and ensure universal access to public services such as health care.
In such an economy,
people would theoretically be less dependent on their jobs to earn a living or receive health care, so it may be more feasible to reduce production of things considered less essential.
But this raises other questions: Who defines what is important?
How do we resolve the inevitable differences?
Can we really eliminate entire industries?
The "we'll come up with new ideas to solve these problems" approach may seem as realistic as, say, a magical gold coin.
And the "we have to fundamentally change our economies" approach may seem politically difficult, especially in rich countries. In one way or another, we all benefit by taking care of our planet
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