I'm sure you know by now that I am an environmentalist — and with good reason. The world is awash in toxic chemicals, including about 5.2 billion pounds of pesticides (EPA estimate) used annually, and the negative effects of global warming are already with us.
The oceans, for example, have about 200 dead zones now. Their pH levels are decreasing. They have lost about 90 percent of their predator fish, and a quarter of their coral reefs. Birds are not faring any better. A U.N. study estimates a quarter of the world's bird population has been lost. Our pollinators are also dying off.
The expanding world population has cut available farmland in half since 1950, and forests have shrunk from five billion hectares to 3.9 billion hectares since 1910. Water tables are falling in scores of countries, including the U.S. The earth has lost about a quarter of its topsoil. It is estimated that the world surpassed its bio-capacity in the mid 1980's, and it is estimated now to be in environmental overshoot by about 30%. The planet's bio-diversity has decreased about 30% in the last 40 years.
America is a major player in all this, which I have already pointed out in a prior paper. Here are some additional points. The world ecological footprint by one study is about 2.7 hectares per person. The U.S.'s footprint is about eight hectares per person, our bio-capacity being four. A Cornell University study indicates that we are losing our topsoil at a rate 10 times faster than it can naturally be replaced. The U.S., with about 5% of the population, uses about 25% of all its resources and consumes about 23 times more goods and services than the average world citizen. We throw out about seven pounds of garbage a day per person, only 22% of which is recycled or composted.
The above is a recipe for disaster with an expanding population fighting wars for the last drops of clean water and unpolluted land. If such wars go nuclear, . . .
California is actively involved in the recipe. We have had 91% of our wetlands drained, and 99% of our native grasses are gone. I have previously mentioned some examples of how much we consume and throw away and how bad our air and water pollution is becoming. Every increase in population, with its accompanying materialistic consumerism, now increases the battle to prevent depletion of our forests and fisheries, degradation of our soils, and concentration of toxics. It forces us to endure increasing conflicts over water use, especially diminishing clean water, and urban or even agricultural sprawl.
I can expound on statistics for some time, but I actually want to bring up another point here, that being the connection between economy and pollution.
Our current sustainability/pollution/global warming problems began when we started to burn fossil fuel in the 18th century. Thus began the industrial revolution and economic expansion that supported the beginning of population growth in the West. This ushered in growth economics, and it has been the only economics we have known since. There have been various schools of it pronounced through the years, but the one thing they all unquestionably have in common is "growth is good, no growth is bad." There must be growth. This is sacrosanct. No one in power or authority knows, or pretends to know, how to think otherwise.
In the U.S., our industrial consumer economy is said to have begun in 1812, as we prepared for war. Thereafter, economic growth and population growth here fed each other, stimulating each other, as the European settlers slowly conquered the continent in a nearly genocidal war against native Americans. More conquered land meant more room to support a growing population of the new Americans. More new Americans meant more homes, factories, offices, roads, bridges, etc., to be built — more growth. The consumer economy grew to soak up the new wealth — more growth. Under our present system, only growth produces wealth. No growth produces economic distress.
Nothing, however, grows forever. There is a point where maturity is reached and growth naturally stops. Even Adam Smith predicted a growth economy would last only about 200 years. Interestingly, this year is the 200th anniversary of it in the U.S., and our economy is refusing to budge, regardless of tactics used.
We are fully-grown and now in environmental overshoot. From this point on, unless we experience something like a devastating war or natural disaster, which will require rebuilding and repopulating, more economic/population growth becomes a negative, with increasing amounts of pollution and a drawing down of continuously diminishing resources. We are entering a new paradigm that will require an entirely new way of thinking. What I am referring to here is the natural follow-up to a growth economy, what is called a steady state economy.
The powers that be do not wish to acknowledge such a state of affairs. Our economic elites have made great profits in the growth economy and have no wish to abandon it, especially since a steady state economy promises to create a more egalitarian society. To bring this about will be the battle of the 21st century.
A steady state economy is one that is stable in size, featuring a stable population where consumption nears the carrying capacity of the environment.
It features a support of life sustaining ecosystems, where resources are extracted no faster than they can be regenerated and wastes deposited no faster than they can be assimilated. I can't go into much detail here about how all this will work — there are plenty of books out there — but there are two goals of mine on the goals section of my website that are instrumental to moving the state in that direction. They are #15, which is basically an anti-sprawl law, and #23, creating a 35-hour workweek. The last one is way overdue.
The whole idea behind industrialization, automation, and our achieved greater economic efficiency is to allow us to work less and less hours, to let our machines do the work for us, to give us more leisure time for family, friends, hobbies, and something called community. Instead we have been stuck with the 40-hour workweek since WWII. The result in our state is, instead of everyone having decreasing hours, we have people still working 40+ hours a week while about 11% are totally unemployed. Ridiculous! This must change.
Moving a society from a growth economy to a steady state economy has never been done before, so there are no specific, step-by-step blueprints to follow at this point, just general ones and a lot of facts pointing to its necessity. Actions must be taken to make sure that it is done right. Academics and politicians need to get together and start having conferences on this topic. I will be happy to assist in such an effort.
