The mathematical realities of economic growth

[pErvinalia]

Great (long) article about the simple mathematical realities of endless growth, and the delusions non-mathematical people suffer from in regards to potential solutions like increased efficiency and recycling. Basically, growth is going to have to stop, and stop a lot quicker than most realise. And this is separate from the issues of climate change, ecological collapse, pollution etc...

Grantham illustrates his claim by reporting a discussion he had with a group of very highly numerate people interested in economics and the environment. He asked them how much stuff the Egyptians would have had at the end of their 3,000-year civilization if they started with a total of just one cubic metre of possessions and grew their stash by 4.5% per year – a pretty standard growth target in our culture’s history. The mathematically minded folk knew it would be a big number but none came near the actual figure. The Egyptians would have needed more than a billion of our solar systems to store their stuff. To be more precise, assuming no loss or recycling, they would have needed 2.5 billion billion solar systems.

Sometimes environmentalists cynically suggest that those who are gung-ho for growth seem to think we will be able to find a new planet once we have trashed or run out of space on this one. A bit of simple mathematics shows that just one more liveable planet – indeed, billions of them – would not begin to solve the problem.

The lesson is that if we wish for our economic system to be long lived then at some point we must give up growth. Growth is simply incompatible with longevity, for anything physical. You can see this for yourself by playing with the spreadsheet below.

http://persuademe.com.au/need-talk-grow ... sums-well/

[macdoc]

The flaw in that argument is the metrics on which econnomic activity is based.

You can have a sustained society based on "better" instead of "more" .

They just have trouble measuring that as they do have issues measuring the money value of clean air and water

We do not need to give up "growth"....we need to give up unsustainable consumption of materials ( ie mining non-renewable resources ).

It's coming but slowly

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainability_measurement

This is a good read.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sustainabi ... nd_indices

Frontier economics predicates expansion and non sustainable growth.

Sustainable growth generally predicates quality improvements, efficiency, with a sustainable use of resources.

Britain could generate millions of man years of work and economic activity just making it's housing and buildings more energy efficient without adding a single extra house.
For instance triple paned glass is effectively made of sand and is totally recyclable and if applied in North America to buildings would cut energy use for heating and cooling in half.
So almost endless growth in that field without resource depletion.

The first part is to fix the metrics...not throw the baby out with the bath water.

For instance one of the issues today is

Cost of using the oil in the ground including damage to the environment versus the benefit of leaving it there and subsequent economic activity that would engender in new methods of sustainable power.

Until the metrics get fixed then we will continue to consume unsustainably.
Unsustainable is the problem, not growth.

I sell more computers that are pretty much fully recyclable....I have growth without unsustainable activity. So I have more economic activity but of the sustainable kind ( being a baker or say a health worker are sustainable and subject to improvements without unsustainable - a baker's product cycle is sustainable if managed that way, a services worker can "grow" a healthier population in many ways without use of unsustainable resource depletion - for instance medicine at a distance )
This is life cycle management of products and even some car manufacturers are engaged in that end to end management.

[pErvinalia]

You obviously didn't read the article, did you? George Monbiot was right about this when he discussed this article. Talking about the realities of never ending growth are taboo in our society. We really are fucked.

[FBM]

...an essay by Jeremy Grantham, the Chief Investment Officer of GMO Capital (with over $106 billion in assets under management).

I think I'll go with this guy over Wiki.

[Hermit]

For instance triple paned glass is effectively made of sand and is totally recyclable and if applied in North America to buildings would cut energy use for heating and cooling in half.
So almost endless growth in that field without resource depletion.

Problem solved, because we know how little energy it would take to make triple paned glass windows for the homes of 7.2 billion people. Or are you thinking the poor don't need them? If so, why stop there? Just tell them they ought never aspire to cruising around the landscape for tens of thousands of kilometres on fossil fuelled vehicles just for the sheer enjoyment of it every year. They will never wish to fly from one continent to another and back again on a regular basis. And why should they want running water in their homes, let alone their own toilet, a washing machine, a television of their own and one for each of their children, computers, smartphones, digital cameras...? Yes, I can see how triple glazing windows, for example, will solve the problems of growth in consumption. So simple, I'm amazed nobody else has thought of it yet.

[PsychoSerenity]

There have been some major waves in economics in the last few years. But with thirty years of neo-liberalism to overthrow I'm not sure how long it will be before that translates into political policy, especially with the most wealthy and powerful having strong incentives to keep things how they are. When Martin Wolf of the Financial Times writes positivity about Keynesian economics, he gets harangued about it in the comments like he's gone mad. Any discussion of genuinely sustainable economics is right off the radar for most of them. But various "New Economics" groups have started and/or grown significantly and are offering serious challenge to the orthodox. As yet though the Greens are the only political group that consider sustainability as something central to economics. Things will change, one way or another.

[macdoc]

Problem solved, because we know how little energy it would take to make triple paned glass windows for the homes of 7.2 billion people. Or are you thinking the poor don't need them? If so, why stop there? Just tell them they ought never aspire to cruising around the landscape for tens of thousands of kilometres on fossil fuelled vehicles just for the sheer enjoyment of it every year. They will never wish to fly from one continent to another and back again on a regular basis. And why should they want running water in their homes, let alone their own toilet, a washing machine, a television of their own and one for each of their children, computers, smartphones, digital cameras...? Yes, I can see how triple glazing windows, for example, will solve the problems of growth in consumption. So simple, I'm amazed nobody else has thought of it yet.

I think you need a reading course ...you really don't get it.
'nother "freeze in the dark" bunch of bullshit.

They will never wish to fly from one continent to another and back again on a regular basis. And why should they want running water in their homes, let alone their own toilet, a washing machine, a television of their own and one for each of their children, computers, smartphones, digital camera

Every single one of those can be done sustainably including continent to continent flight and in reality they will be early on in moves to a sustainable fuel cycle.

The problem is NOT growth, the problem is sustainable growth.

I suggest you read the links before you make a fool of yourself.

[Tero]

Well, capitalism as we know will have to go. You need to figure out how to reward individuals under socialism. You can reward them for frugality, efficiency. But also for technical innovation. The rest of you will just get salary.

[macdoc]

Predation has to go....especially gov assisted. Capitalism is over rated as the issue.....unregulated predators of all ilk are the problem.

[Hermit]

Every single one of those can be done sustainably including continent to continent flight and in reality they will be early on in moves to a sustainable fuel cycle.

The problem is NOT growth, the problem is sustainable growth.

I suggest you read the links before you make a fool of yourself.

I've done a bit of reading in the past few years, and it appears to me that you lack an appreciation of the sheer scale of change required. Some reading on your side could fix that.

In particular, I had a look at power generation in South Australia. This state is particularly well suited for wind generated electricity production, and, assisted by government policies, is racing ahead with the construction of wind farms. Since starting at zero about 15 years ago, 21% of our total energy supply now comes from cheap and clean wind turbines. Excellent by any standard, I would think.

When I say cheap and clean, I am ignoring equipment construction costs. We have 600 towers right now, and the average cost to get them connected to the grid is 5 million dollars per unit. I never realised how much steel goes into them until I started doing deliveries to an engineering firm 4 kilometres up the road from where I live, that manufactures the towers. They come in three sections, 30 metres in length each, and are made of 12 millimetre thick steel plating bent it a tube shape. The diameter of the bottom section is 2.8 metres. At the installation site they are bolted together and a fourth section with a turbine is added, A considerable amount of steel in that, don't you think? Yes, about 90 tons per unit. And steel is not the only requirement. I used to roll into the joint on a regular basis with consignments of the flux they need for the welding. The consignments were in the 5 to 9 ton range.

Now for the scale. Look at some figures. Our 600 production units take care of the energy needs of 320,000 of them. That swallows approximately 54,000 tons of steel and 3 billion dollars. That covers the energy of how many people? 20% of the state's population. Divide 1.6 million by five, and you get 320,000. So, extrapolate those figures to cover 7.2 billion people. Yes, I know, wind power is only one of several sources for renewable energy, but somewhat similar considerations concerning capital cost and resource requirements apply to them as well.

Yes, good progress is being made, but too little too late, and the drain on resources is huge. I think there'll be some very painful belt tightening in the coming decades rather than sustainable growth.

[JimC]

I would be fairly certain that photo-voltaic panels, in a high sun environment like outback SA, would provide considerably more power per ton of material required, or even energy used in production than wind turbines. There is of course the issue of storage of power...

Not that I disagree with wind turbines, but perhaps the effort in SA should switch to the sun; the mix helps to even out the production, in any case...

[Hermit]

The levelised cost of wind energy ranges fro 3 to 5 cents per kWh. For photovoltaic energy the range is 15 to 22.

[JimC]

The levelised cost of wind energy ranges fro 3 to 5 cents per kWh. For photovoltaic energy the range is 15 to 22.

OK, but it may still be that, in terms of the mass of material required, it comes out ahead...

[pErvinalia]

Problem solved, because we know how little energy it would take to make triple paned glass windows for the homes of 7.2 billion people. Or are you thinking the poor don't need them? If so, why stop there? Just tell them they ought never aspire to cruising around the landscape for tens of thousands of kilometres on fossil fuelled vehicles just for the sheer enjoyment of it every year. They will never wish to fly from one continent to another and back again on a regular basis. And why should they want running water in their homes, let alone their own toilet, a washing machine, a television of their own and one for each of their children, computers, smartphones, digital cameras...? Yes, I can see how triple glazing windows, for example, will solve the problems of growth in consumption. So simple, I'm amazed nobody else has thought of it yet.

I think you need a reading course ...you really don't get it.
'nother "freeze in the dark" bunch of bullshit.

They will never wish to fly from one continent to another and back again on a regular basis. And why should they want running water in their homes, let alone their own toilet, a washing machine, a television of their own and one for each of their children, computers, smartphones, digital camera

Every single one of those can be done sustainably including continent to continent flight and in reality they will be early on in moves to a sustainable fuel cycle.

The problem is NOT growth, the problem is sustainable growth.

I suggest you read the links before you make a fool of yourself.

You still haven't read the article, have you??

[pErvinalia]

Predation has to go....especially gov assisted. Capitalism is over rated as the issue.....unregulated predators of all ilk are the problem.

Capitalism is as guaranteed to lead to predation as evolution is to lead to species that are adapted to their environment. The environment of capitalism is profit.