The problems with Limitless Growth

I don't understand how so many policymakers can be blind to the issue of growth.  Very few places on the planet have been able to grow (in population and economic development) without negatively impacting the local environment.  The only places that exist, I would imagine, are where the people in the community are directly impacted.  This is one of the conclusions Jared Diamond comes to in Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed
.  Diamond shows how population growth leads to increased resource extraction which among other factors can contribute to the collapse of an entire society.

Limitless Growth is a concept that is not based in reality.  Our economic system is just one component of a larger environmental system.  Without the environment (forests, rich soil for agriculture, clean oceans and biodiverse ecosystems) there would be no economic system.  Goods and services would not be able to change hands, at any scale.



As Diamond illustrates with many interesting examples, the growth of a society is often tied to a dependancy on a shared resource.  A tragedy of the commons scenario plays out as the shared resource is consumed faster than it can regenerate (if renewable) and all consumers suffer dire consequences in the end.  Deforestation is a common example in the book where previously sheltered ground is exposed leading to soil erosion and non-arable land.  Water, land, forests, fish stocks, as well as non-renewable oil are all relevant shared resources that our society depends on today.

Local story: clearing water-absorbing trees and building housing in a floodzone resulted in repeated floods for residents of Glen Cairn in Kanata, ON.  The city is being sued for the 2002 flood.  Many of the same people were drenched again June 29, 2009.  Typical growth without thinking.  And now the city is moving forward with additional development (planned 17,000 new homes) in the flood zone.  I wonder will the new homes come equipped with lifejackets?  Floaty wings?

Many North American cities have grown so much they have to ship garbage away by truck.  In our globalized world some of that waste (e-waste and other garbage) is shipped by freight to impoverished communities where it is picked apart by the world's poorest people.  Health conditions in these areas are deplorable.  These issues could be alleviated through proper policy, control of waste, cradle to cradle lifecycle planning and triple bottom line accounting.

An interesting study was recently reported in Nature which attempts to quantify the Earth's carrying capacity.  It identifies 9 "planetary boundaries" that must not be passed without serious consequences to the world's population.

Read the summary here (A Safe Operating Space For Humanity), and further discussion here.