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But because the world must balance the need to eliminate carbon emissions with economic growth I read this often, and everytime can't help but wonder: must the

by stinos 7y ago

But because the world must balance the need to eliminate carbon emissions with economic growth I read this often, and everytime can't help but wonder: must the world really strive for economic growth? Is just stability not enough? Isn't unbridled growth a major cause of the situation we're in now (and not just with respect to climate, but also the wealth of other environmental problesm, even disasters, the earth faces)? Note: these are honest questions. I don't know how econmics really work. Maybe I'm naive, and I perfectly get for some 'more more more' is the key aspect in life. But is that really required?

bubblewrap 7y ago
Growth does not imply consumption of resources. It can simply be technological advances. Finding better cures for cancer is also growth. Of course mankind would continue without better cures for cancer. But I find it difficult to argue that we shouldn't look for better cures.
- Oletros 7y ago
  But the growth talked is "economic growth"
  - bubblewrap 7y ago
    Curing cancer is also economic growth.
flexie 7y ago
Well, it's easy for us to sit here in the developed world and talk about how the world doesn't need growth. There are billions of people for whom more of the same means more poverty. When everybody in Africa, South America, Asia, heck even the poorer parts of Europe and North America, has access to clean water, food, education, healthcare, safety, justice etc. we can discuss whether we really need growth. Growth may not be as needed in our parts of the world, but it sure is for a lot of people.
pjc50 7y ago
If there is population growth, there must be economic growth, or every new born mouth makes the rest of the world poorer. That tends to turn people on one another. Zero population growth is now possible; zero growth in resource usage may be compatible with economic growth.
thejohnconway 7y ago
Economic growth is what allows _very good things_ like education and healthcare continue to improve, and reach a larger number of people, regardless of what you think of material consumerist goods. These things have made life way better for average people, in many obvious and non-obvious ways, that aren’t the mere collection of material goods. Infant mortality dropping is one obvious effect, but violent crime also decreases for example, the murder rate a few hundred years ago was orders of magnitude higher than now.
- Pyxl101 7y ago
  I was curious how the homicide rate has changed over time. It’s true as you claimed that it was substantially higher hundreds of years ago, and has been on a steep drop in modern times: https://ourworldindata.org/homicides https://ourworldindata.org/homicides
dalbasal 7y ago
We tend to think of economic growth as a fairly tangible thing with meaning. But, GDP is an industrial era measure. Add up all the shoes, cars & kettles that come out of factories and see if that's growing YoY. Even then they had to deal with serivices and the other more ethereal parts of the economy (financial services, then and now, are a contraversial element in measuring economies). But, the tagible parts of the economy were big enough that GDP had meaning. If GDP doubled, it meant more food, cars, clothes, steel... These days, GDP growth, economic growth is a lot more poorly defined. Economists have measures for it, but they can't describe what "GDP doubled" looks like beyond the abstraction used to measure it. It could mean more lawyers/lawsuits/contracts or it could mean more childcare/education. Asking "do we want the economy to grow" is a far less meaningful question than it once was. To the point in the article though, I do think that we need more energy, not less. In fact, for the future to be futuristic, we need a lot more energy. A side effect of clean energy tech is that we're eploring new paradigms, some with tremendous potential to scale beyond what carbon provided.
ForHackernews 7y ago
All of capitalism is predicated on unending growth. There are some fields of economics that do research into alternative models, but they are niche and unpopular: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady-state_economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady-state_economy
throwaway8879 7y ago
Required implies that there is some kind of divine guidance out there, which there isn't, so I suppose we could force humanity to stick to some stable point and not progress any further. But economic growth is required in the sense that advancing technology requires economic growth. And advancing the human race requires advancing technology, and so on. The world's population isn't a single entity, so even if one group decides to not pursue economic growth, others still will. The only way to not fall behind is to keep playing.
bgarbiak 7y ago
No, the world doesn't really need to strive for economic growth. IPhones sales not growing year over year is not a disaster for anyone, really. Same for Amazon market share, and so on. And yet: it is, because the system works this way. Growth is god. It's instilled into DNA of every entity working in the capitalism. We could stop the growing obsession, redistribute the accumulated wealth to the developing nations (perhaps iPhone sales would grow then?), and live happily ever after. Obviously, it's an utopia that's not going to happen. And yet, it's the only viable way to achieve the emission targets needed for humans to survive on this planet. It's commonly accepted that the best advice you can give someone who wants to reduce her/his carbon footprint is: "consume less". Well, we need to consume less globally.
rayiner 7y ago
Since 2000, China has gone from a per capital PPP GDP of $3,000, about the same as the US in the 1880s, to $17,000, about the same as the US in the 1960s or 1970s. In the process, it has added 6 gigatons of carbon output, more than the entire US footprint. Carbon output was the way to a modern, decent life for a billion Chinese. India and Africa are still stuck where the US was a century ago (and their carbon output is correspondingly low). Economic development is necessary for them.
TeMPOraL 7y ago
Yes. As others pointed out: without economic growth, population growth makes everyone poorer. Also, economic growth is not our enemy here (nor is growing energy usage). In fact, properly applied, they're our friends in this problem. The trick is doing more of the helping stuff, and less of the damaging stuff. I've argued this two days ago, so to not repeat myself: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19897547 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19897547.
- rc_kas 7y ago
  Economic growth is not required for the survival of humanity. Economic growth is just something that wealthy people want so that the can keep or increase their wealth. Again, wealth itself not being vital to the survival of humanity (and many species of animals).
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    Not many people care about "survival of humanity" in the abstract. What we all care about is not suffering, not dying, and not seeing others suffer and die. And then other things on the Maslov's pyramid. Economic growth is absolutely necessary to achieve that; the default, natural state of humanity is pain and death.
    - abyssin 7y ago
      I think the abstraction of humanity as a group of which every human being is part of is something that many people understand. People care about the messages they hear, and most of them still hear a message that says there's no real issue and it's possible to keep living the way they live, and it's possible for everyone to keep living the way they live. Many people would be okay if the message was: we are all going to have to change the way we live, including the rich.
      - TeMPOraL 7y ago
        That's fair. I do too subscribe to the abstraction of humanity as a group. I guess what I'm saying is that even with climate change, survival of humanity is not at stake. We're unlikely to collapse the climate to the point where no humans can survive anywhere on the planet. What's under threat is survival of our technological civilization, of our ways of life, of our grandchildren. The danger is that a lot of people will suffer greatly and die prematurely, and that the future will only contain more suffering.
aeorgnoieang 7y ago
Stability is probably much (much) harder to achieve than either growth or decay. The measures of economic growth are not perfect but even something like improving a product or service is, in a very real sense, economic growth. Are you asking whether every such improvement should be matched with a corresponding degradation? Personally, if you're happy with your situation, you shouldn't feel compelled to constantly improve it. But then, if you need or want to protect something (e.g. yourself, your family), a certain amount of {slack / profit / extra resources } is necessary to weather unknown future adversity. And a growing capacity to handle such adverse events is as important as the things you wish to protect and preserve.

by stinos 7y ago

bubblewrap 7y ago

Growth does not imply consumption of resources. It can simply be technological advances. Finding better cures for cancer is also growth. Of course mankind would continue without better cures for cancer. But I find it difficult to argue that we shouldn't look for better cures.

Oletros 7y ago
But the growth talked is "economic growth"
- bubblewrap 7y ago
  Curing cancer is also economic growth.

flexie 7y ago

Well, it's easy for us to sit here in the developed world and talk about how the world doesn't need growth. There are billions of people for whom more of the same means more poverty. When everybody in Africa, South America, Asia, heck even the poorer parts of Europe and North America, has access to clean water, food, education, healthcare, safety, justice etc. we can discuss whether we really need growth. Growth may not be as needed in our parts of the world, but it sure is for a lot of people.

pjc50 7y ago

If there is population growth, there must be economic growth, or every new born mouth makes the rest of the world poorer. That tends to turn people on one another. Zero population growth is now possible; zero growth in resource usage may be compatible with economic growth.

thejohnconway 7y ago

Economic growth is what allows _very good things_ like education and healthcare continue to improve, and reach a larger number of people, regardless of what you think of material consumerist goods. These things have made life way better for average people, in many obvious and non-obvious ways, that aren’t the mere collection of material goods. Infant mortality dropping is one obvious effect, but violent crime also decreases for example, the murder rate a few hundred years ago was orders of magnitude higher than now.

Pyxl101 7y ago
I was curious how the homicide rate has changed over time. It’s true as you claimed that it was substantially higher hundreds of years ago, and has been on a steep drop in modern times: https://ourworldindata.org/homicides https://ourworldindata.org/homicides

dalbasal 7y ago

We tend to think of economic growth as a fairly tangible thing with meaning. But, GDP is an industrial era measure. Add up all the shoes, cars & kettles that come out of factories and see if that's growing YoY. Even then they had to deal with serivices and the other more ethereal parts of the economy (financial services, then and now, are a contraversial element in measuring economies). But, the tagible parts of the economy were big enough that GDP had meaning. If GDP doubled, it meant more food, cars, clothes, steel... These days, GDP growth, economic growth is a lot more poorly defined. Economists have measures for it, but they can't describe what "GDP doubled" looks like beyond the abstraction used to measure it. It could mean more lawyers/lawsuits/contracts or it could mean more childcare/education. Asking "do we want the economy to grow" is a far less meaningful question than it once was. To the point in the article though, I do think that we need more energy, not less. In fact, for the future to be futuristic, we need a lot more energy. A side effect of clean energy tech is that we're eploring new paradigms, some with tremendous potential to scale beyond what carbon provided.

ForHackernews 7y ago

All of capitalism is predicated on unending growth. There are some fields of economics that do research into alternative models, but they are niche and unpopular: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady-state_economy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steady-state_economy

throwaway8879 7y ago

Required implies that there is some kind of divine guidance out there, which there isn't, so I suppose we could force humanity to stick to some stable point and not progress any further. But economic growth is required in the sense that advancing technology requires economic growth. And advancing the human race requires advancing technology, and so on. The world's population isn't a single entity, so even if one group decides to not pursue economic growth, others still will. The only way to not fall behind is to keep playing.

bgarbiak 7y ago

No, the world doesn't really need to strive for economic growth. IPhones sales not growing year over year is not a disaster for anyone, really. Same for Amazon market share, and so on. And yet: it is, because the system works this way. Growth is god. It's instilled into DNA of every entity working in the capitalism. We could stop the growing obsession, redistribute the accumulated wealth to the developing nations (perhaps iPhone sales would grow then?), and live happily ever after. Obviously, it's an utopia that's not going to happen. And yet, it's the only viable way to achieve the emission targets needed for humans to survive on this planet. It's commonly accepted that the best advice you can give someone who wants to reduce her/his carbon footprint is: "consume less". Well, we need to consume less globally.

rayiner 7y ago

Since 2000, China has gone from a per capital PPP GDP of $3,000, about the same as the US in the 1880s, to $17,000, about the same as the US in the 1960s or 1970s. In the process, it has added 6 gigatons of carbon output, more than the entire US footprint. Carbon output was the way to a modern, decent life for a billion Chinese. India and Africa are still stuck where the US was a century ago (and their carbon output is correspondingly low). Economic development is necessary for them.

TeMPOraL 7y ago

Yes. As others pointed out: without economic growth, population growth makes everyone poorer. Also, economic growth is not our enemy here (nor is growing energy usage). In fact, properly applied, they're our friends in this problem. The trick is doing more of the helping stuff, and less of the damaging stuff. I've argued this two days ago, so to not repeat myself: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19897547 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19897547.

rc_kas 7y ago
Economic growth is not required for the survival of humanity. Economic growth is just something that wealthy people want so that the can keep or increase their wealth. Again, wealth itself not being vital to the survival of humanity (and many species of animals).
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  Not many people care about "survival of humanity" in the abstract. What we all care about is not suffering, not dying, and not seeing others suffer and die. And then other things on the Maslov's pyramid. Economic growth is absolutely necessary to achieve that; the default, natural state of humanity is pain and death.
  - abyssin 7y ago
    I think the abstraction of humanity as a group of which every human being is part of is something that many people understand. People care about the messages they hear, and most of them still hear a message that says there's no real issue and it's possible to keep living the way they live, and it's possible for everyone to keep living the way they live. Many people would be okay if the message was: we are all going to have to change the way we live, including the rich.
    - TeMPOraL 7y ago
      That's fair. I do too subscribe to the abstraction of humanity as a group. I guess what I'm saying is that even with climate change, survival of humanity is not at stake. We're unlikely to collapse the climate to the point where no humans can survive anywhere on the planet. What's under threat is survival of our technological civilization, of our ways of life, of our grandchildren. The danger is that a lot of people will suffer greatly and die prematurely, and that the future will only contain more suffering.

aeorgnoieang 7y ago

Stability is probably much (much) harder to achieve than either growth or decay. The measures of economic growth are not perfect but even something like improving a product or service is, in a very real sense, economic growth. Are you asking whether every such improvement should be matched with a corresponding degradation? Personally, if you're happy with your situation, you shouldn't feel compelled to constantly improve it. But then, if you need or want to protect something (e.g. yourself, your family), a certain amount of {slack / profit / extra resources } is necessary to weather unknown future adversity. And a growing capacity to handle such adverse events is as important as the things you wish to protect and preserve.