5 ms·

There also doesn't seem to be wide awareness that the degrowth people are currently intentionally sabotaging farming output. Sri Lankas food crisis is due to a

There also doesn't seem to be wide awareness that the degrowth people are currently intentionally sabotaging farming output. Sri Lankas food crisis is due to a forced stop in artificial fertilizer use and growth of only organic crops, and there are likewise farmer protests in the Netherlands (5th largest food producer), Belgium, Germany etc due to the governments pushing this. Closer to home the "inflation reduction act" spends $20 billion to put farmland out of farm use, and also implement incentives to force farmers to significantly reduce production. This will cause food shortages like it already has in Sri Lanka. Expect huge spikes in food prices like we've seen for gas.

api 4y ago
Sometimes people just have to see the result of a policy to get it.
- josephcsible 4y ago
  Indeed. The problem is that all of us who already know "degrowth" is bad are going to have to suffer through the result along with them.
  - juve1996 4y ago
    De-growth policies have absolutely no chance in our day and age. I wouldn't worry about it too much.
    - asabjorn 4y ago
      You’ve already lived through artificial gas shortages since February 2021 after fracking and gas pipelines were shut down, so that’s demonstrably incorrect. Less easy to spot you’ve seen policy of not building new refineries and oil fields. Likewise you can see degrowth in food supply pushed by governments in Sri Lanka, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany etc. in the US the “inflation reduction bill” spends 20 billion to put farmland out of use and put regulation in place to make the remainder farmers farming harder like in Sri Lanka.
      - juve1996 4y ago
        The february 2021 had causes that are well researched. It's not indicative of anything. > Less easy to spot you’ve seen policy of not building new refineries and oil fields. The US has barely built refineries over the last 3 decades. This is not a new phenomenon. > Likewise you can see degrowth in food supply pushed by governments in Sri Lanka, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany etc. in the US the “inflation reduction bill” spends 20 billion to put farmland out of use and put regulation in place to make the remainder farmers farming harder like in Sri Lanka. Can you point this out in the bill so I can read it?
        asabjorn 4y ago
        Let me look for a good source for the inflation reduction bill. In the meantime here you can see the catastrophic effect of Sri Lankan style ESG policies in the Netherlands, as projected by their finance ministry. Netherlands is the 5th largest food exporter in the world. https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2022/07/ministry-figures-suggest-29000-farms-could-be-hit-by-nitrogen-plans/ https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2022/07/ministry-figures-sugge...
    - api 4y ago
      The only de-growth policy that matters anyway is having less children, and people do that naturally as they become more affluent.
dredmorbius 4y ago
Sri Lanka's various crises are not a result of degrowth policies, but because the country simply has no money to pay for imports. Including of fertilisers. The arrow of causality is fiscal collapse -> agricultural collapse. It's possible to look at historical crop yields worldwide, including in advanced / wealthy nations, and see where economic recession or high energy (especially natural gas, the primary feedstock in nitrogen fertiliser) results in lower applications of fertiliser as well as of reduced cultivation, and consequent reduced crop yields. Again, that's a simple market mechanisms and response to costs, not an ideologically-driven policy of degrowth, deindustrialised ag, or natural / sustainable / organic ag. Though it is a portent of what might face us would such choices be forced upon the world more generally. This is the notion of a technology trap (also "innovation trap" or "progress trap"). See James Burke's Connections, particularly episode 1, Ronald Wright's Massey Lecture series and books, Joseph Tainter, and many others.
- LewisVerstappen 4y ago
  Sri Lanka banned the use and importation of chemical fertilizers before though.
  - dredmorbius 4y ago
    A year ago, not in some distant past. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/fertiliser-ban-decimates-sri-lankan-crops-government-popularity-ebbs-2022-03-03/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/fertiliser-ban-d... https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/7/15/23218969/sri-lanka-organic-fertilizer-pesticide-agriculture-farming https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/7/15/23218969/sri-la... As the economic crisis was already in process --- it's been developing since 2019: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%93present_Sri_Lankan_economic_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%93present_Sri_Lanka...
    - LewisVerstappen 4y ago
      After the fertilizer ban was implemented, then "Production of tea — Sri Lanka’s main cash crop — fell by 18% in a year. Production of rice — the main food crop — fell by even more" [1] So you're saying this did not contribute to the food shortage (a drop in domestic production of rice)? Or you're saying this drop in production would've happened irrespective of the fertilizer ban? 1 https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-sri-lanka-is-having-an-economic https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-sri-lanka-is-having-an...
seltzered_ 4y ago
That narrative (affiliating the collapse of Sri Lanka with ESG, Degrowth) has been getting pushed primarily by people on the other side of the planet with their own political biases (libertarians, preppers, bitcoin maximalists, etc.). Yes it was a terrible policy to issue an immediate ban on fertilizers, and don't think organizations/ngos associated with the policy should be absolved, but there also has to be a look into where we are in terms of 'planetary boundaries' (Google it) and what it means.
- asabjorn 4y ago
  I agree that there are other issues such as huge loans from China ( belt&road is a economic catastrophe where deployed), tourism drop due to covid and a 2019 bombing etc That said the ESG actions is clearly correlated in the data with 1/3 of farmland laying dormant in 2021, crop losses and yield issues. Many of us won’t forget Sri Lanka was touted by WEF as a ESG poster child before it went south. This article links to supporting data https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/green-dogma-behind-fall-of-sri-lanka https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/green-dogma-behi...
  - seltzered_ 4y ago
    Fair point, I'm not trying to defend ESG (there's all sorts of issues with it), but authors from abroad (like Michael Shellenberger who you link to) are seemingly caricaturizing the Sri Lanka situation (a mix of economic loan entanglement and bad policy) to argue for their narrative. Shellenberger who you link to is "A self-described ecomodernist, Shellenberger believes that economic growth can continue without negative environmental impacts through technological research and development, usually through a combination of nuclear power and urbanization. A controversial figure, Shellenberger disagrees with most environmentalists over the impacts of environmental threats and policies for addressing them.[2][3] Shellenberger's positions and writings on climate change and environmentalism have received criticism from environmental scientists and academics, calling them "bad science" and "inaccurate"." (via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shellenberger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shellenberger )
    - 4y ago

api 4y ago

Sometimes people just have to see the result of a policy to get it.

josephcsible 4y ago
Indeed. The problem is that all of us who already know "degrowth" is bad are going to have to suffer through the result along with them.
- juve1996 4y ago
  De-growth policies have absolutely no chance in our day and age. I wouldn't worry about it too much.
  - asabjorn 4y ago
    You’ve already lived through artificial gas shortages since February 2021 after fracking and gas pipelines were shut down, so that’s demonstrably incorrect. Less easy to spot you’ve seen policy of not building new refineries and oil fields. Likewise you can see degrowth in food supply pushed by governments in Sri Lanka, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany etc. in the US the “inflation reduction bill” spends 20 billion to put farmland out of use and put regulation in place to make the remainder farmers farming harder like in Sri Lanka.
    - juve1996 4y ago
      The february 2021 had causes that are well researched. It's not indicative of anything. > Less easy to spot you’ve seen policy of not building new refineries and oil fields. The US has barely built refineries over the last 3 decades. This is not a new phenomenon. > Likewise you can see degrowth in food supply pushed by governments in Sri Lanka, Netherlands, Belgium and Germany etc. in the US the “inflation reduction bill” spends 20 billion to put farmland out of use and put regulation in place to make the remainder farmers farming harder like in Sri Lanka. Can you point this out in the bill so I can read it?
      - asabjorn 4y ago
        Let me look for a good source for the inflation reduction bill. In the meantime here you can see the catastrophic effect of Sri Lankan style ESG policies in the Netherlands, as projected by their finance ministry. Netherlands is the 5th largest food exporter in the world. https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2022/07/ministry-figures-suggest-29000-farms-could-be-hit-by-nitrogen-plans/ https://www.dutchnews.nl/news/2022/07/ministry-figures-sugge...
  - api 4y ago
    The only de-growth policy that matters anyway is having less children, and people do that naturally as they become more affluent.

dredmorbius 4y ago

Sri Lanka's various crises are not a result of degrowth policies, but because the country simply has no money to pay for imports. Including of fertilisers. The arrow of causality is fiscal collapse -> agricultural collapse. It's possible to look at historical crop yields worldwide, including in advanced / wealthy nations, and see where economic recession or high energy (especially natural gas, the primary feedstock in nitrogen fertiliser) results in lower applications of fertiliser as well as of reduced cultivation, and consequent reduced crop yields. Again, that's a simple market mechanisms and response to costs, not an ideologically-driven policy of degrowth, deindustrialised ag, or natural / sustainable / organic ag. Though it is a portent of what might face us would such choices be forced upon the world more generally. This is the notion of a technology trap (also "innovation trap" or "progress trap"). See James Burke's Connections, particularly episode 1, Ronald Wright's Massey Lecture series and books, Joseph Tainter, and many others.

LewisVerstappen 4y ago
Sri Lanka banned the use and importation of chemical fertilizers before though.
- dredmorbius 4y ago
  A year ago, not in some distant past. https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/fertiliser-ban-decimates-sri-lankan-crops-government-popularity-ebbs-2022-03-03/ https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/fertiliser-ban-d... https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/7/15/23218969/sri-lanka-organic-fertilizer-pesticide-agriculture-farming https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/2022/7/15/23218969/sri-la... As the economic crisis was already in process --- it's been developing since 2019: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%93present_Sri_Lankan_economic_crisis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%93present_Sri_Lanka...
  - LewisVerstappen 4y ago
    After the fertilizer ban was implemented, then "Production of tea — Sri Lanka’s main cash crop — fell by 18% in a year. Production of rice — the main food crop — fell by even more" [1] So you're saying this did not contribute to the food shortage (a drop in domestic production of rice)? Or you're saying this drop in production would've happened irrespective of the fertilizer ban? 1 https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-sri-lanka-is-having-an-economic https://noahpinion.substack.com/p/why-sri-lanka-is-having-an...

seltzered_ 4y ago

That narrative (affiliating the collapse of Sri Lanka with ESG, Degrowth) has been getting pushed primarily by people on the other side of the planet with their own political biases (libertarians, preppers, bitcoin maximalists, etc.). Yes it was a terrible policy to issue an immediate ban on fertilizers, and don't think organizations/ngos associated with the policy should be absolved, but there also has to be a look into where we are in terms of 'planetary boundaries' (Google it) and what it means.

asabjorn 4y ago
I agree that there are other issues such as huge loans from China ( belt&road is a economic catastrophe where deployed), tourism drop due to covid and a 2019 bombing etc That said the ESG actions is clearly correlated in the data with 1/3 of farmland laying dormant in 2021, crop losses and yield issues. Many of us won’t forget Sri Lanka was touted by WEF as a ESG poster child before it went south. This article links to supporting data https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/green-dogma-behind-fall-of-sri-lanka https://michaelshellenberger.substack.com/p/green-dogma-behi...
- seltzered_ 4y ago
  Fair point, I'm not trying to defend ESG (there's all sorts of issues with it), but authors from abroad (like Michael Shellenberger who you link to) are seemingly caricaturizing the Sri Lanka situation (a mix of economic loan entanglement and bad policy) to argue for their narrative. Shellenberger who you link to is "A self-described ecomodernist, Shellenberger believes that economic growth can continue without negative environmental impacts through technological research and development, usually through a combination of nuclear power and urbanization. A controversial figure, Shellenberger disagrees with most environmentalists over the impacts of environmental threats and policies for addressing them.[2][3] Shellenberger's positions and writings on climate change and environmentalism have received criticism from environmental scientists and academics, calling them "bad science" and "inaccurate"." (via https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shellenberger https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Shellenberger )
  - 4y ago