Economic Growth or Climate Protection?

The story of the (avoidable) end of the human race in 9,500 words

Ulrich Seibert

• Verlag: Books on Demand
• Jahr: 2022
• ISBN:
  9783756299874
• Auflage: 1
• Thema: Politics & International Relations
• Thema: Political Freedom

The story of climate change is omnipresent. But we rarely hear the whole story. And even less often, we hear it as a generally understandable gist.Humanity must finally respond appropriately, otherwise, its end is already heralded. But still - among all our political institutions - another size is prioritized: Economic growth. This book shall document, that, unfortunately, economic growth and climate protection are not compatible. But there are alternatives. If we succeed in reducing our fear of change, this crisis could turn out to be one of the greatest opportunities for human civilization...

Part 1: The Starting Point

The consequences of our actions are:

• A hitherto unknown intervention into climate. We see and feel the consequences already now, some areas are flooded, others overheated, in some places, there is too much water and in others none at all. Many places on this planet will sooner or later no longer be habitable or usable for the extraction of resources.
• Mankind is growing exponentially, and we are becoming more and more greedy. To maintain our giga-consumption, we are denying to our fellow creatures on the planet their habitat and the result is one of the largest, maybe the largest species extinctions that Pacha Mama, Mother Earth, has ever experienced. And what do we do? We face it and shrug our shoulders. We obviously have not understood, that even in the ecosystem, to which we as human beings belong, everything is connected to everything else, meaning that our own very existence is threatened as well, as long as we keep on denying the right to exist to the other “components” of our ecosystem. Covid-19 is presumably just one example of what can come out of it.
• For decades now, we have been consuming far more resources every year than can be grown back naturally. One indicator of this is Earth Overshoot Day. Internationally, this day in 2021 was the 29^th of July², due to Corona exceptionally even below previous year’s date. This means, that all renewable resources have already been used up on the 29^th of July. Statistically speaking, we live, as if we inhabited 1.7 planets and not just one. The rest (so to say, until the end of the year) we take from the substance of the planet. And in doing so, we are sustainably damaging the planet for ourselves. For Germany, by the way, The Earth Overshoot Day in 2021 already took place on 5^th of May, even before China (7^th of June), in the USA even on 14^th of March. This means that the western industrial nations contribute by far most to this development and so bear most of the responsibility for it.
• With the result of our giga-consumption, we are littering land and oceans – especially the latter. “Good” solution, this way the garbage will be out of sight, out of mind. And yet... in the meantime it already starts coming back and poisoning our food, keyword “microplastics”. Even with the best filters, used in huge numbers, we cannot undo the problem anymore.

As I said, all these results of human action inevitably lead into one direction: the destruction of our own livelihoods. In the sixties of the last century, a group of scientists came together to explore, where our actions might lead to. This group called itself the “Club of Rome”³ and it commissioned researchers from the M.I.T. with a study to find out what will happen, if we continue, what we started in the fifties of the last century: a life as a capitalist-influenced consumer society (neither the term nor the excesses of consumption have ever existed before in the history of mankind, so one can hardly speak of some kind of “birthright” for humanity to such consumption). The result of the study was presented in 1972 (!), i.e., fifty years ago (in numbers: 50!) published in a book called “The Limits to Growth”⁴. The result was, roughly speaking, the prediction of the collapse of human civilization towards the middle of this very century, sometime between 2040 and 2070, that is. In 2020, Gaya Herrington, the director of a major accounting firm called KPMG, reviewed the figures from the seventies ... and confirmed them⁵.

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² https://www.footprintnetwork.org/

³ https://www.clubofrome.org/

⁴ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Limits_to_Growth

⁵ https://www.vice.com/de/article/z3xw3x/zusammenbruch-der-zivilisation-in-30-jahren-neue-forschung-bestatigt-mit-studie-von-1972-klimakrise

Awareness of the Problem

For fifty years this problem has been known now, almost for a lifetime. And how did we react to this realization?

Science has shown us, that we are sitting on a branch and that we are in the process of sawing off the branch at its attachment to the tree trunk … and that, by the way, we do not have a ladder to get us to safety in time⁶ …

Intelligence would be, if, based on this realization, we were to conclude, that not only do we urgently need to stop sawing, but that we should on the contrary do everything we can, to strengthen and care for the branch, on which we are sitting.

But what do we do? We do realize that we are sawing off the branch, on which we are sitting. Nevertheless ... we keep on sawing, on and on. The show must go on! We see that we will inevitably crash shortly, that it is only a matter of time, before the catastrophe will happen, and we know that we will survive this event, if at all, only with the most serious injuries. And yet we don't take the time to think about alternatives? Actually, by far most political parties in the western world are at best thinking about using a duller saw blade to perhaps buy us a little more time, because – hey! – the show must go on. Growth, jobs, protection of acquired rights, without all this, a life seems inconceivable! So, let’s saw on, but let's maybe slow down a little bit with a saw blade, we have sandpapered down … a bit.

We see the inevitable, negative consequences of our actions and go on, seemingly undeterred. Is that supposed to be intelligent? Really? I call this behavior pseudo-intelligent, at its best. And maybe we shouldn't flatter ourselves too much about this “quality” ... True intelligence carries within itself the willingness to changes as soon as has been recognized that survival is only possible by adapting to changing environmental conditions.

Growth as the Engine of Capitalism

What is economic growth?

Economic growth, i.e., macroeconomic growth, is the key figure that results when sales (goods / services) generated at the business (microeconomic) level are aggregated, i.e. summarized, in the course of national accounts. The underlying indicator is called “gross domestic product” (GDP).

Why is growth in capitalism essential for economic survival?

The following example is somewhat simplified, in favor of easier understanding: Imagine, you are a so-called sole proprietor. You have put all or a large part of your money into your project and, to be able to carry out all the needed investments, you have taken out a considerable amount of loans, for which you are personally liable with all your and your family’s assets. Means, you really cannot afford failure. For these loans, you (usually) must pay interest and you have to repay (or reschedule...