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THE
IMPLICATIONS OF THE LIMITS TO GROWTH ANALYSIS FOR THINKING ABOUT AUSTRALIA'S
POPULATION POLICY
By Ted Trainer
The following paragraphs briefly summarise
the fundamentally important limits to growth analysis of the global situation.
In my view this shows indisputably that the industrial-affluent-consumer
society we have in rich countries like Australia is grossly unsustainable
and there is no possibility of all the world's people ever rising to anything
like our per capita level of resource use and environmental impact. If
this case is accepted then quite radical implications for desirable social
change follow, including the conclusion that Australia's present population
is far higher than a sustainable level.
Over the past 30 years a formidable case
has accumulated in support of the claim that the living standards and levels
of production and consumption characteristic of rich countries are grossly
unsustainable for resource and environmental reasons. This conclusion can
be arrived at via any one of a number of lines of argument. (Trainer, 1985,
1995a, 1998a;, 1998b.) For example estimated potentially recoverable resources
for fossil fuels and minerals indicate that if we were to try to increase
production to the point where all people expected on the planet by 2070,
perhaps 10 billion, were each to have the present rich world per capita
consumption, then all fuels and one-third of the mineral items would be
totally exhausted by about 2040. Renewable energy sources are very unlikely
to be able to fill the gap. (Trainer, 1995c.) This means that there is
no possibility of all people rising to the per capita resource consumption
typical of the rich countries today.
"...if we were to try to increase
production to the point where all people expected on the plant by 2070...were
each to have the present rich world per capita consumption, then all fuels...
would be totally exhausted by about 2040."
The greenhouse problem provides a similar
argument. If the carbon content of the atmosphere were to be prevented
from increasing any further, world energy use for 10 billion people would
have to be reduced to a per capita average that is just 6% of the present
rich world average. Most people have little understanding of the magnitude
of the reductions required for sustainability.
"Footprint" analysis" indicates that to
provide for one person living in a rich world city requires at least 4.5
ha of productive land. If 10 billion people were to live that way the amount
of productive land required would be around 8 times all the productive
land on the planet. (Wachernagel and Rees, 1995.)
Figures of these kinds indicate that present
rich world levels of production and consumption are far beyond sustainability.
Yet the supreme commitment in rich and poor countries is to economic growth;
i.e., to constantly increasing levels of production and consumption without
limit. The absurdly impossible implications are made clear by asking what
increase there would be in Gross World Product if by 2070 the expected
10 billion people were to have risen to the living standards people in
rich countries would have, given 3% growth until then. The answer is an
approximately 100 fold increase in present Gross World Product. (If a 4%
average growth rate is assumed the multiple is 200.)
If we in Australia were only taking our
fair share of the world's resource production we could not have anything
like our present "living standards". People in the rich countries, probably
totalling only 16% of world population, consume around 80% of resources
produced. We get them simply because the global economy is a market system.
Such a system allows those who are rich to take most of what is available
by paying more for it. More importantly the global economy ensures that
the industries developed in the Third World are almost entirely only those
which produce for the rich, and that the productive capacity the poor once
had, especially their land, becomes drawn into producing for the benefit
of the transnational corporations, Third World elites and supermarket customers
in rich countries. For these reasons "development" is increasingly being
regarded as a form of plunder. (Goldsmith, 1997, Chossudovsky, 1997.) In
any case, in view of the limits to growth there is no possibility whatsoever
of all Third World people ever rising to anything like the "living standards"
we have in rich countries.
People in the rich countries, probably
totalling only 16% of world population, consume around 80% of resources
produced."
There are reasons for considering Australia's
situation in relation to other overdeveloped countries as being especially
disturbing. We are one of the world's worst greenhouse gas emitters. We
clear 3-400,000ha of woodland pa.. In addition our major export is coal.
Our "living standards" greatly depend on the importation of goods from
other countries. We pay for these imports by large exports of ecologically
problematic commodities in addition to coal, including woodchips. and wool,
beef and wheat produced in quite unsustainable ways.
Our urban life, mining, rural life, agriculture,
exporting, and leisure are all highly dependent on liquid fuel. Despite
clear and abundant warning Australia has shown no interest in the coming
insoluble petroleum crisis. (Campbell, 1997.) There is a very convincing
case that world supply will peak between 2005 and 2010 and by 2025 be down
to 1/15 of the amount needed to give 2015 world population the present
Australian per capita consumption.
No plausible assumptions about technical
advance make it possible to conclude that a sustainable and just world
order can be achieved without radical social change. (For example, affluent
society cannot be based on renewable energy sources; Trainer, 1995a, 1995c.)
The implications for population and immigration
policy do not need to be spelled out at length. Obviously in view of the
foregoing themes a sustainable population for Australia would be a small
fraction of the present number.
It follows that a sustainable and just
world order must be conceived in terms of "The Simpler Way"; i.e., in terms
of much less affluent lifestyles, small, highly self-sufficient communities
and economies, participatory and cooperative ways, and a totally different
economy. It must be a steady state or zero growth economy. (Trainer, 1995a,
1995b.)
"...a sustainable and just world
order must be conceived in terms of 'The Simpler Way'..."
There is now a Global Ecovillage Movement
in which many small groups around the world are exploring settlements which
might enable a high quality of life on very low per capita resource consumption
and environmental impact. In What Is To be Done Now? (In press) I argue
that the fate of the planet depends on this movement. Consumer society
has shown itself to be incapable of responding to warnings that the growth
and greed path is leading to catastrophic breakdown. Our hope is that by
the time the problems become really acute within the richest countries
people will be able to see around them impressive examples of communities
following The Simpler Way.
Dr Ted Trainer is an academic in the Department
of Social Work, Social Policy and Sociology, University of New South Wales
and the author of numerous books on the environment and population issues.
Bibliography
Chossudovsky, M., (1997), The Globalisation
of Poverty, London, Zed Books.
Goldsmith, E., (1997), "Development as
colonialism", in J. Mander and E. Goldsmith, The Case Against the Global
Economy, San Francisco, Sierra.
Trainer, F. E. (T.), (1985), Abandon Affluence,
London, Zed Books.
Trainer, T. (F. E.), (1995a), The Conserver
Society; Alternatives for Sustainability, London, Zed Books.
Trainer, T. (F. E.), (1995b), Towards a
Sustainable Economy, Sydney Envirobooks.
Trainer; F. E. (T.), (1995c), "Can renewable
energy save industrial society?". Energy Policy, 23, 12, 1009-1026.
Trainer, F. E. (T.), (1998a), Saving the
Environment; What It Will Take, Sydney, University of NSW Press.
Trainer, F. E. (T.), (1998b), "Towards
a checklist for ecovillage development", Local Environment, 3, 1, 79-84.
Wachernagel, N. and W. Rees, (1996), Our
Ecological Footprint, Philadelphia, New Society.
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