[MCN] Compilation - Climate & the question of economic growth

[Lance Olsen]

“The growth in CO2 emissions closely follows the growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP) corrected for improvements in energy efficiency.”

P. Friedlingstein, et al. “Update on CO2 emissions.” 
Nature Geoscience. Published online: 21 November 2010

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“Changes in world GDP (WGDP) have a significant effect on CO2 concentrations, so that years of above-trend WGDP are years of greater rise of CO2 concentrations.”

Granados et al. Climate change and the world economy: short-run determinants of atmospheric CO2. Environmental science & policy 21 (2012) 50–62

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In one chart, state-by-state GDP growth with easing of COVID restrictions 
https://www.marketwatch.com/story/in-one-chart-gdp-growth-by-state-as-covid-recovery-takes-hold-11625071849? <https://www.marketwatch.com/story/in-one-chart-gdp-growth-by-state-as-covid-recovery-takes-hold-11625071849?>

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 <https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/the-fairy-tale-of-eternal-economic-growth>
The Fairy Tale of Eternal Economic Growth  <https://www.eesi.org/articles/view/the-fairy-tale-of-eternal-economic-growth>
Oct 11, 2019 — Sixteen-year-old Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg did not mince her words when she denounced the “fairy tale” of eternal economic ...

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 <http://www.gci.org.uk/Greta_Thunberg_Key_Messages.html>
“…many scientists say deep emissions cuts are necessary … to prevent … 
dangerous consequences of global warming. 

"Getting from here to there would require a massive economic shift.”

Rachel Pannett and Jeffrey Ball. “Australia Approves Energy Bill.”  
The Wall Street Journal  p.A7, August 21, 2009

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Scientific American, June 20 2021
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-delusion-of-infinite-economic-growth/


ENVIRONMENT |  <https://www.scientificamerican.com/earth-and-environment/>OPINION <https://www.scientificamerican.com/section/opinion/>

The Delusion of Infinite Economic Growth
Even “sustainable” technologies such as electric vehicles and wind turbines face unbreachable physical limits and exact grave environmental costs

By Chirag Dhara <https://www.scientificamerican.com/author/chirag-dhara/>, Vandana Singh <https://www.scientificamerican.com/author/vandana-singh/> 

1st 4 paragraphs

The electric vehicle (EV) has become one of the great modern symbols of a world awakened to the profound challenges of unsustainability and climate change. So much so that we may well imagine that Deep Thought’s <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_The_Hitchhiker%27s_Guide_to_the_Galaxy_characters#Deep_Thought> answer today to Life, the Universe and Everything might plausibly be “EV.” But, as Douglas Adams would surely have asked, if electric vehicles are the answer, what is the question?

Let us imagine the “perfect” EV: solar powered, efficient, reliable and affordable. But is it sustainable? EVs powered by renewable energy may help reduce the carbon footprint of transport. 

Yet, the measure of sustainability is not merely the carbon footprint but the material footprint <https://www.pnas.org/content/112/20/6271>: the aggregate quantity of biomass, metal ores, construction minerals and fossil fuels used during production and consumption of a product. The approximate metric tonne weight of an EV constitutes materials such as metals (including rare earths), plastics, glass and rubber. Therefore, a global spike in the demand for EVs would drive an increased demand for each of these materials. 

Every stage of the life cycle of any manufactured product exacts environmental costs: habitat destruction, biodiversity loss and pollution (including carbon emissions) from extraction of raw materials, manufacturing / construction, through to disposal. Thus, it is the increasing global material footprint that is fundamentally the reason <https://arxiv.org/abs/2101.07467> for the twin climate and ecological crises.

The global material footprint has grown in lockstep with the exponentially rising global economy (GDP) since the industrial revolution. This is largely because of egregious consumption by the super-affluent <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16941-y> in a socioeconomic system founded on growth without limits. Can we resolve this fundamental conflict between the quest for limitless growth and the consequent environmental destruction?

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-delusion-of-infinite-economic-growth/ <https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-delusion-of-infinite-economic-growth/>

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Excerpt : The cost of raw materials is emerging as a key concern as the world tries to transition away from fossil fuels. Energy systems that run on wind, solar and battery resources are much more mineral-intensive than those fueled by hydrocarbon resources, the International Energy Agency said in a recent report. An onshore wind farm, for example, requires nine times more minerals than a natural gas plant, the agency said.

"While activity remained strong in the U.S. renewable energy market during the first quarter, executives and analysts are warning of potential disruptions as prices for iron ore and copper hit record highs. Analysts at Roth Capital Partners LLC on May 16 said 15% of utility-scale solar projects could be delayed this year."

https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/surging-metals-prices-drag-on-renewable-energy-industry-64322166 <https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights/latest-news-headlines/surging-metals-prices-drag-on-renewable-energy-industry-64322166>

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Excerpt : “A recent Financial Times report noted <https://www.ft.com/content/2f8dd951-a1b1-410a-89dd-14728c56235d> that the shares of solar power companies have shed some 18 percent since the start of the year as the prices of steel, polysilicon, and transportation have all soared. The chief executive of the U.S. Solar Fund expects these higher raw material prices to boost new solar installation costs by as much as 20 percent. And the US Solar Industries Association warned this is only the beginning: “compounding cost increases across all materials are just beginning to affect installers,” the association said.

[ Bold emphasis in original ]

https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Solar-Energy/Solar-Has-An-Unlikely-New-Enemy.html <https://oilprice.com/Alternative-Energy/Solar-Energy/Solar-Has-An-Unlikely-New-Enemy.html>

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'Politicians silent' on renewables technology waste ending up in landfill <https://news.google.com/articles/CCAiC1dQcGd5amp4YnZFmAEB?hl=en-US&gl=US&ceid=US%3Aen>
Sky News Australia
4 days ago

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 <http://www.gci.org.uk/Greta_Thunberg_Key_Messages.html>
“…many scientists say deep emissions cuts are necessary … to prevent … 
dangerous consequences of global warming. 

"Getting from here to there would require a massive economic shift.”

Rachel Pannett and Jeffrey Ball. “Australia Approves Energy Bill.”  
The Wall Street Journal  p.A7, August 21, 2009

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Inside Climate News June 18, 2021
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/18062021/degrowth-economies-climate-change-technology-gdp/

Review of https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-22884-9 <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-22884-9>
Is the Controlled Shrinking of Economies a Better Bet to Slow Climate Change Than Unproven Technologies?
New research suggests social transformations that prompt “degrowth” could cut humanity’s climate footprint in time to meet the Paris climate agreement target.

By Bob Berwyn <https://insideclimatenews.org/profile/bob-berwyn/>
https://insideclimatenews.org/news/18062021/degrowth-economies-climate-change-technology-gdp/

Excerpt : Existing plans to limit global warming rely too much on “increasingly unrealistic assumptions” that societies will be able to remove huge amounts of carbon from the atmosphere while simultaneously maintaining incessant economic growth over the next 50 years, according to a May 2021 study <https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-22884-9> in Nature Communications. These strategies appear to be speeding the planet deeper into the climate crisis, the authors said.
Economic degrowth—strategies to shrink the economies of rich, developed countries while maintaining the wellbeing of the people and environments they are based on—might be less risky, and a better way to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement. Efforts to slow climate change that are built on structural social changes, like rethinking the way we work, produce food, heat our homes and move around could be more successful than those that rely on uncertain carbon removal technologies, they said.
There are “substantial uncertainties” associated with those technologies, said co-author Manfred Lenzen <https://www.sydney.edu.au/science/about/our-people/academic-staff/manfred-lenzen.html>, of the University of Sydney’s School of Physics. “Carbon dioxide removal, including carbon capture and storage, is in its infancy and has never been deployed at scale,” he said.
Lorenz Keyßer <https://twitter.com/LorenzClimate>, an environmental systems researcher with ETH Zürich and co-author of the study, added that the consequences of misjudgements of how much carbon future technologies could remove from the atmosphere or keep from being emitted in the first place would be severe. “The over-reliance on unprecedented carbon dioxide removal and energy efficiency gains means we risk catastrophic climate change if one of the assumptions does not materialize,” he said.
Degrowth is described by ecological economists in Europe as downscaling production and consumption [ i.e., spending ] in wealthy countries, while improving their ecological conditions and maintaining people’s quality of life. The goal is to make well-being independent from economic growth.

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Greta Thunberg Is Right. Fairy Tales of Endless Growth Will ... <https://thetyee.ca/Mediacheck/2019/09/30/Endless-Growth-Fairy-Tales-Will-Destroy-Us/>
Sep 30, 2019 — Greta Thunberg: 'We are at the beginning of mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth.
 <https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-09-24/greta-thunberg-climate-change-speech>
Greta Thunberg's powerful rebuke of 'fairy tales of eternal ... <https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2019-09-24/greta-thunberg-climate-change-speech>
Sep 24, 2019 — Greta Thunberg and young activists like her are calling for a sustainable economic system that values something besides growth at all costs.

'How Dare You!': Greta Thunberg Rages at 'Fairytales of ... <https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/09/23/how-dare-you-greta-thunberg-rages-fairytales-eternal-economic-growth-un-climate>
Sep 23, 2019 — 'How Dare You!': Greta Thunberg Rages at 'Fairytales of Eternal Economic Growth' at UN Climate Summit ... "Entire ecosytems are collapsing. We ...

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“Booms have consequences.”

James Grant. Money of the Mind : Borrowing and Lending in America from the Civil War to Michael Milken. Farrar Straus Giroux. 1992.

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In a July, 2001 editorial, The Economist said that “It is no coincidence that the deepest and most protracted recessions in recent decades have taken hold in countries that experienced booms ...”  


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