By Gareth Vaughan
The world needs to move to a new economic system where growth is replaced as the ultimate goal by meeting human needs within ecological limits, argues Gaya Herrington.
Speaking in the Of Interest podcast Herrington explains how working at the Dutch central bank, De Nederlandsche Bank, during the Global Financial Crisis led to her realising how interconnected things were.
When subsequently studying sustainability at Harvard University, she decided to revisit the famous 1972 book by a group of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers, The Limits to Growth, for her thesis.
As Herrington, now Vice President for ESG Research at Schneider Electric, puts it, the book; "indicated that our peak welfare levels would be around now, globally. And we would have a choice to maintain it or go down." Her research found we are most closely aligned today with The Limits to Growth authors' business as usual scenario.
"Growing forever on a finite planet is simply not an option," she says.
We don't have a lot of time but do have an opportunity to change direction, Herrington argues.
How would we do this, what will it mean and can we do it? She says a new economic system must, first and foremost, replace growth as the ultimate goal with something else.
"I think it should be meeting human needs within ecological limits. That doesn't mean you're anti-growth. If growth then contributes to human wellbeing and can do that with a low environmental impact, we'll still do it and if not we won't bother," says Herrington.
One way or another, she argues, growth will halt.
In the podcast she also talks about what she believes the "very loaded word collapse" would mean, what the world might be like if The Limits to Growth warning had been heeded in the 70s, what system dynamics is, the difference between needs and wants and how this has become muddied, what the role of technology, finance and agriculture could be in a new economic system, how vested interests including billionaires have to give things up, why she sees a significant role for credit unions, whether human nature could allow such change, and whether we will actually make the change.
"I don't know [if we'll change] because we've seen in history that it can go either way. I do think that we'll stop growing one way or another. I think what we're seeing already is a destabilisation of the system," Herrington says.
You can find the original The Limits to Growth book here, Herrington's Update to The Limits to Growth here, and her book Five Insights for Avoiding Global Collapse here.
(Note, this podcast was recorded via Zoom. While Gaya comes across clearly, for some reason the start of my questions sometimes doesn't. Apologies for this, we're not sure why it happened).
*You can find all episodes of the Of Interest podcast here.
102 Comments
U-C - Bollocks to you too.
Can we stick to truths, perchance?
For those interest in the topic this thread addresses, one co-author of this paper:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332655753_Limits_Revisited-A_r…
will be speaking at the Science Festival (Dunedin) on the 6th. That paper contrasts somewhat, with some banal comments down-thread.
Gaya is not in the 'climate change industry'.
I encourage everyone to watch this video from Nate Hagens, a presentation he gave to the Center for Homeland Defense and Security Naval Postgraduate School in March this year that summarises the resource situation the world is facing and lays out some potential futures and the challenges that will need to be overcome at a high level. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SDjZnZApgJ0
Not really.
Stand back far enough and all things are connected - as Herrington says. Climate is merely the exhaust-pipe emanations of our combined activities; looking up the pipe is to run fairly blind as the the whole (my beef with those earnest green-it-and-carry-on types).
Go to the link "Updates to Limits to Growth" above. Pages 26 to 32 show the latest data. There is nothing showing to support the narrative that we have reached the turning point, or that the LtG model is even credible. So sorry pdk, the sky isn't falling yet.
Sure, humans are a plague on the planet and at some point the wheels will fall off, but to claim it's going to happen "this afternoon" is no more supported by facts now than similar claims over the last 40 years. None of the peak oilers or climate alarmists of 20 years ago would have accepted where we are today as a possible outcome.
Page 122 of the original book pdf(edit):
First we hope that by posing each relationship as a hypothesis, and emphasizing its importance in the total world system, we may generate discussion and research that will eventually improve the data we have to work with. This emphasis is especially important in the areas in which different sectors of the model interact (such as pollution and human lifetime), where interdisciplinary research will be necessary.
It continues with its limitations in the next paragraphs. The model is just something to produce a series of plots that help demonstrate their ideas, it has no predictive worth. This is obvious if you look at the source code (or a reproduction of it).
I agree, the whole LtG thing is just some academics version of "peak oil" getting a little lost in the maths.
It's not intended to be timing predictive but shows the inter-relationships between components of the system. You can change the initial assumptions as you wish and see how this might affect the system. You can, for example, make resources available 10x larger but the outcome is the same just delayed (note: not significantly due to the exponential nature).
Re read the part that I quoted (look it up in the original text and read the whole section about the usefulness of the model). Nothing about the model is proven in any way. It's the academics best guess as to how you could model everything. They though they were right or had something useful and wanted help to prove it.
I have no idea how you LtGers turned that book into a cult but Meadows was just publishing some research to discuss and build on using this new modelling (that everyone at MIT was trying to find uses for).
It's hard to get this though to you because it appears lack of domain knowledge is a prerequisite to being an LtGer but the model its self can be garbage not just the inputs. Just because they said they think there's a link it does not mean it proven or that it interacts in way that model could account for with different inputs. Your too focused on the maths. Its a little bit like how some physicists "believe" in the "Multiverse" just because the maths is consistent. (Queue the motte and bailey peak oil is real.)
Beanie - ditto, my above comment.
Exponential growth is the problem - try filling a wine bottle under a tap - the last bit beats you every time. Alle same the problem now. Right now.
Why do you think the wheels are falling off the Universities? Of Health? Off infrastructure?
Let me guess; they all need less government and more competition?
Worked for the Titanic, I guess. Oh.....
"Why do you think the wheels are falling off the Universities? Of Health? Off infrastructure?"
Not thru lack of oil, minerals, food etc.
Universities have lost their way. They lowered the entry requirements in tandem with BNPL so that they could become a bigger (and dumber, less efficient) business. They need to shrink, and only teach useful subjects to students that have the smarts to learn and think.
Health, go and watch some footage of crowds from 40 years ago and compare to what you see today. A wave of obesity/lifestyle related health conditions will keep making the situation much worse.
Infrastructure problems are the result of inefficiencies being inserted into getting the physical work done, plus adding 25% more people to NZ in just 20 years.
In the bigger picture financialisation has allowed us to live beyond our means by borrowing into the future. That is quite a different cause than resource scarcity.
Sigh - how many times have I written that debt is a forward bet? That bet is on there being future energy and resources, to do the work (and have something to do it to) in the future, to pay the debt back. Or inflation, of course; de-valuing the betting-chips.
Governments, local government, tertiary education, health-providers and infrastructure providers/maintainers, are all the wrong side of the debt ledger, and digging themselves deeper. Universities did it on government debt and student debt, levering their own by falsely accounting that as 'income'. Curtail the amount of energy going into the system, allow for remaining efficiencies and the inevitable can-kicking of maintenance (always costs more in the long run, but) and the only ways out are bankruptcy or increasing inflation (correctly, stagflation).
Ahh, the cult of exponential growth speaks.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jun/24/northern-china-swelters-i…
Yawn I guess it would be a very short story if we just cut straight to the chase and that is population control. There is already four times the number of people on the planet than what the planet actually needs. Pretty much none of the climate change problems would exist for starters and overall the quality of life would increase. Until someone is prepared to address the elephant in the room discussing everything else is a pointless exercise and a temporary fix.
Well yes but what it actually NEEDS then is for us to stop wrecking the place. We are nothing more than a bad Virus that ultimately ends up killing its host. Its all going to end really really badly but hopefully just not in my lifetime. We simply have to limit total population, no other way around it. "Improvements in technology" just allow us to put even more on the planet and the same problems return down the track.
No, we don't need "population control"! We need all humans fully aware of what profligate breeding is doing to the planet and disincenivise reproduction beyond replacement. All the religious cults around the world, including the economic growth cult need to be brought to heel!
Not just NZ, At least for the 24 countries studied here . But also here for a world view. How Modern Life Is Making Men & Women INFERTILE.
People can practice spirituality any way they choose, as long as it doesn't disadvantage others, that includes breeding beyond replacement on a full planet. That sort of self entitled ignorance needs to be stamped out! Denial of the effects overpopulation is having on the habitability of our only planetary home has no legitimacy!
It's a zero sum game. Some rights now need to be given up because of previous infantile behaviour, either that, or "rights" will be taken away due to declining planetary carrying capacity.
The arrogance of some religious beliefs, like condemning non believers to a living hell by trashing the planet, while dreaming about being rapturously transported to some fantasy paradise, is beyond rational comprehension.
"Growing forever on a finite planet is simply not an option," she says.
but the limited resources and economic benefits falls in control by only a few countries, and by a small group of people. Unless we share those things equally globally, no one can stop developing countries wanting to have more growth.
The "Developing countries" have missed the boat. Its simply impossible for everyone to have that "Lifestyle" they now get to see and then feel entitled to on social media. Illegal immigration is being driven by people thinking they just have to change countries and all their problems will go away.
Thing is, growth will stop regardless of who does or doesn't have equality, because physics. If we all lived the lifestyle of the average African villager, at half the current global population, maybe we could achieve global sustainability? Developing countries haven't as far to fall.
"The sun will emit more solar energy today than has reached earth since the start of the paleolithic age."
So the earth receives very little of the suns energy. Makes sense, things in space are very far apart.
I am not sure how that fact helps us replace gas/oil usage without a lower standard of living?
It doesn't; that commenter usually fudges.
Solar energy arrives perpendicularly on the planet, at about 1370 watts/sqm.
Nothing is perpendicular for long, even tilted PV (I have tilted more than most, running a house on one 50-watt panel for some years - it trains you to be efficient). The best efficiency collection-wise, is photosynthesis, which is about 26%; PV doesn't get there yet - and probably won't. So at best we can hope to capture a quarter of 1370, for perhaps 6 hours in 24. Add up the acres available, subtract those inhospitable, those lived-on, those producing food and those needed for biodiversity. Allow for wind, but remember it is solar-energised too.
Think we will grow our economy and expand off planet to gain more solar energy. The energy constraints that PDK writes about are entirely dependent on us remaining planet bound. Sol emits a billion times more energy than hits the earth making off-planet solar EROEI feasible. The EI is higher than drilling for oil or mining uranium, but the ER is higher than the entire Earth.
How many people did we send ex gravity, at our peak?
At what expenditure of effort?
Pipe-dreams. Concorde is shelved. Challenger is shelved. A few super-elite are playing, in this twilight era, at? Being immortal, when you come right down to it.
Watch Don't Look Up. The last part is all about them.
Yes. We are overpopulated already. We would be richer with less people in New Zealand. - and the world.
And maybe the good times peak was late last century. We are considerably poorer now, despite it being concealed by idiots of the likes of Robertson.
It's not going to be an obvious collapse, more like a quickening slide downhill. Maybe we are already well on the way.
Please try sticking to facts.
It is collective self-indulgence - while peddling/believing falsehoods - which has brought us to this impasse. Logically, more of the same would be suicidal. Many of us think it is already too late - but it is still legitimate to try. It is also entirely legitimate to anticipate the skills needed in a future beyond the carbon-pulse.
What I find interesting, is the folk who can't mount a scientific argument, and how they avoid one. Blaming 'others' is a classic; your post is typical. Others advocate colonising other planets - despite out track record on the best-suited one we'll ever come across. It is all avoidance - and all traceable to fear. I get that, but let's park the fear and address what needs addressing. eh? Our grandchildren just might thank us.
Of course it is achievable; we just stop pumping/ extracting. No need for scientific proof of that. Your assumption must be: 'and continue as we are'? If that is where you are stuck, no, we cannot do anywhere near that (I'm one who has gone well down that road to find out - not many have run a house on 50 watts (plus firewood plus passive-solar gain plus solar energy via some supermarket-derived food, admittedly). That is what I incessantly point out that we need to build the post-fossil format, while we can still access them (I think we're out of time for Onslow, for instance, great idea though it was).
But I don't think we will, until the financial system implodes, or we go to disintegrated/disintegrating war.
What I suspect you don't get, is how little is left and of what quality the remainder is. And doubling-time, of course; don't forget doubling-time; the last half goes in the last doubling-time. Are we doubling at 3%? That last half goes in 24 years then; hardly time to fart, let along change all infrastructure. Add in the increasing demand by an increasing cohort, and shorten that span. Unless disruption, as I say - but that will have the same result on you and I - no fossil energy available.
War has always favoured those who show up with the most energy - the antithesis of sustainability. If we were to survive long-term, we must be smarter than that; we appear not to be.
Am I right to summarize your post thus:
We could just stop using FF, but we should burn them all to transition to a post FF system, but we don't have enough time, and we won't do it anyway, and war is very likely and will be won by FF.
If this is what you think, I dont entirely disagree.
50 watts is not enough to run an electric fridge. Be kind to Mrs Kiwi and put at least 1000w in. It's cheap today :)
Scientific facts regarding climate and the hypothetical future of our planet are very different to discussion about changing the economic system we operate in.
Not avoiding a scientific argument. In fact, I would be more than happy to discuss science. I must assume yours is a straw man argument.
The New Zealand planetary boundary report for those interested;
Malthusians are going to Malthus. They've been very wrong for a long time, and their solution of curtailing population growth don't seem compatible with civil liberties. In other words, I find them both stupid and scary, and I think that's a dangerous combination.
Don't worry, you're not thinking even though you think you are.
I suspect you've been alive since you were born. I also think the Titanic floated reasonably, as launched.
I would also suggests that the chances of you being alive 100 years from now - are nil. I would also point out, that when vessels get more water inside than air, they tend to founder. That's kind of 100% guaranteed.
The posit that you haven't died means you never will, is therefore stupid. The posit that a vessel which hasn't sunk yet, can't - is also stupid.
Maybe you can use those examples to work out the flaw in your 'thinking'.
Also, you need to do a course on exponential growth - I suspect a linear thinker (at best).
We need to be past that kind of post - perhaps read Soddy? The problem, I have noted, is that people who make comments like yours, avoid reading anything potentially threatening.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth,_Virtual_Wealth_and_Debt
LOL. The biosphere shows in your face evidence of collapse all around you, but still determined to stick to your comfortable denial. It's not people who understand limits who are scary, it's the zealots marching us off the cliff with fantasies of filling the universe with exponentially extractive capitalism, who exhibit dangerous psychotic behaviour.
I don't bother being purist - cutting nose off to spite face, given the planets current trajectory - but I've set myself up to get there from here.
That is two people with food-production and engineering skills, plus strategic capabilities and knowledge. We also started (planting) 30 years ago. There isn't the planet for 8 billion to have 30 acres each (although much of ours is planted as a contribution to the commons, not for profit; we 'give' in real terms.
It would need a reduction in population - to 1-2 billion being best guesses. There is NO level of sustainable consumption for 8 billion - well, it would be lower than the pre-European Aboriginal level; I guess that's not quite 'no'.
My lifestyle? Pretty damn frugal actually. I am self sufficient with my wife for food and energy. 120 y.o. house. Most furniture second hand One child. Reveg is my passion as a pastime. I drive a '91 Ford Courier that makes a trip to town once a month. Haven't flown since 2000 and earn less than minimum wage breeding a few cattle and sheep. No debt. Not interested in feeding the planet eating "system".
I actually took the messages of LTG, Population bomb and Silent spring seriously when I was a teen in the '70s and lived life since accordingly.
I suspect I may be giving more back than I'm taking?
Hopefully I haven't reached your hypocrisy bar?
I have to say I am impressed, I was expecting a city dwelling wokester greenie that doesn't walk the talk.
So your family, pdk, and the Beans live pretty similar lives. But I would argue if everyone else lived as we do, we would still bump into resource limits in the future. That's just the way it is. Those with the most consumerist lifestyle will get a harder reckoning.
Not sure if you replied to me or PDK? I=PAT is reality. 100 billion African village lifestyles is as damaging as 5 billion energy intensive western lifestyles. We are the one species on the planet with the ability to accumulate knowledge and avoid boom and crash patterns of behaviour. Instead, through sheer intellectual laziness, we outsourced our thinking to witch doctors and various other noisy empty tubes.
The core problem is too many people on the planet. If no moves are made to address that the rest are doomed to fail. PDK is correct in his discussions above. But those who decry this are out of touch with reality. The traps are that there is an elite layer who think they should have more than the rest, as they do today. That is the kind of attitude that will sink everyone. But gaining global consensus on population decline is the most important task, and frankly i cannot see it happening, especially no politician even wants to discuss it yet.
The moves are already made Murray. Our increase in deaths is 7x higher than the previous decade and rate of babies being born is below replacement level. There is a lot of good news out there for people who venture from out under their beds. Though this will be never be enough for consistently wrong the doom and gloom brigade.
"The world is ill-prepared for the global crash in children being born which is set to have a "jaw-dropping" impact on societies, say researchers.
Falling fertility rates mean nearly every country could have shrinking populations by the end of the century.
And 23 nations - including Spain and Japan - are expected to see their populations halve by 2100."
https://www.bbc.com/news/health-53409521
https://www.cnet.com/science/biology/antarcticas-fin-whale-population-i…
Greening of the Earth and its drivers
https://www.nature.com/articles/nclimate3004
The increase in deaths in the June 2022 year (9.7 percent) was higher than the average annual increase over the previous decade (1.4 percent).
https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/births-and-deaths-year-e…
https://www.stats.govt.nz/information-releases/births-and-deaths-year-e…
If that continues - great! But the politicians will be the problem. As we have seen here Luxon called for people to have more babies. Joke or not, it demonstrates the sheer lack of understanding he has of the bigger picture. I don't believe he is alone in that.
Plus, one might view what you have presented as a 'natural' decline as in it is not a managed one. Two questions arise; the first will it be sufficient and in time, and two will the pollies wake up before they try to interfere? The down side of course is the greed factor as autocrats try to seize power, and resources, and declining populations in a potential target may be seen as an opportunity and reduced risk of failure. Defence capability will become more important.
The decline in fertility is a bigger story than just improved choices for women. Industrial man is actually destroying his own fertility with the wastes of his cleverness. Sperm counts are reaching sub fertility and twenty year old women are as fertile as their 35 year old grandmothers
https://academic.oup.com/humupd/article/23/6/646/4035689?login=false
Of course while it remains profitable to continue poisoning ourselves and delusional thinking remains the norm, we'll be herded towards "assisted reproduction" . Everything is just an engineering problem, apparently?
The gut wrenching bit for me isn't extincting ourselves, it's doing the same to the rest of this once bountiful planet.
Joke? The only joke was the feeble attempt at damage control. Luxon hasn't yet learnt the first rule of political success. Don't publicise what you honestly think. What Luxon actually thinks is like a 2000 year old verse from a holy book, with no scientific reality in the intervening period.
All of the Western world could give up having children tomorrow and it would have a negligible impact on global population. The developing countries are driving the population rates. Hence the push for immigration across the developed world to generate more growth.
I guess if you are so concerned about it, you could just leave the plant, along with your family and anyone else like-minded, and help all of this along if you truly believe what you are saying. While planting a load of trees and living off the grid is truly commendable and a lifestyle choice, you also need to remember that it matters very little in the wider picture what you do, or what any of us do in this country. All you are actually doing is trying to justify your existence by living like a caveman. If you truly believe what you are saying, you would not push this rubbish on people and would have ended it all already. Developing countries are far too populated, yes, I agree, Western countries, not so much. New Zealand, definitely not. The problem with this conversation is that you are identifying someone else's problem (a problem with populations in developing countries) and trying to say that the solution is to start punishing people with pathetic punitive measures here. That line of thinking is frankly a load of crap. What really needs to happen (but won't) is that beneficiaries and others that cannot support a family (in New Zealand). should not be able to have one. The problems that have resulted from this are very clear and are in the media every single day. Do yourself a favor and go find some solutions to that problem, as that actually needs addressing here.
I think your strawman argument has been used before.
All you posits, really dissolve into one - 'I don't want to hear that it's my fault'.
Right? It's always someone else? For instance, the Third world is at fault for being overpopulated, you aren't for being over-consuming. Sooner or later, a pattern emerges, and once spotted...
Good luck with that. Trying to suggest folk like me live like cavemen (apart from showing crass ignorance and failure to inform yourself before blurting) is so far off the pace it's laughable (for instance, my house just nudges into an '8', in Homestar rating - a cave, that is not).
And labelling people won't stop physics, any more than Canute stopped the tide.
Yes, there are judgement-calls to make, just ahead: https://www.garretthardinsociety.org/articles/art_living_on_a_lifeboat… but avoiding them is an invalid option. Good luck with that. The debate is moving on.
How would you know?
You avoid information, that is what ignorance means in its original sense. What weight do I give to such an opinion?
The zero it deserves.
By way of framing that, since my last post (above) and this, I have read more than 100 pages. Some was just recreational, but I'm about 1/3rd of the way through 'Reframing Academic Leadership' (Bollman/Gallos 2011) which I read a long time ago, and feel the need to refresh as it's topical. That's the way to be informed - quite satisfying.
Yep, these people have been too free to spout this nonsense for too long unopposed. Mostly because people don't really care what they think. But, I feel there are far too many of them talking down to people as if they know something for a fact. but they don't, never did, and never will. It's far past time to start calling them out and openly ridiculing them. Hopefully, they go back under the rock they came from or the cave they live in, or whatever. I just hope they go away quickly.
I - genuinely - feel sorry for both of you. I've spent a lifetime observing reactions; the last 20 years watching reactions to the Limits to Growth issue.
The closer the discussion get to the truth (and it's not a matter of trawling for self-reinforcement; it's a matter of working up from first principles) the more some folk go unfocused, the more some folk walk away, and the more some folk get really scared.
I rank both of you in the last category. That's just how human nature is; there were a few scared passengers on the Titanic too... but the aim, even with 111 years of hindsight - was to get as many people into lifeboats as possible. Those who assured themselves the sinking couldn't happen, well, we can feel sorry for them in a personal sense - but the discussion obviously has to bypass them.
We need to thank Gareth Vaughan - I've listened to the podcast now, and he did a good job of letting it flow.
I think it could be the other way around. We actually feel sorry for you. Your life seems to be reading things that other people make up and you let it affect your life. The world is full of people that make predictions about things that never happen, and people like you read them and get scared. I have no idea why you are talking about the Titanic now, anyone in their right mind with even engineering 101 under their belt would have clearly seen the Titanic would sink. It was never unsinkable. People only thought that because they got told it was made up of separate water-tight compartments and even if a few of them filled up with water the ship would not sink. What they didn't get told is the number of breaches required to sink it, and also the fact that there was an error in the design where the bulkheads didn't go to the top of the hull, so when they filled up they overflowed to the next. People also assumed that the captain would never put the thing full speed into a giant iceberg and rip apart more of the compartments than would be required to sink it either. So, people believed 'other people' that were supposed 'experts' who incorrectly told them it would not sink. Much like the people that you read about that have no idea, you believe them. Will be shocked when you find out they were wrong (in fact they have been wrong about almost everything already, they just make up new predictions to keep you interested, and their funding going). Next, you will be telling us that Jacinda was a great leader and that her government delivered on all its promises just like she said. I am sure an expert has written that on the Internet for you to read, a marketing expert perhaps. It is probably on the Labour Party web site. I suggest you go read it and then come and tell us all how true that is.
Right with you jeremyr! I don't really feel sorry for PDK, he's so far into his own navel he's past worrying about. I feel sorry for his grand children. After each visit they must be cowering in the corner of the room terrified of the nasty future Grandad has lectured them about! Probably years of therapy ahead of them!
Didn't think about that. Horrid Grandad. Probably tells them they have no future, cos whatever. What a good guy. He is living his best life for sure. I bet all those around him admire his wisdom, and then quietly shuffle the kids out of the house and tell them not to listen to Grandad. He has no idea, and will soon have to shift to a nice new home with nice nurses to look after him.
You, sir, are scared. So scared you denigrate while avoiding.
That was a serious discussion, initiated by an astrophysicist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tom_Murphy_(physicist)
The difference between that, and your 'more rubbish' - is the difference between thinking science, and fear-driven ignorance. I was well aware you wouldn't be able to read it - but others will, and can draw their own conclusions.
Somehow I don't think they will. Anyhoo, I think the important thing here is to understand when you have lost. The more you post this rubbish the more ridiculous you sound. You are obviously grasping at straws and furiously searching on the internet for like-minded people that spout things that you can relate to and makes you feel good. For me, my job is done. You have proven what you are, and that's all we needed to know. Thanks, and have a great weekend.
Seems you are confused but that's not unexpected. There are measureable and repeatably measureable facts, aka science, that are pointing to some very big changes coming for humanity - and you're listening to opinions. FFS. Your's or anyone elses opinions don't mean squat.
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