Transcript GEOG 352 – Day 9

GEOG 352 – Day 9
Updated Debate Teams & Dates
date
topic
names
March 8th
Property rights
Elissa, Charlie, Alysha, Kylie,
Darren, Yasmin
March 22nd
Markets vs. regulation
Estella, Leah, Emma, Karly
March 29th
Sprawl or affordable
housing
Sarah, Brittany, Paul S.,
Bucky
March 1st
Rising tide lifts all boats?
Karen, Tara, Cheymus,
Rebecca
March 3rd
Hard work rewarded?
Nick, Andrea, Paul L.,
Shane
March 1st
Carbon markets
Doug, Jeff, Derek
March 3rd
How to promote healthy
eating
Bethany, Meagan, Kris, Jill
ANY FURTHER PROBLEMS?
Housekeeping Items
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I will pass out the articles for the debate groups.
Did anyone see “Fierce Light”?
I meant to follow up on the question about Sweden.
Last day for submissions for WDCAG!
(http://www.sfu.ca/wdcag2011/call.htm)
When you do a book presentation, please have a
discussion question or two.
Today we will hear from Paul on “Black Swan” and
discuss Chapters 3 and 4 in Porritt. By the way, six
books have arrived. Let’s discuss the best way to use
them.
Porritt – Chapters 3 & 4
*Chapter 3 engages with the issue of economic growth,
which is one of the sacred cows of capitalism. In this context,
he recommends Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update (so
named for the original 1972 report) by Jorgen Randers and
Dennis Meadows. I have the charts that illustrate the models
on a CD, if you would be interested to see them some time.
 *In essence, they are arguing that there will not be one
big collapse, but a situation where more and more capital
will have to be diverted to coping with the ecological
impacts of an expanding population and economy that
eventually there won't be enough to sustain continuing
growth in food and industrial production, and population
growth will also be forced to cease. Do you think this is
likely?
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The Limits to Growth
*In this chapter, he deals with exponential growth. The size of
the global economy is now doubling every 25 years, and trade
has increased more than 12 times since the end of World War
II!
*In essence the constantly growing economy, as a sub-system
of the biosphere, is bumping up against the fact that the
biosphere and its resources are finite. It can only grow further
by devouring its host.
 *Meanwhile we are bumping up against the limits of natural
capital (resources, waste sinks, and life-support systems). The
issue, as he sees it, is do we want a soft landing or a hard
landing? The choice is up to us, and even more importantly up to
our decision-makers. But to slow down and redirect growth
challenges everything that this society is based. Will we do it?
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The Limits to Growth
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Although this is a heretical idea for mainstream economists,
“the scale of the economic subsystem will eventually be
determined by the overall scale of the ecosystem, by its
ability to provide high-grade resources and to absorb lowgrade waste, and by the inter-dependency of all interlocking
elements.”
In other words, economics has to deal with the first and second
laws of thermodynamics – the first stating that energy can
neither be created nor destroyed, merely transformed into
another state, and the second that it loses its capacity to do
useful work with each transformation. Only the sun's incoming
energy prevents the Earth from completely running down.
With matter, entropy expresses itself as the loss of ability to
serve as useful raw material, as with the finite ability for
aluminium or paper to be recycled.
The Limits to Growth
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The productivity of the economy and of the biosphere is
limited by the amount of solar energy captured (all nonrenewable resources will eventually be depleted). Therefore,
economic growth can only continue to occur to the extent that
it 'decouples' itself from entropy-producing throughput. Not
only has economic growth been occurring continuously, it has
been occurring exponentially.
Ekins therefore makes a distinction between growth in
biophysical throughout, growth in economic value, and growth
in economic and social welfare, each of which needs to be
distinguished, rather than collapsed together. The goal
should be growth in economic and social welfare. This relates
to the concepts of dematerialization and resocialization.
The Limits to Happiness
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Porritt reviews some of the literature on happiness and its
links to income and shows (see also the URL for John
Helliwell in the reading list) that beyond a certain point in
income growth, life satisfaction levels off. He also cites
Fred Hirsch and others that much of people's happiness or
unhappiness is relative to how well off we see ourselves in
relation to other people. Is this true?
As far back as the 1920, advertisers have directly sought
to cultivate dissatisfaction and thereby to create new
needs. Without the creation of new needs, the economy
would largely grind to a halt. Can you think of significant
new demand that has been created in recent years? Which
products and services have genuinely enriched our lives and
which not?
The Limits to Happiness
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Helliwell, Richard Layard and others are creating a new
'science of happiness' which shows that much of what we
think of as subjective has an objective basis – for instance,
people who are of service to others tend to be happier, as
are people with a richer community life and a slower pace
of life. And yet we make increasing incomes and economic
output the measure of society's success, not whether
people's happiness is increasing.
Apparently, it isn’t as stress, anxiety, depression, addiction
and other mental health issues are on the rise.
In line with this, Herman Daly makes the important
distinction between quantitative expansion and qualitative
improvement. Even in the steady-state economy he
advocates, life quality can improve. But, apparently, it is
not unequivocally improving with current growth.
The Limits to Growth
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Is the idea of ‘limits to growth’ as radical an idea
as a round earth not at the centre of the universe
was to people living back in the Middle Ages?
Economists counter that we can substitute manmade capital for natural capital. However, are
there are some things in nature that can't be
substituted for?
Can we rely on rising prices to always ensure
conservation of resources? It hasn't worked with
many fisheries or with the now illegal trade in
ivory, or with other resources.
The Limits of GDP As A Measure
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One of the main arguments against the usefulness
of GNP/ GDP as a measure of economic health is
that we should subtract the loss of natural capital
that occurs through economic activity each year,
plus the various defensive expenditures that
represent 'collateral damage' from economic
activity – environmental protection and restoration,
car accidents, poor health and rising crime rates,
etc. Can you think of other examples?
The main point is that development (qualitative) is
not the same as growth (quantitative).
Peak Oil and The Limits to Growth
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Since so much of the growth economy has been
premised on abundant supplies of fossil fuels, the
arrival of peak oil (the point at which demand exceeds
supply) – some time between 2008 and 2020 – may
change all the rules economically, and socially as well.
Already the energy recovered to energy expended
ratio has gone from 28:1 to 2:1, and is still declining.
Unfortunately, in the immortal words of our own Tim
Naegele, we hit the collective “snooze button” back in
the late '70s when oil prices started going back down
and, as a result, we lost the opportunity of a 30-year
head start on deflecting the current crisis in peak oil
and climate change.
Chapter 4 of Porritt
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In this chapter, Porritt engages with what are the
defining characteristics of capitalism, and whether what
some people have called “killer capitalism” can be
tamed for purposes of sustainable development.
He notes that leftists tend to reject the profit motive and
free markets as being inherently unsustainable, whereas
right-wingers tend to see more privatization of natural
capital and less government intervention as the key to
success.
While Porritt has little time for either of these positions,
he does strongly suggest that “capitalism, as we know it
today would, indeed, appear to be incompatible with
anything vaguely resembling sustainability.”
Capitalism vs. Communism?
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He cites multi-billionaire, George
Soros, on how the “capitalist threat”
to democracy and human values
now exceeds that from communism
which has largely faded away.
Porritt notes how ecologically
destructive communist societies –
such as the USSR and China – have
proven to be, even worse in many
cases than their capitalist rivals.
For many 'Greens' the solution lies
not in opposing socialism to
capitalism but in creating economies
that utilize markets, but on a smaller,
more local scale. What do you think?
Markets vs. 'Market Society'
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This ties in with Karl Polanyi‘’s distinction between
markets, which have existed for millennia, and market
society – a distinct form of society in which the nationstate has aided and abetted the rise of the corporation.
According to George Monbiot, an economy with markets
that are effectively regulated in the interests of workers,
consumers, and ecosystems is the kind of model we
should be striving for.
Originally, when corporations were first chartered, their
charters were supposed to be subject to revocation if
they proved guilty of being socially irresponsible, but
this been quietly forgotten and, by virtue of being
'persons' under the law, corporate boards are largely
protected from prosecution.
Corporations and Society?
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Citing Joel Bakan (author of the book and film, The
Corporation) corporations have a fiduciary responsibility to
their shareholders to maximize profits, and thus they are often
willing to externalize their costs onto others and onto the
environment in order to do so, unless this is against the law, and
even that is sometimes an insufficient deterrent.
Between corporate behaviour and consumer addictions and
self-interest, what impact is our current system having on values
and morality?
Porritt argues that, rather than being mediators, between
society and corporations, governments have tended to become
colrporate partners, helping them to achieve their objectives
domestically and internationally.
Financial irregularities have become common amongst the
leading companies, and CEO rewards no longer seem linked to
company performance, as we saw with the recent escapades
involving the financial sector.
Private Property and Free Trade
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So far, Porritt has looked at markets and profit. He next looks
at the issue of private property, noting that while there may
be situations where giving the poor more private property
rights may assist in sustainability, in general attempting to
privatize natural capital and ecosystem services seems to hold
little promise.
It also ignores the many successful communal property
management systems that have existed around the world. Do
you know of any?
He notes that when David Ricardo advocated free trade in
the early nineteenth century, neither capital nor labour were
mobile. Nowadays, both, but especially the former are, and it
tends to flow to countries with the cheapest labour and the
lowest environmental standards.
Scale, Needs and Competition
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On the issue of ecological scale, he notes that Peter
Vitousek, et al. in 1986 estimated that human
appropriation of net primary productivity (NPP) was 40%,
and we’re only one of millions of species.
On the issue of meeting human needs, he suggests that
there has proven to be a disconnect between economic
growth, as generated by current patterns of capital
allocation, and increases in human welfare, thus raising
questions about “trickle down” vs. “gush up”.
He questions unbridled competition, citing Lyn Margulis
and others that in nature, one observes 'competitive
exclusion,' cooperation, and interdependence. Do you
believe competition is a universal law?
Chapter 4 of Porritt
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On inequality, he notes that developing countries spend
$375 billion a year on servicing their 2.5 trillion debt – more
than the combined expenditure on health and education, and
20 times what they receive in foreign aid. Moreover, the top
1% of all households in those countries receive between 70
and 90% of all the wealth.
In the U.S., household debt as a percentage of income rose
from 58 to 133% from 1973 to 2007 (much, and the top
1% now earns more than the bottom 95%.
In the final section of the chapter, Porritt suggests that while
we need effective pricing mechanisms to internalize the true
value of ecosystem services, capitalism will remain a
corrosive system unless it is buttressed with wisdom and
values that transcend the purely economic.
The Ultimate Question
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Can capitalism be made sustainable and, if not,
what (if anything) is the alternative?
Have you encountered anything in your reading
research so far that suggests answers to these
questions?
Keep in mind the typology that I offered you at the
beginning of the semester: big business; the public
(government) sphere; small business; collectives and
co-ops; non-profit organizations and community
enterprises; volunteer activity; barter/ skills
exchange or community currency; neighbourly or
other forms of mutual aid, or takes place in the
domestic (household) sphere.