It Is Time to Order a New Economic Order

Please don't get this economy moving again -- it will eventually kill us

The stimulus packages now being fashioned around the world must redirect and redesign the current economic order if we are to avoid global ecological disaster that will make the current downturn look mild. The evidence is everywhere that continued dedication to 'economic growth,' per se, will destroy the Earth's ability to provide a healthy home for most life forms. Quite simply, sticking with an economic model that is a major driver toward ecological catastrophe will kill us.

We have to think of two budgets: the ecological budget and the economic budget. The ecological budget is the one on which all life depends. The human economy exists within the ecological budget and is strictly and completely dependent on it.

The ecological budget is already in dramatic deficit: September 23 was Earth Overshoot Day for 2008. The period after September 23 represents the time the human population causes an ecological deficit, using up the Earth faster than it can regenerate. Every year, Earth Overshoot Day comes earlier. This moving date tells the story of a global environment rapidly losing its ability to support life: a story of accelerating climate change; the loss of species and habitats; declining fisheries; the proliferation of ocean dead zones; diminishing freshwater resources; and more.

Here are five steps we can take toward a truly balanced ecological budget that will allow Americans, and all people on Earth, to live fulfilling, healthy, lives which are respectful of the Earth's glorious capacity to support the whole array of vibrant life.

* We must acknowledge that unlimited growth on a finite planet makes no sense. We face a moral choice and challenge: bring the global economy into a right relationship with the planet and its human and non-human inhabitants. Our new ecological and climate reality demands new ways to live within the means of the Earth. Both the stimulus package and long term economic policies should be attuned to the limited capacity of Earth's biosphere to provide for humans and other life and to assimilate their waste.

* Acknowledge that we need new institutions. An economic renewal tailored to the 21st century would establish institutions committed to fitting the human economy to Earth's limited life-support capacity. Money should be understood as a social license to use part of Earth's life-support capacity. Accordingly, we need something like the central reserve banks, but which look after shares of the Earth's ecological capacity, not just interest rates and the money supply. Some functions of governance would have to operate at a global level, through a federation modeled perhaps on the European Union, with enforceable laws designed to assure that individual nations don't overrun Earth's limits.

* Fairness matters. The rules for the developed countries that are responsible for the current ecological crisis must be different from those for developing ones. The new economy must recognize that "free" trade as it is currently understood helps entrench the addiction to consumption; and it is often pursued in a manner that ravages the bio-productivity of developing countries, and impoverishes their citizens. Economic policy must promote not more affluence as currently defined, but rather fairness and sufficiency for all citizens -- so that all may live with self and Earth respect. A "right" human-Earth relationship would recognize humans as part of an interdependent web of life on a finite planet, and the rights of millions of other species to their place in the sun.

* Expand the discussion. The overwhelming scientific evidence is that we are, by our choices, over consuming the planet and accelerating toward ecological catastrophe. Most, if not all, ministers of finance and conventional economists don't account for how the planet works, or even that the economy exists on a finite planet. Scientists morally committed to protecting the global commons and researching ecological limits to the global economy must be added now to the Council of Economic Advisors and similar institutions.

* Look beyond technological fixes. Bold new leaders are needed who will focus on all four policy "theatres" relevant to human ecological impact: technology; population; wealth and consumption; and morals and customs. These new leaders must provide the moral footing that will help people, individually and collectively, to choose lifestyles with radically lower impact. Hydrogen cars and genetically modified agriculture are much easier to push than asking people to consume less or have fewer children, but technology cannot fix all our problems. Moreover, technology-based efficiency gains unfortunately often lead to greater, not lower, consumption. People with fuel efficient cars often drive more, not less. The truth is that efficiency without regulation is not very efficient. Last, more public support is needed where private money has little incentive to go, like massive investment in creating or restoring natural systems that rebuild the bio-productivity of Earth's ravaged ecosystems.

Perhaps most difficult to come to grips with is that the United States is an overpopulated country in an overpopulated world. Each individual American takes far too great a share of what the Earth can withstand -- roughly twice the average European and many more times the average in the developing world. We should escape from the current treadmill that considers more people necessary for more growth. Free access to family planning must be part of health care reform, and a foundation stone of foreign policy. The America projected by the census bureau for mid-century of around 440 million people is a global disaster.

The financial crisis provides the opportunity to fundamentally change, not merely repair or rebuild, our economy. All eyes are now on the Inaugural speech, the budget and stimulus package being put together by the Obama Administration. But it is essential to address the financial and ecological crises together.

We are not principally "consumers," but citizens of the Earth, and guardians of life's prospect on a beautiful and finite planet.

Peter G Brown is a professor at McGill University. Geoffrey Garver is an environmental consultant and lectures in law at Universite de Montreal and Universite Laval. They are co-authors of Right Relationship: Building a Whole Earth Economy (February 2009). www.moraleconomy.org

Comments

[INTUITE]

Put most simply. The earth is a living organism, and we are all parasites. We must be careful not to kill the host.

[mamacat]

As a senior citizen, I do not expect the Earth's biosphere to change dramatically in what remains of my own lifetime.

However, even if we were somehow able to stabilise the human population on the Earth at today's level, I think it would be doubtful that we could stop global warming before it did some pretty terrible things to the atmosphere, insofar as we humans are concerned. Toss into the mix the likelihood that the human population may be unable to stabilise until it has more than doubled from today's levels, and the likelihood that we may cause our own demise through atmospheric degradation seems very strong.

[Thermodynamics]

thanks

The idea of a perpetually growing economy is ridiculous - perpetual growth is about as stable as the snow hares with their 7-year boom-to-bust population cycle.

We will soon need Social Engineering -- If we don't develop it Malthusian principles will start hitting us over the head like a hammer.

[valkyrie607]

There are limits on growth in all natural systems. And we are part of natural systems, as much as people would like to pretend otherwise.

This is a fundamental shift in human consciousness. Nothing less will do the trick.

[MGhamma]

You're talking about a fundemental change in human conciousness. From predominently competitive to predominently cooperative. Think that's going to happen?

[Geoff Garver]

The idea is to enclose the spark of competition within the engine of cooperation. Am I hopeful? Yes, definitely hopeful, because as we describe in our book there are historic models to work from - the campaign to end the slave trade in the UK and North America a particularly good one. Also, if the post-Kyoto approach to climate change adopts a true cap on GHG, then the basic elements of what is needed will have gained real traction. Am I optimistic? Tougher question. It is hard to know how, where or when a mass epiphany will start from. But if you understand ecological footprint and the idea that there are ecological limits on the economy, and if you try to live the Golden Rule and to apply basic notions of fairness, you have what you need to join a mass movement for the kind of change that is needed.

[JScott]

Wasn't this called for in that controversial Club Of Rome report in the 1970's......kinda sounds like they were right 30 some years later and this was even before threats to the ozone layer and global warming.

[craigcollier]

Bio-regionalism makes an interesting format in which to frame this "fundamental change". Mapping this country and the world in terms of resources, potential for added value with the resources, population densities and requirements for supporting same, potential and methods of equitable distribution, banking systems to support regional sustainable development and distribution, abilities to implement and sustain technologies, abilities to integrate with connecting reigions, etc. might provide a starting point.

[Euroflycars]

Sorry, in my above comment it should read:

Given this overall excellence of the airborne species (together with the insects), I invite you to give thought to the perspectives of global human interactivity the same freedom of movement, i.e. massively popularized individual AEROMOBILITY could open up for mankind.

[Euroflycars]

I wonder why you did not address the mobility issue, i.e. individual mobility as the most fundamental characteristic of life. In case you'd think it secondary or even detrimental, I would like to give you a short account of the importance it might have for sustainable development.

There are roughly 100 billion birds living on Earth -- not only are they probably the most resilient species of all, but they leave no noticeable imprint on the landscape (except on Guano Islands, but this is just the exception to confirm the rule). Birds are also pacific, gregarious folks (with no more than three predators left among them to date capable of in-flight preying on other birds ).

Given this overall excellence of the airborne species (together with the insects), I invite you to give thought to the perspectives of global human interactivity the same freedom of movement, i.e. massively popularized individual mobility could open up for mankind.

I would also advise you to pay special attention to state-of-the-art navigation technology, which is ready for mass production to make it affordable for millions of private pilots in order to guide them safely in the global airspace.

Start thinking about this issue in relation to your existing knowledge and projections about sustainable development, and you will see that achieving what several animal species have successfully done eons ago is likely to trigger unprecedented changes of paradigm in human evolution.