Can the economy grow forever on a finite planet?: Degrowth

Underground

The Ogallala Aquifer stretches beneath eight American states. It irrigates $20 billion in crops annually. It took the last ice age to fill. In parts of western Kansas, the water table has dropped over 150 feet since 1950. Some wells have gone dry. The water is not coming back on any timescale that matters.

We start underground because that is where the economy actually lives. Not in GDP dashboards. In aquifers, topsoil, phosphorus deposits, and the atmospheric concentration of gases that took four billion years to calibrate. Every system rests on physical foundations. We have calculated Earth Overshoot Day every year. In 2023 it fell on August 2nd. Seven months to use a year’s capacity. Does the date move earlier or later next year?

The green growth camp celebrates the UK cutting territorial emissions while growing GDP. But when you account for embedded carbon in imports, the progress shrinks by half. When you account for total material throughput, not a single major economy has decoupled in absolute terms. Not one. We check every year.

Jevons was right in 1865. LED lighting uses 75 percent less energy per lumen. Global lighting energy consumption increased, because cheaper light means more light. Air travel became 80 percent more efficient. Total aviation fuel tripled. Every single time. Why would this time be different?

The cornucopians invoke Simon’s winning streak. We find this structurally identical to a man falling off a skyscraper who, passing the fortieth floor, observes nothing bad has happened yet.

We do not propose austerity. We propose sufficiency. Costa Rica achieves life expectancy comparable to the US at one-fifth the GDP and one-tenth the material footprint. Is that poverty, or a different definition of wealth?

Where we concede ground: Two billion people lack reliable electricity. Telling them to embrace sufficiency while Europeans consume five times more is an insult.

What would change our mind: A G20 economy achieving five years of GDP growth alongside absolute declines in material footprint, energy, and emissions simultaneously.

Read the full synthesis: Can the economy grow forever on a finite planet?