Tilak Doshi’s commentary in Forbes takes on the growing influence of the Degrowth Movement.
The allure of “green growth” appears irresistible to politicians from developed Western countries. And it’s not hard to see why. As reflected in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) presented by President Biden and the European Union’s $270 billion “Green Deal Industrial Plan”, among others, there’s a dual promise of environmental rejuvenation coupled with economic vigor. A blend that seems to be the panacea for our times.
“President Biden’s misnamed $369-billion Inflation Reduction Act (IRA)… promises to “lift up American workers and create good-paying, union jobs across the country” while reducing not only carbon emissions but also energy costs by “incentivizing domestic production in clean energy technologies like solar, wind, carbon capture, and clean hydrogen.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tilakdoshi/2023/08/25/is-degrowth-now-the-new-green-growth/
However, the enchanting symphony of green growth might be a little off-key, leading us down a path that’s not as golden as promised.
Dissent from Within
Surprisingly, the voices of skepticism aren’t emerging from outside the esteemed “Church of Climate,” but rather from its very heart. A revealing survey in Nature Sustainability displayed an unexpected twist:
“A growing body of research within the scientific community is challenging the idea that green growth is fundamentally possible or even desirable”. The survey’s authors conclude that “despite the strong promotion of green growth by policymakers and international institutions, there is mounting criticism concerning the compatibility of continued economic growth with sustainability goals.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tilakdoshi/2023/08/25/is-degrowth-now-the-new-green-growth/
The Mirage of Green Growth
The seductive concept of green growth finds its roots in the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment. A vision of a world where economic expansion and environmental guardianship coexist, demanding no compromises.
“Environmental sustainability is mom’s venerable apple pie, something no reasonable person could object to… green growth ensures both economic growth and environmental sustainability.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tilakdoshi/2023/08/25/is-degrowth-now-the-new-green-growth/
However, with time, the legitimacy of this enticing vision is increasingly being questioned. It’s telling when industry stalwarts, such as the Saudi oil minister, equate reports from institutions like the International Energy Agency to whimsical journeys to “La La Land.”
The Winds of ‘Degrowth’ and ‘Agrowth’
What’s even more striking is the form of the alternative solutions proposed. A noteworthy 28% of the climate researchers from the survey advocate for “degrowth”. But what does that mean for the layman?
“A deliberate and equitable reduction in material consumption and economic activity in high-income countries to achieve more sustainable and socially just societies.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tilakdoshi/2023/08/25/is-degrowth-now-the-new-green-growth/
While the majority seem to be leaning towards “agrowth”, a vision that puts GDP, jobs, and wages in a standstill, elevating environmental conservation as the paramount concern.
Considering this data, it’s hard to overlook the contention that a staggering 75% of climate researchers might be pushing back against the green growth narrative. Is this call for a pared-back existence reminiscent of philosophical ideals, or is there a more sinister motive lurking beneath?
“This sect in the Church of Climate seeks totalitarian control over the means of production and aspires to swiftly end cheap energy by sidelining economic growth as a valid governmental objective.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/tilakdoshi/2023/08/25/is-degrowth-now-the-new-green-growth/
BRICS: The Beacon of Hope
Yet, it’s not all gloom and doom. The survey offers a glimmer of hope, with a noticeable divide in sentiments between developed and developing nations. A significant majority of climate researchers from non-OECD nations, especially the BRICS, seem to lean favorably towards green growth.
This dichotomy perhaps underscores a profound realization:
Human progress is intertwined with fossil fuels, and green growth offers a socially acceptable means to ensure uninterrupted access to affordable energy.
At the end of the day, the ambition of billions beyond the Western hemisphere may not align with ideals like St. Francis’ vow of austerity. Perhaps they are more inclined to seek prosperity through deities like Lord Ganesh. And who could fault them? The quest for a sustainable future shouldn’t necessitate the forfeiture of human advancement.
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The mirage of green growth is slowly crashing onto the rocks of reality.
Biden’s IRA raises rather than reduces inflation. It does this two ways.
The global reality is that BRICS won’t play the green game, so nothing the US or EU or UK does matters much to CO2. And CO2 doesn’t matter much either except in most provably wrong CMIP6 climate models (the exception being INM CM5, which doesn’t have a tropical troposphere hotspot and does have an ECS 1.8C close to observational EBM ECS at ~1.7C).
It was never about green growth – it is all about money & control
Rud, I don’t know what economists study these days, but this is not the “too many dollars chasing too few goods in an economic boom” type of inflation. It is, as you say, an inflation entirely created by gov policy to achieve uneconomic goals. Using interest rate escalation to cool such an economy only increases the burden cruelly on the already reeling middle class and working class citizens. It puts off job-creating investment, buying a house or car, or taking a vacation etc.
A Trump withdrawal from manic climate ruinables and anti fossil fuel policies is required to curtail this type of inflation.
I agree. And that is also why the Fed interest rate tightening isn’t going to work as well or as fast as they expect. Worse, we now have inflation imbedding in wage growth demands, UPS being a just past example and the UAW up next. Senior UPS drivers between wages and benefits averaging $170k/year under the new contract. That is unsustainable.
Monetary policy and fiscal policy pulling in opposite directions is somewhat less than ideal, to say the least.
Inflationary expectations feeding back into wages growth makes matters worse.
The usual result is recession and increased unemployment.
Rud, is it really that much? Seems absurd. I can’t undersand how even pro union folks can justify 170K/yr for essentially, a truck driver. The idea of unions is to get a FAIR wage- not legalize robbery. I realize its a not an easy job. I see them all the time and they’re hustling. Still doesn’t make them worth that kind of money. Luckily, there are other delivery firms and I expect the competition will put UPS out of business unless that company can control its costs.
The sooner the USA gets rid of Biden the better. But let facts be facts. Does the IRA reduce or increase inflation? I don’t know, but the rate of inflation in the USA has been falling for some time. In October 2022 it was 7.1%. In July 2023 it was 3.2%.The annual core consumer price inflation rate in the United States, which excludes volatile items such as food and energy, fell to 4.7% in July 2023, the lowest since October 2021. I’m not saying that the fall in the rate of inflation is due to the IRA. It clearly isn’t. But, so far, the IRA has not stopped the rate of inflation from falling. Of course, some may want to argue that the rate would have fallen faster without the IRA or that the IRA will increase the rate of inflation in the long-term.
Inflation declined about at this rate leading up to the Great Depression starting in 1929. Don’t buy into government numbers in an economic crisis. They have all kinds of ways to sugar-coat data. For example “seasonally adjusted”! You don’t adjust if things are rosy unless you want to tighten the screws for some other reason.
The other thing is that the basic assumption, that economic growth causes an increase in material, is flawed. Not only can we have economic growth without increased material consumption but we have been having exactly that.
link
Thanks to improving technology, we’re doing more and more with less and less. Of course, so-called renewable energy increases our material consumption a lot. 🙂 LOL
If the loony left manages to bork the economy, that will also reduce our level of technology and will increase our material consumption. That will lead to a vicious cycle where the environment is ruined and billions of people die needlessly.
Its inevitable really if you follow the demented logic. Degrowth will be followed by selected population reduction. I’ve been calling them proto nazis for 20 years. they’re the same people,
The NSDAP had a mystical view of Nature, and of Der Volk. That was in top of millenarian and nihilist threads. The Green Blob has the same tendencies, minus quoting Wagner.
Stupid is as stupid does
The globalists aren’t stupid – this is all by design to weaken and control the masses to subdue their resistance to regression of living standards
There has long been a popular doctrine called Contraction and Convergence. Rich countries shrink their economies while poor countries grow theirs until everyone uses the same limited energy.
And somewhere, in amongst all that regression & progression, will be conflict
The West is going to hell in an handcart – ESG, nut zero tat (including battery cars, heat pumps, wind & solar power, smart meters), fertiliser bans, CO2 reductions, censorship, fake meat, bug burgers, digital passports, digital credits etc – all by globalist design in Davos to regress living standards, keep the masses in a constant state of fear and control, control and more control
Meanwhile, the East/BRICS group of nations accelerate development, some even receiving Western foreign aid to do so
Only when globalist elites are adversely affected, will the nonsense stop
It make more sense if a space alien/global elitism cabal were behind everything.
At least BlackRock has backed off a bit from it’s ESG requirements for investing. Guess it was facing too many withdrawals :<)
I could care less what climate activists think or want. Developed nations need to insure an affordable, reliable and dispatchable source of energy for all their constituents in as clean and safe a manner as possible. Developing nations need to do the same. Build new fossil fuel and nuclear generators and remove all wind and solar from the grid. Anyone who disagrees should immediately be removed from the grid.
Anything “green” is intrinsically anti-growth, so “green growth” is an absurdity. It’s like saying “violent peace”. Any growth that does happen happens in spite of, not because of greenie policies.
“… equitable reduction in material consumption and economic activity in high-income countries to achieve more sustainable and socially just societies.”
The ‘tell’ here is that the biggest threat to the climate troughers cashflow is not from anything coming out of sceptic science. Disaster climate has been soundly debunked for over a decade, but they’ve successfully shut down debate, sidelining us by smearing and marginalizing, using propaganda of an all-in big mass media, global institutions, academia, governments, NGOs …
No, frustrated sceptics changed horses, having found the most compelling reason for the certain failure of the plan to exit fossil fuels and drastically reduce CO² to NET ZERO to ‘save’ the planet. It is simply that 6 billon people outside of The West opted for powering their citizen out of poverty the only sure way known, available, cheap and abundant fossil fuels.
The lackluster dark side were stunned. They tried to ignore it. They sent lackluster Kerry and Ursula von der Leyen, the Chief EU Gynecologist, to pressure Xi and were received by an underling who rebuffed them. They even didnt include the chief gyno in the meeting! Unable to muscle or ignore, and wanting to preserve the trough, they threw NET ZERO under the bus and with it the Climate front for for the real plan, totalitarian control only of The West.
Green fascism is a guarantee of both environmental and economic failure.
We know, even people like us who are more than skeptical about climate Armageddon, that fossil fuels are not infinite. But their use has led to unprecedented increases in both quality and quantity of life.
We should be using those gains to explore new technologies. Instead, it’s politics. Bureaucrats fighting for a larger share of the existing pie rather than baking bigger pies.
De-growth ends up being everyone except the elite become dirt poor.
Batteries, solar panels, windmills all have one thing in common. They barely produce/store enough energy to build more. You cannot have growth if the reproductive rate of your energy system isn’t substantially greater than 1. Otherwise how do you pay for all the downstream systems like government that live off the surplus.
“ It’s telling when industry stalwarts, such as the Saudi oil minister, equate reports from institutions like the International Energy Agency to whimsical journeys to “La La Land.””
I find it endlessly amusing as to why anyone would take anything from IEA seriously. This is an agency which lost its entire reason for being 40 years ago after the Second Oil Crisis. It has no useful reason to exist, it fills no useful purpose. It is simply and purely a propaganda agency for the international environmental industry.
If you’ve actually listened in person to a speech by Fatih Birol, it’s quickly obvious that the man is a socialist of the worst sort. The answer to everything for this individual is more government control over absolutely everything.
But, but, but you have to take the IEA seriously. Only last month they called for governments around the world to commit to tripling global unreliable energy capacity by 2030 and making such commitments in time for COP 28 🙂
“the single most important lever to bring about the reduction in CO2 emissions needed by 2030 is to triple global installed capacity of renewable capacity by the end of the decade”
(July 2023)
“renewable power by the end of the decade” – edit function still not working 🙁
“Degrowth” means we are the carbon they want to reduce
Degrowthers never mention what will finance the pensions in a society with growing pensionados.
Why isn’t anyone exposing “degrowth” for what it actually is. Hundreds of millions dead. It will only take a couple of months of starvation and food riots.
Salute!
About the only silver lining I see in the gathering clouds of economic and social chaos due due to a poorly planned and technological deficient rush to a fossil fuel energy ban might be an emphasis upon storage combined with many, many nuke power plants. Those, and vastly improved/increased storage will be required during the coming 90,000 to 100,000 glacial age that is on the way.
But gee,Gums, that won’t happen for maybe a few thousand years, and “climate scientists” of various organizations think we can impact climate in just a few decades by reverting to pre-industrial means of heating, cooling, cooking, plowing, traveling and less plastic utensils, straws, medical equipment, and the beat goes on.
How short-sighted and ignorant those folks are. So teach your children and grandchildren how to make a fire and live off the land. Some gardening skills are also appropriate.
Gums sends…