Thread by @econnaturalist

Thread: Does economic growth heighten the climate threat?
@sunrisemvmt @350 @dwallacewells @leahstokes @billmckibben @binajv @DrKateMarvel @drvox

Parrying the threat posed by the climate crisis will require tens of trillions of dollars of investment. We can well afford these investments. But they will be much more difficult to accomplish in a slow-growth economy. 1/

Climate advocates might therefore want to reconsider their recent denunciations of economic growth. Growth per se is not the problem. Rather, it is growth in activities that generate greenhouse gas emissions. 2/

Building bigger houses and driving heavier vehicles boosts growth in GDP as conventionally measured, but also results in harmful emissions. Growth of this type does indeed have negative climate consequences on balance. 3/

But planting trees increases GDP, too, as does building windmills and solar panels. And these activities not only don’t increase greenhouse gas emissions, they substantially reduce them. Growth in activities of this sort is what’s necessary to ensure the planet’s survival. 4/

The good news is that existing government policy levers can boost growth of the second type and reduce growth of the first. The bad news is that we have thus far been unwilling to pull those levers. And that’s why attacks on growth are a matter of concern. 5/

Evidence suggests that one of the strongest predictors of society’s willingness to undertake pro-social investments is the rate of economic growth. As Harvard economist Benjamin Friedman wrote in “The Moral Consequences of Economic Growth,” 6/
scholar.harvard.edu/files/bfriedma…

Pursuit of each of the social goals Friedman describes is costly. An important reason that people are more willing to support the necessary expenditures in pursuit of those goals in a rising economy is what behavioral scientists call “loss aversion.” 7/

Loss aversion says that people will fight much harder to keep something they already have than to acquire that same thing if they don’t have it. In a growing economy, social investments can be paid for out of resources that people haven’t already become accustomed to spending. 8/

In contrast, in a stagnant economy, those same investments require cutting back on existing spending patterns. We are creature of habit. Changing existing spending habits is difficult. 9/

Elsewhere I have argued that we could actually raise the trillions of dollars needed to parry the climate threat without having to demand painful sacrifices from anyone. 10/

https://twitter.com/econnaturalist/status/1155914335300071426?s=20

Many will dismiss that claim as preposterous on its face. Yet it rests on premises that no serious behavioral scientist would question. But until the validity of the claim becomes more broadly accepted, people will continue to view the required climate investments as painful. 11/

And that means we’ll be less likely to make them. Consider Benjamin Friedman’s description of our reluctance to embrace collective social action during the economic stagnation of the 1970s and 1980s: 12/

Again, the planet is threatened not by growth per se, but by growth in activities that emit greenhouse gases. Existing policy levers can curb these activities and encourage others that reduce harmful emissions. But we're unlikely to pull those levers in a slow-growth economy. 13/