Thread by @sourjayne

The new (old) trend in climate denial is that technology innovations will save us from making drastic lifestyle changes.

Everyone from the Green New Deal to the fossil fuel industry marketing campaigns are on this bandwagon now.

So… let's dive in.

https://twitter.com/sourjayne/status/1429187511079866368

I want to preface all this with one important thing: We absolutely need to get off fossil energy asap. We can, we have to, it will be good on so many levels for everyone, from cleaner air & water to independence from foreign oil, to build a 100% renewable energy grid now.

In 2017, researchers at the World Bank modeled the increase in material extraction required to build enough solar & wind utilities for an annual output of 7 terawatts of electricity by 2050. Doubling their numbers gets us close to 100% coverage.

So then, according to that report, we're gonna need 34mil metric tons of copper, 40mil tons of lead, 50mil tons of zinc, 162mil tons of aluminum, 4.8 billion tons of iron, & 40 million tons of lithium (this last one would be a 2700% increase over current levels of extraction.)

Lithium takes 50,000 gallons of water per ton, and we’re already seeing chemical leaks poisoning rivers & killing off ecosystems. At current extraction levels, mining companies are taking all the water and leaving farmers to abandon their land.

Silver extraction will need to go up 38%–105%. Mexico has one of the biggest silver mines in the world: 40 sq mi w waste dumps a mile long each & a bunch of toxic sludge held by a 50-story high dam 7 miles around.

We'll need up to 130 MORE MINES the size of Peñasquito.

Mining has already caused deforestation, ecosystem collapse, & biodiversity loss everywhere.

Those are just the numbers to 2050.

Again, this is not an argument against doing what we need to do. It's just, ya know, the strategist in me needs to know all this.

Here's the thing…

Our global economy is structured such that we need GDP to grow 3% or more, forever, or it's all RECESSION! UNEMPLOYMENT! COLLAPSE!

And despite drastic efficiency gains in recent decades, GDP & energy demand remain pretty much coupled, any way researchers model it.

So If the economy continues to grow indefinitely, the total global stock of solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries that we spent all that effort mining and extracting to build up to 2050… all that needs to DOUBLE every 30-40 years, forever.

And none of this even accounts for the fact that it’s becoming more & more difficult to extract the same amount of materials from the earth. We’ve gobbled up everything close to the surface & easy to grab.

Now it takes more energy & materials to get the same amount of resources. The UNEP says 3x more material has to be extracted per unit of metal than a century ago.

So yeah, we definitely need drastic improvements in technology to increase efficiency. But more importantly, the problem always comes back to growth.

Efficiency gains will always be gobbled up by growth.

The math of infinite growth on a finite planet just doesn’t work.

So what do we do, random lady on the internet with an art degree?

First of all, this isn't my idea, I'm just amplifying the work of ecological economists & scholars cuz I want to live out the rest of my days as peacefully as possible on a planet that can continue to support life

This is why I wanted to understand classical economics. Who made this system? Why is it so broken? When were these systems designed? What didn't they know then?

https://twitter.com/sourjayne/status/1428063290295562240

There's a lot they didn't know then that we know now. Like A LOT. Their ignorance, assumptions, & biases got programmed into the system they designed, which is what always happens.

Like, they took nature's contribution as infinite & without cost.

They completely neglected waste

We now know our wealth & well being is completely dependent on the health & well being of the ecosystems in which we live, breathe, grow our food.

We know these systems are fragile, and vulnerable to human impact.

We have a pretty good idea how much of our waste & extraction the biosphere can absorb before we start seeing negative impacts. And we have many new techniques to accelerate & improve the regenerative capacities of the earth.

We also know now, through lots & lots of studies & historical data, that it’s not growth itself that improves people’s lives – what matters is how income is distributed (equality), and the extent to which it is invested in public services (like sanitation & universal health care)

When people say "we have to grow the economy, because jobs" I'm pretty sure* we're both talking about the same end goal, just different means. What we actually want is a society where people are happy, healthy & free.

*sometimes I think this is a cover story for some people…

So now we have metrics on happiness. In the US, supposedly the wealthiest country, happiness rates were the highest overall in the 1950s, when GDP per capita was only about $15,000 (in today’s dollars).

Since then, avg US income ⤴️4x, yet happiness has plateaued & declined.

Britain? Same. People have 3x the income, but happiness has been on the decline since the 50s.

Okay but growth improves well-being, right? What about life expectancy?

Let's see: Japan — highest life expectancy in the world at 84 years with 35% less income than the US

South Korea has 50% less income and a life expectancy of 82 years.

Portugal has 65% less income and a life expectancy of 81.1 years

Costa Rica! 80% less income than the US, beats the US in life expectancy, even when their GDP doesn't grow at all.

And they do it with minimal pressure on the environment.

Countries whose governments have invested in universal public healthcare & education have seen some of the world’s fastest improvements in life expectancy & other indicators of human welfare.

Turns out universal public services are significantly cheaper than private counterparts

Spain spends only $2,300 / person to provide high-quality healthcare to everyone as a fundamental right, achieving very high life expectancy of 83.5 years; a full 5 years longer than Americans.

Private, for-profit US system costs $9,500/person for
worse health outcomes.

The UN says countries can achieve very high on the life expectancy index w $8k per capita. With $10k (below current avg GDP) they get high employment, nutrition, social support, democracy & life satisfaction while staying within or near planetary boundaries.

We need to move beyond growth. What's standing in our way is a stubborn ideology based on outdated views that time has proven wrong about what makes for a peaceful, healthy society, and a hodgepodge of failed economic policy experiments & pipe dreams.

In addition to worsening climate chaos, the continued pursuit of growth in our high-income nations is exacerbating inequality & contributing to problems like stress, depression from overwork & lack of sleep, ill health from pollution, diabetes & obesity from processed foods.

GDP is a crap metric for measuring society's welfare. Instead, it's actually a great metric for measuring society's degradation of nature, which we depend on for life & well-being. Given the two are nearly always in lock step, GDP going up is the last thing we want.

Now we have better metrics. I prefer GPI — Genuine Progress Indicator. GPI nets the positive & negative results of economic growth to examine whether or not it has benefited people overall.

investopedia.com/terms/g/gpi.asp

With GDP, economic activity that pollutes counts as an increase. Then, when people are hired to clean up the pollution, that's also economic activity that increases GDP.

GPI decreases with pollution & increases when it's cleaned up, as we want. GPI even includes volunteering!

In the US, the constant focus on GDP has grown that metric steadily. But GPI pretty much peaked in the mid-70s & is kinda on a decline, actually.

(Because sole focus on growing GDP increases inequality, and inequality makes society weaker overall.)

Oops sorry I said US, but grabbed a global chart. Anyway.

Growth as a goal makes no sense to anyone who wants peace & happiness & freedom & democracy, like I think we all do. Our actual goals require clean air, clean water, food security, universal health care, equality, time to care for & connect with one another, and a stable climate.