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"We need to find a way to live well and decrease the GDP" I hear this a lot, please reconsider the position, because as I will try to demonstrate, it implies a pretty big misunderstanding of what the GDP is, especially as it relates to CO2 problems. We can definitely 'increase the GDP' and have higher standards of living, 'consume' even more at the same time. Paradoxically, we could feasibly grow the GDP significantly while standards of living decrease! 'Natural Resources' - some of which are finite, represent a fairly small portion of the GDP. Most of the GPD is in labour, IP, services etc.. Canada, with a high concentration of natural resources, the sector represents about 10% of the economy, for most other nations, it's a lot smaller. Globally, about 2% of the economy is spent on 'natural resource rents' which is roughly royalties and such. [1] We should including agriculture in there as well of course, which is about 1% of GDP in the US. Though many natural resources are in fact 'finite' they don't pose a big existential challenge to the world like CO2. The stuff we want either gets 'more rare' - or - we figure out more advanced ways of getting at it. 'Peak Oil' for example, was supposed to happen 40 years ago, lo and behold, we're getting much smarter at accessing it. Some things are just expensive to get at, and we spend a lot on it, it doesn't necessarily mean it's 'energy intensive'. The economy is pretty magical in terms of how it adapts to substitutes etc. finding replacements, recycling, cutting back on certain more expensive inputs, being more efficient. Case and point: cars, which at least on a unit basis are far more efficient than they were 40 years ago though on the aggregate, offset by how many more miles we drive. But the bulk of the economy isn't really related to 'natural resources' consumption anyhow: better restaurants, faster cars, faster chips, better graphics cards, 'better' social networks, faster internet, speedier checkout, more diverse selection of goods, fine tuned customer service, more accessible financial products, better writing for sitcoms, more energy efficient homes, smart home appliances - most of this isn't fundamentally derived from 'resource extraction'. Yes - there's a correlation - more bodies will mean more water, electricity, fuel in the system that we have, but it's only part of the equation. The shift to Solar Energy would yield a lot less energy output per dollar invested and spent, but guess what? That means more GDP, not less! It literally takes more labour, Engineers, assembly, installation, monitoring coordination ona 'Per Watt' basis, it means more GDP, but less 'surplus' (which is like consumer profit). There's more economic effort in the economy, but possibly less measured output. This might imply a situation where GDP grows but standard of living decrease. But it doesn't have to be that way either. Economies are resilient, farmers grow more and more every year with less and less (though not always sustainably) and we adapt by getting more productivity, using a different input of energy, intelligence, automation etc.. Efficiencies in a lot of sectors has improved quite a lot over time, and there's no reason to believe it will stop. If prices of gas include carbon offsets, and therefore goes way up ... we'll likely see a huge shift from these massive SUVs, into smaller cars as they drive in Europe. For the most part, I don't suggest that would entail a huge decrease in living standards. We may have to use less water, this is entirely feasible, we waste a lot. Less energy - a challenge but feasible. North Americans already use way more than Europeans as well. Canadian homes only 40 years ago were not built to hold heat very well - now we build homes that are 'sealed', with double paned windows that keep the heat in. And not that much material goes into making our silicon chips, computers and such. We do have to use somewhat less of certain resources on he aggregate, and per capita - but whatever happens with climate change, is basically no doubt the economy will grow pretty consistently at least in terms of GDP, and there's a very good chance we don't have to decrease our standard of living either. [1] https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.TOTL.RT.ZS |