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by elil17
1032 days ago
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I do think there are ways some economies could grow which would be good for both people and the planet. For example, if agricultural productivity in the worlds poorest countries increased a lot (for example, through improved availability of fertilizer or modern seeds), it could serve to reduce deforestation in those regions by reducing the demand for more farmland. That sort of economic growth would help lift people out of extreme poverty. |
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But there is another very well documented phenomenon (citing your answer to a sibling comment): people's consumption of natural resources, emission of pollutants and overall ecological footprint drastically increases with rising wealth.
This more than makes up for any leveling in population growth. And I want to make clear that I am not against more wealth for people who are starving.
Because another topic is that wealth is not evenly distributed, and mostly fuels excesses and further environmental destruction when inequality is high.
Many people cite statistics claiming that the per-capita emissions (just an exemplary quantity, there's more to the environment than CO2 emissions of course) would be falling in rich western countries over the last years or even decades.
AFAIK, even for "model countries" with low population density and comparatively good environmental legislation, such as Denmark, these numbers are based on basically lying with statistics.
Prime example being the outsourcing of all environmental damage while keeping the gains in the country.
Introductory reading (that's where I took the Denmark example from): https://eeb.org/library/decoupling-debunked/