Anti-Growth. Yes, It's Possible.

“The only thing we know how to do is grow. Grow harder; grow faster. More than last year. Growth, all the way up to the cliff and over. No other possibility.” Richard Powers, The Overstory

I recently re-read the 1972 book The Limits to Growth. The book was published by the think tank the Club of Rome, whose publications have been translated into 30 languages.

There has been an immense interest in the topic, and there still is. The message continues to be timely despite its data being decades old. The researchers behind the book examine five basic factors: population increase, agricultural production, nonrenewable resource depletion, indus- trial output, and pollution generation. The interaction between these factors limits growth.

They demonstrate that unless we take seriously that there are indeed limits to growth that development will collapse before 2070 — a collapse of our economy, environment, and population. They call this scenario the “business as usual” scenario. In other words, if we keep drawing on the world’s resources faster than they can be restored, we will reach a point of shortage and collapse.

Fortunately, the business as usual scenario is not the only plausible scenario presented in the book. The researchers propose 12 different scenarios, which demonstrate different possible patterns as well as environmental outcomes of world-development over two centuries from 1900 to 2100.

They reach the conclusion that there—at their present time—is still room to grow safely while examining longer-term options.

However, in 1992 a 20-year update was made to the book and the book Beyond the Limits was published. A different plot is presented here: humanity is moving deeper and deeper into unsustainable territory.There is no longer space to grow safely.

Ten years later the study Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update was published, and the conclusion was drawn that humanity is now dangerously in a state of overshoot. In the 30-year update the 12 scenarios for a better future were reduced to 10, and most of these scenarios result in overshoot and collapse. The world as we know it will most likely cave into pollution, food shortage, over-population, economic inequality, and eventually collapse. At the time of writing this it has been nearly 50 years since Limits to Growth was published.

Where are we now? In a state of overshoot overdrive?

Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update suggests three different ways of dealing with over usage of resources and pollutive emissions beyond sustainable limits.

The first one involves disguising and denying the signals of over-shoot by making use of air conditioners to bring relief from global warming, or by shipping toxic waste for disposal to distant regions, something already being done on a large scale.

The second way is to make use of technical fixes like the development of less polluting cars, electric vehicles, or carbon filters. This is common today and continues to enable consumers by encouraging “green consumption,” and legitimising continuous growth.

The third way of dealing with over pollution and shortage of natural resources is the only one that looks into the underlying causes instead of just treating the symptoms. This way involves acknowledging that our current socioeconomic system has overshot its limits and must be altered.

In order for this scenario to be realised, a societal need to pursue goals that are more satisfying and sustainable than material growth must arise. The only thing that would really make a difference and could change the path toward overshoot and ecological collapse would be if we all decided to moderate our material consumption. It is our culture and our mindset that constitute the biggest obstacle when it comes to turning around the state of affairs.

Now, this last, important, take away is interlinked with the importance of slowing down consumption, and not just slowing it down a little bit, but slowing it down radically. We need a counter-movement that can surpass and alter the unsustainable growth or “more wants more” model that governs our late-modern societal norms.

We need to cherish voluntary simplicity.

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This post was previously published on medium.com.

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