| Finance Friday – December 2, 2016
Dec 02, 2016 07:30 am | Katherine Collins
And Now for Some (Pretty) Good News….
Here is the carbon intensity of the US economy – emissions per $/GDP. One of the main premises behind the Limits to Growth argument (not really an argument; it’s mathematically true) is that eventually we run out of stuff.
Unless.
Unless the growth is of a sort that does not require more stuff. Growth of spirit, of culture, of human affection…. these are pretty stuff-neutral, but GDP has always been a tough one. However, the chart above shows that at least we are creating less pollution per unit of GDP in the US (and in most developed countries) – about half as much over 35 years.
It’s not enough (yet), of course – the curve needs to accelerate towards zero, and other countries need to avoid ever getting so high in the first place, in order for the global math to work. But still, the environmental cost of GDP growth is not a fixed formula.
This is a glimmer of hope. It’s a variant of some of the arguments put forth byTim Jackson in his great book, Prosperity without Growth. What if we can all prosper economically, without the true cost that used to come with it?
* This data is from the amazing Shift Project Data Portal, where you can sort and chart all sorts of energy and climate data to your heart’s content.
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