The End of Growth

Throughout much of human history, growth has been viewed as a good thing. Businesses always want to increase top line sales and bottom line income year over year. Mayors want to increase the number of businesses, jobs and housing in their towns, farmers want to increase acreage and yields to produce more food, countries are proud of their increased population, and so on. This has worked as humans progressed from hunter-gatherers to farmers to industrial societies, gradually filling up the planet with humans, and consuming the incredible gifts of natural resources that were bequeathed to us. Particularly during the last few decades, the mantra has been, “Grow or die”. However, most thoughtful people have always recognized that Earth is a finite planet, with limited space and with defined quantities of natural resources. Now in 2023, we are a planet inhabited by 8 billion humans, and we have already consumed a significant portion of Earth’s readily available resources. Most of this growth and rampant consumption has occurred in the last several decades. Can growth continue forever?

Compound growth has been called the most powerful force in the world. Compound growth continuing over time is called exponential growth. This is a marvelous thing for your 401k but not a good thing for the planet. Let me explain:

If you invest $10,000 dollars and it grows at 3.5%/year, using the “Rule of 70” (a good approximation), the money will double in 20 years, and double again in another 20 years, giving you $40,000 dollars at the end of 40 years. This type of exponential growth is good news.

On the other hand, the human population has more than quadrupled during the last 100 years, and now stands at 8 billion people. Over the last 5 years the annual growth rate has been about 1%/year. This rate of growth sounds small and innocuous. However, if this rate of only 1%/year were to continue, we will have 16 billion people in 70 years, 32 billion people in 140 years and over 1 trillion people in 490 years . . . well you get the idea. I think it is clear to most people that even a planet with 8 billion people has become a real mess. This type of uncontrolled exponential growth is a disaster. Humans are changing the climate, removing the forests, polluting the oceans, and causing the extinction of many other species — — so how could adding any more people possibly be a good idea?

Some people may think, “Well, who cares? Seventy years is a long time.” To those I suggest that we recall that the Earth is about 4,543,000,000 years old, and nature has been creating the web of life on this planet for the last few billion years. Homo sapiens evolved about 300,000 years ago. For humanity to strip the planet of resources and destroy most other species within a couple of hundred years is stupidity in its most extreme form. If the population continues to grow, it is clear that human civilization will break down at some point, and most other species will be collateral damage. So population growth must stop — — this is inevitable. Recently Elon Musk made news when he tweeted that, “population collapse due to low birth rates is a much bigger risk to civilization than global warming”. This is complete nonsense, and completely backwards. We should all celebrate the slight decline in the population of China. We should also celebrate the declines in population and birth rates in Japan and other developed countries. The entire human species needs to have a strategic plan to stop population growth, and indeed reduce population on our planet.

The same can be said for the growth in the use of energy, and raw materials. Even if we stop growing the population at 8 billion people, if these people continue to use resources at the current rate, or at a positive growth rate, we will quickly break the planet. The rates that humans have been using everything are not at all sustainable. We must reduce the amount of beef that we eat, the amount of fish we pull for the ocean, the quantity of cobalt that we consume, and so on with virtually everything that we use. There are only so many elements in the periodic table. Everything tangible in the universe is made of these same elements. Some of the elements are very common, and some are rare. We have been gobbling up Earth’s resources at enormous unsustainable rates, and we have no strategic plan for what we will do as the easy-to-reach resources are depleted. Likewise, Earth provided a huge gift to humans in the form of fossil fuels (coal, oil and natural gas). Hundreds of millions of years worth of plant and animal growth and decay, coupled with tectonic plate movement, created huge underground deposits of these fossil fuels. This gift of fossil fuels is a one time deal. In 1850 the first tiny oil refinery was built in Pennsylvania. About the same time, coal use was really ramping up, and in the mid 1900’s, natural gas usage began ramping up. These remarkable and efficient fuels, pulled out of the ground nearly for “free” drove the industrial revolution, and the subsequent explosion of improving lifestyles, food availability and consumer goods. Nearly everything we have accumulated in the last hundred years or so, we achieved due to the availability of this one-time gift of fossil fuels. Of course it is understandable that no one really wants to give up all of the marvelous things fossil fuels have allowed. Populations in the underdeveloped countries would also love their turn to rampantly utilize fossil fuels. Unfortunately, the party is almost over. At currently projected rates, easily accessible gas and oil will be gone in 50 to 100 years. Meanwhile, if we don’t stop using them much sooner, the planet will overheat (and maybe already has reached a tipping point) as the massive quantities of hydrocarbons are burned to form CO2. Climate change is not a guess, but a certainty.

It has become popular for some groups, particularly on the right, to try to debunk the physics of climate change, and to ignore the limited availability of resources. Recently, Wyoming has promoted a bill that would ban new electric vehicles by 2035. Meanwhile, Fox News has been ranting about potential restrictions (for health reasons and climate reasons) on gas stoves. This is so silly. Should we have a strategy to phase out uses of fossil fuels and other critical resources, or should we just let them run out and act surprised when this happens? Either way, whether we plan for it or not, fossil fuel cars and gas stoves will be gone in the relatively near future. There will simply not be enough easily accessible fossil fuels left, and what is left will be used for applications where their value added is highest (examples could include segments of the chemical industry, some types of transportation, generators, some power plants near their end of life, and so on).

So the answer is yes, the growth mentality that we have enjoyed for the last century must come to an end. Humans will need to learn to live and prosper in a no growth, or negative growth (shrinking) society. This means fewer humans, a slower rate of use of resources, more recycling, conservation of everything, better efficiency in our use of energy and natural resources, and more respect for and harmony with nature. Ultimately, it will mean a smaller population, with each person using much less energy, less food, and less consumer goods. With proper planning and strategies, this can lead to a wonderful and robust future, and the transition can be accomplished in ways to minimize the pain and make the best use of remaining resources. If humans continue to focus on other things, continue to promote growth, and never plan for a transition, the future will be frightening and chaotic. I truly hope humankind chooses the wise path, and devises orderly global strategies and plans for this, the most important transition in humans’ 300,000 year history. But a betting man would assume greed, ignorance and foolishness will continue to reign supreme. Either way, the answer will be known soon — — perhaps to our grandchildren or great grandchildren.

I encourage everyone to read the brilliant book by Thomas Murphy: Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet. This is available free on line at https://escholarship.org/uc/energy_ambitions or in hard copy at Lulu.com.