Ted Trainer

Everybody knows the planet is running into alarming problems, but I want to argue that very few understand that these cannot be solved unless we abandon the current obsessions with affluent "living standards" and economic growth.

For decades the argument for this conclusion has been overwhelmingly convincing, but it has been almost impossible to get people or governments to attend to it.

There are two major faults built into the foundations of our society.

Fault 1: Sustainability

The way of life we have in rich countries is grossly unsustainable. There is no possibility of the "living standards" of all people on earth ever rising to rich world per capita levels of consumption. Yet most people have no idea how far we are beyond a sustainable levels of resource use and environmental impact. Consider just two basic aspects of our situation.

• "Footprint analysis" indicates that the amount of productive land required to provide one person in Australia with food, water, energy and settlement area is about 7- 8 ha. The US figure is closer to 12 ha. If 9 billion people were to live as Australians do, approximately 70 billion ha of productive land would be required. However the total amount available on the planet is only in the region of 8 billion ha. In other words our rich world footprint is about 10 times as big as it will ever be possible for all people to have.

• Atmospheric scientists are now generally indicating that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere must be kept below 450 ppm, and probably 400 ppm, to prevent global temperature rising more than 2 degrees. Even a 400 ppm level runs a worrying risk (9 – 16%) of exceeding this rise. (Baer and Mastrandrea, 2006.) These atmospheric concentrations mean annual carbon emissions must be cut from the present roughly 8 GT/y to around 1.5 GT/y. For a world population of 9 billion this would mean a limit of 170 kg a year per person, around 3% of the present Australian per capita rate of emission. This means we must almost completely abandon use of fossil fuels.

The point which such figures make glaringly obvious is that it is totally impossible for all people to have anything like the "living standards" we have taken for granted in rich countries like Australia. Clearly we are not just a little beyond sustainable levels of resource demand and ecological impact – we are far beyond sustainable levels. Rich world ways, systems and living standards" are grossly unsustainable, and can never be extended to all the world’s people. Few seem to grasp the magnitude of the overshoot. We must face up to dramatic reductions in our present per capita levels of production and consumption. (For the detailed limits case see Note 1.)

Economic growth

The main worry is not the present levels of resource use and ecological impact, it is the levels we will rise to given the obsession with constantly increasing levels of production. The supreme goal in all countries is to raise incomes, "living standards" and the GDP as much as possible, constantly and without any notion of a limit. That is the most important social goal is economic growth.

If we assume a) a 3% p.a. economic growth, b) a population of 9 billion, c) all the world’s people rising to the "living standards" we in the rich world would have in 2070 given 3% growth until then, the total volume of world economic output would be 60 times as great as it is now.

So even though the present levels of production and consumption are grossly unsustainable the determination to have continual increase in income and economic output will multiply these many times in coming decades.

Top 

But what about technical advance?

Such enormous multiples rule out any possibility that technical advance can enable us to continue the pursuit of growth and affluence while greater energy efficiency, recycling effort, pollution control etc. deal with the resulting resource and ecological impacts.

A crucial assumption made by those who believe radical change will not be required is that renewable energy sources can be substituted for fossil fuels. There is a strong argument that this is not correct. For instance even very optimistic assumptions would not make it possible for global biomass production to meet more than about 10% of present world liquid fuel demand. (The issue is discussed in detail in Trainer, 2007.)

Fault 2: It is a grossly unjust society

We in rich countries could not have anywhere near our present "living standards" if we were not taking far more than our fair share of world resources. Our per capita consumption of items such as petroleum is around 17 times that of the poorest half of the world’s people. The rich 1/5 of the world’s people are consuming around 3/4 of the resources produced.

This grotesque injustice is primarily due to the fact that the global economy operates on market principles. In a market need is totally irrelevant and ignored; things go mostly to those who are richer, because they can offer to pay more for them. Thus we in rich countries get almost all of the scarce oil and timber traded, while billions of people in desperate need get none.

Even more importantly, the market system explains why Third World development is so very inappropriate to the needs of Third World people. What is developed is not what is needed; it is always what will make most profit for the few people with capital to invest. Thus there is development of export plantations and cosmetic factories but not development of farms and firms in which poor people can produce for themselves the things they need.

These are the reasons why conventional development can be regarded as a form of plunder. The Third World has been developed into a state whereby its land and labour benefit the rich, not Third World people. Rich world "living standards" could not be anywhere near as high as they are if the global economy was just.

Conclusions on our situation

These considerations of sustainability and global economic justice show that our predicament is extreme and cannot be solved without enormous and radical change in some fundamental elements of this society. There is no possibility of having an ecologically sustainable, just, peaceful and morally satisfactory society if we allow market forces and the profit motive to be the major determinant of what happens, or if we seek economic growth and ever-higher "living standards".

Many people who claim to be concerned about the fate of the planet refuse to face up to this.

The Required Alternative: The Simpler Way

The basic principles for a satisfactory society must be:-

Some of the elements within The Simpler Way are: voluntary community working bees; committees; town meetings; many productive commons in the town (fruit, timber, bamboo, herbs…); many small firms; ponds, animals, farms, forests throughout settlements; participatory democracy via town assemblies; neighbourhood workshops; many roads dug up and replaced by "edible landscapes" providing free fruit and nuts; being able to get to decentralised workplaces by bicycle or on foot; having to work for money only one or two days a week; no unemployment; living with many artists and crafts people; strong community - that is, small communities making many of the important development and administration decisions for their areas.

Simple traditional alternative technologies will be quite sufficient for many purposes, especially for producing houses, furniture, food and pottery. Much production will take place via hobbies and crafts, small farms and family enterprises. However modern/high technologies can be used extensively where appropriate, including IT. The Simpler Way will free many more resources for purposes like medical research than are devoted to these at present.

Local control - There could be many small private firms, and market forces could have a role, but the economy must be under firm social control, via local participatory arrangements. Thus local town meetings would make the important economic decisions in terms of what’s best for the town and its people and environment.

Because we will be highly dependent on our local ecosystems and on our social cohesion, e.g., for most water and food, and for effective committees and working bees, all will have a very strong incentive to focus on what is best for the town, rather than on what is best for themselves as competing individuals. Cooperation and conscientiousness will therefore tend to be automatically rewarded, whereas in the consumer society competitive individualism is required and rewarded.

Advocates of the Simpler Way believe that its many benefits and sources of satisfaction would provide a much higher quality of life than most people experience in consumer society. (For a detailed discussion of The Simpler Way see Note 3.)

The chances of achieving such a huge and radical transition are remote, but the crucial question is, given our situation, can a sustainable just society be conceived other than as some form of Simpler Way.

Over the past 20 years many small groups throughout the world have begun to build settlements and systems more or less of the kind required, many of them explicitly as examples intended to persuade the mainstream that there is an alternative that is sustainable, just and attractive. The fate of the planet will depend on how effective this movement becomes in the next two decades. (On how we might make the transition see Note 4.)

1. http://socialwork.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/06b-Limits-Long.html

2. http://socialwork.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/D100.RE.cant.save.25.7.o6.html

3. http://socialwork.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/12b-The-Alt-Sust-Soc-Lng.html

4. http://socialwork.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/D75.ThoughtsonTrans.html

Baer, P, and M. Mastrandrea, (2006), High Stakes; Designing Emissions Pathways to Reduce the Risk of Dangerous Climate Change, Institute of Public Policy Research, Nov. www.ippr.olrg. See Rising Tide Australia; 2007, http://risingtide.org.au/cleancoal

For detailed material on these issues see The Simpler Way web site, http://socialwork.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/