Re: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2248614,00.html
Monbiot assumes that the world's population will stop growing in 2100 at 10 billion or 50% bigger than 6.7 billion in 2008.
He then assumes that the economy will grow at 3% (a doubling time of 23 years) With that assumption, he states that the economy would double 4 times in the 92 years between 2008 and 2100 and therefore be 1600% bigger than now.
Using these assumptions, Monbiot says that the population will only grow by 50% by 2100 and the economy will grow by 1600% by 2100 and that therefore "economic growth this century could be 32 times as big an environmental issue as population growth".
Monbiot neglects that population growth is a factor in economic growth.
Monbiot neglects that the formula for Economic Growth factor = Population Growth factor * Consumption Per Capita Growth factor so if PGf is 2 (population size doubles) and CPCGf is 2 (consumption per capita size doubles) then EGf is 4 (economic size quadruples)
Monbiot uses the UN prediction that the human population could stop growing at 10 billion but his prediction that the economy could grow to 16 times its present size is absurd. For his economic prediction he has no source. He merely says: "Many economists predict that the global economy will grow by about 3% a year this century". This is preposterous.
For Monbiot to actually believe the world's environment could sustain a 3% economic growth for the rest of this century is absurd. The earth simply cannot provide 16 times more resources and absorb 16 times more waste for humans than it does in 2008 by 2100. In fact, footprintnetwork.org says we are already consuming resources 30% faster than the earth can produce them by exhausting resources that were produced in years past.
Monbiot says: "In the rich nations we consume three times as much meat and four times as much milk per capita as the people of the poor world" yet he accuses us of creating a "stick with which immigrants can be beaten" when we refer to the growing ecological problem of immigration from "the poor world" to "rich nations".
I would like to ask Monbiot:
What makes you think that we could grow the economy 16-fold by the end of the century?
Brishen Hoff
Thursday, January 31, 2008
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4 comments:
Heh, Brishen, we're on the same page with this one. Because I didn't want to take much time with the post I wrote a post about Monbiot's article last night myself. I focused only on his mistake of comparing the product in the equation (economic growth) with one of the factors (population growth). So I'm glad to see you hit the other big problem - his assumption of 1600% growth in the economy by 2100.
I was surprised at Monbiot, though I've noticed he never did write previously about population.
I should have proofread that better. I meant, that I'd written the post, and because I didn't want to take much time with it I focused only on the mistake... :-/
Interesting that I didn't read Monbiot that way, at all.
I don't think he's assuming the economy can grow 16-fold by 2100. He's saying that based on the claims of economists that the economy will grow by 3% each year (it is the economist's hope that it will do that today, as well)the economy will grow 16-fold.
And while Monbiot may have made a mistake comparing EG with one of the factors, P, it doesn't really matter. He's correct from the perspective that addressing economic growth is far more important than addressing just population.
In other words we could focus our efforts solely on population, ignoring per-capita consumption and still be worse off.
Addressing economic growth must take priority over virtually everything else precisely because it would deal with both population increase and increase in per-capita consumption, the two factors that facilitate it.
Well, Neil posted the same comment on my blog. Please see my response here.
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