The Environmental Dimension
Destroying Climate
Will Capitalism stop when Wall Street is underwater?
Ruining Environment
With this speed of increase in plastic production there will be more plastic than fish in the oceans by 2050
The Rebound Effect - Jevons Paradox
The paradox is that we tend to assume that the more efficiently we use a resource the less of it we will use. This efficiency-for-conservation logic appears correct for most subsets of the economy. But at the level of the whole economy, the reverse is true. These efficiency gains contribute to increasing production and consumption, which increases the extraction of resources and the generation of wastes… Environmental policy focused on efficiency gains does not by itself benefit the environment. Economies grow by developing and deploying increasingly efficient technologies… The real paradox: the ability to use a resource more efficiently makes it both cheaper and more valuable at the same time… In an economy designed to grow [i.e. Capitalism], the Jevons paradox is all but inevitable… The focus on making energy use more efficient is paradoxically worsening the problem [of Climate Change], as efficiency gains facilitate increasing, not decreasing, carbon burning… Collectively limiting ourselves offers [the only] escape from capitalism’s endless loops of efficiency and growth… Limits do not mean reductions or sacrifice but an opportunity to pursue goals other than growth. Efficiency makes growth - Limits make creativity.,, Society can purposefully choose less-efficient production processes, setting the paradox in reverse by [deliberately] constraining the scale of the economy. Bliss (2020)
Sustainability
Affluence drives environmental degradation
For over half a century, worldwide growth in affluence has continuously increased resource use and pollutant emissions far more rapidly than these have been reduced through better technology. The affluent citizens of the world are responsible for most environmental impacts and are central to any future prospect of retreating to safer environmental conditions.
Any transition towards sustainability can only be effective if far-reaching lifestyle changes complement technological advancements. However, existing societies, economies and cultures incite consumption expansion and the structural imperative for growth in competitive market economies inhibits necessary societal change.
Brundtland illusion
Economic externalities
Impacts on a geological scale
Tradegy of Commons
Klein-Alt
Bivirkningsnemda