Latest / Saving the World From Bad Ideas / Bad Idea #36 "No infinite growth on a finite planet" with Adam Dorr

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Bad Idea #36 "No infinite growth on a finite planet" with Adam Dorr · Saving the World From Bad Ideas

0:00
So it's impossible to have infinite growth on a finite
0:03
planet. Well, sure.
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But the reality is that that's not what we're actually talking
0:08
about. And you do have to dive into
0:10
each one of the words in that phrase to see, to see where it
0:13
all goes wrong. Growth is not about having more
0:16
stuff. That is not what we care about.
0:18
What we care about is value. Now, goods and services in the
0:22
economic sense, they deliver value.
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Then the second part I think that's most important to unpack
0:28
there is this idea of infinite. We're never talking about
0:32
infinite. That is a straw man.
0:33
Infinite growth just throws the baby out with the bathwater.
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But that's not what we're talking about here.
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The question is, can we have more growth of valued creation?
0:45
Welcome to saving the world from bad ideas.
0:47
I'm Mark Linus, and I've had a few bad ideas in my time.
0:50
I used to go out in the night time to destroy GMO crops, and I
0:53
also posed nuclear power. But then when I looked at the
0:56
science, I found I got it wrong. Oops.
0:59
I've learned the hard way that none of us are right all the
1:01
time. So now I'm here to challenge the
1:03
assumptions that we all too often take for granted because
1:05
the future depends on us getting it right.
1:08
Hello and welcome to saving the world from bad ideas.
1:12
Today I'm with Adam Dorr, who's Director of research at Rethink
1:16
X, which if you haven't come across it, it's a not-for-profit
1:20
research organization that focuses on how new technologies
1:24
will disrupt business as usual and change society.
1:27
And I have to say, I think their work is both visionary and
1:31
fascinating. So I'm particularly excited to
1:33
have Adam on the show to talk about his new book.
1:36
Welcome, Adam. Thanks, Mark.
1:37
It's great to be here. So your book Adam is beyond
1:41
perfect for the show. This is called Saving the world
1:45
from Bad ideas, and you've got pretty much this exact thing as
1:48
your book title. Well, subtitle at least.
1:50
So the, that idea, I think is what you call, and in fact, you
1:55
call this a truly terrible idea in your book is degrowth.
1:58
And the book's called the degrowth delusion, dispelling 1
2:02
of history's truly terrible ideas.
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And it's out now. And I have to say I can't
2:07
recommend it highly enough. I read the whole thing.
2:09
I think, as I mentioned to you, Adam, in an e-mail, I read the
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whole thing in one day and I really do think it's going to be
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one of the most important books of the decade.
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So you know, well done on doing this and.
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Thank you so much. No, well, this isn't about, you
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know, scoring points or owning the other side.
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You know, you write in the preface quoting it.
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Unfortunately, truly terrible ideas don't die out on their
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own. They must be actively refuted,
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Their spell must be broken, and their adherents offered a better
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path forward. End Quote.
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So that's what we're going to do today.
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Well, what we'll do the first part, which is refuting
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degrowth, and then we'll discuss the better path forward, which
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you propose in the second-half of your book in the next
2:50
episode. So we'll do this as a kind of
2:51
double bill and to get right into it.
2:54
I mean, there's just, there's so much to talk about here before
2:56
we get to the specifics of of D growth.
2:59
I thought it might be useful actually for you to give us a
3:02
definition of what you call a truly terrible idea, which has
3:05
to have initial caps. It's the TTI and then then we
3:08
can look at a couple of examples.
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So, so give us give us the the shape of a truly terrible idea.
3:13
Sure. Well, so it truly.
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There are all sorts of bad ideas in the world, as you well know,
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and it's right there in the name of with your show.
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But I think some ideas are worse than just bad, right?
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I mean, I mean, it's a bad idea to cut your own hair.
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It's a bad idea to get a tattoo when you're drunk.
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The world's full of bad ideas, things that that seemed good at
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the time and in hindsight. You should do those ones.
3:37
Actually, you're right. Sorry, Carry.
3:41
On But truly terrible ideas are worse than that.
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And I I lay out five criteria that sort of spell out what
3:50
defines a truly terrible idea. And first of all is that they
3:55
come from good intentions. They're not I'll intentioned
3:57
people don't set out with with bad motives, twirling their
4:01
moustache like an evil villain with these ideas.
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They they genuinely believe that they're virtuous.
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Second is that truly terrible ideas make huge promises.
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They they promise the moon. They promise they're going to
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solve problems that have vexed humanity forever, that they're
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going to deliver amazing benefits. 3rd, they sound great
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in theory. Everything looks good on paper
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for a truly terrible idea. That's one of the things that's
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so pernicious about it is that it seems like a very good idea.
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The fourth quality is that they're contagious, especially
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to people who've never been exposed before.
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So young people, for example, are vulnerable to being infected
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by a truly terrible idea. And lastly, and perhaps most
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importantly, truly I truly terrible ideas don't just not
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work. They don't simply fail.
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They are worse than that. They catastrophically backfire.
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In other words, what they actually achieve is the
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diametric opposite of what they promise, and it's that
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backfiring that makes them truly terrible, I think.
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You, you give a couple of examples of truly terrible ideas
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in the book. And the first actually is, is
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racism, which is an odd choice because like, you know,
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obviously racism is, is evil. I mean, the idea of, you know,
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hating people because of the colour of their skin is, is, is,
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you know, clearly dumb and immoral.
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The the other one that you discuss at some length is is
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communism, which I think is is is more interesting in one way
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because of course it has that grand, you know, good intentions
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aspect to it. It promises equality and an ends
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to class exploitation. But somehow, you know, it
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catastrophically backfires and always tends always leads to
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mass death and totalitarian dictatorship.
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So give us give us a bit more about some of the truly terrible
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ideas you you you talk about in the book.
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Well, just very quickly on racism, it's it's important to
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remember that throughout history, racism was the
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universal norm in all cultures. So it's only with the benefit of
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hindsight, the benefit of wisdom and knowledge hard won in the
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21st century, that we can celebrate the success of widely
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dispelling 1 of history's truly terrible ideas.
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But prior to about 1950, everyone everywhere thought
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racism was perfectly fine. And it wasn't because they were
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all evil. It wasn't because all of our
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ancestors were were dreadfully villainous people, it's because
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they were taken in by a truly terrible idea.
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So racism has a number of these qualities.
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It makes promises that are ostensibly beneficial and that
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that again, that that seems alien to our present viewpoint
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because we've been inoculated against this terrible idea.
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And so we're not sold by claims like, well, it's a great idea
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because it's going to secure your society, it's going to
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protect your family. It's going to preserve your way
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of life, your culture, your traditions, and so, so forth.
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We don't buy that anymore about racism, but that was its
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original intention and its grand promises and so forth.
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So we that's an example of a truly terrible idea that we've
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managed to largely, not completely, but largely
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overcome. But for other ideas, communism
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is one of them. We haven't made that much
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progress, even though it's deservedly in the same category.
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And then a few others, just to quickly mention some
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protectionism is an idea. Economic protectionism is a
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truly terrible idea because it meets all those criteria.
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Censorship is another example. Simple prohibition is another
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example, perhaps very recently. Safety ISM is an example.
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This is something that's a truly terrible idea that's risen to
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prominence just in the last generation or two.
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And unfortunately it it meets all those criteria.
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Sadly, it backfires. We make our children, for
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example, more fragile, more brittle and more vulnerable if
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we try to overprotect them, for example.
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So there are a number of these truly terrible ideas and
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degrowth is unfortunately in that company.
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You know, I've always hated communism, even when I was a
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communist kind of because, you know, it's that obvious thing of
8:05
every time it gets tried, it leads to it leads to immense
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amounts of suffering. It seems to have this
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fundamental quality to it. And yet if you challenge any,
8:13
any communist about that, they'll say, well, that wasn't
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that wasn't the real thing. It wasn't the properly and which
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I think is called, it's called the No true Scotsman fallacy,
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right. This, which is like, if I can
8:24
try and explain this properly, if somebody says, you know,
8:29
Scotsman would never put sugar on his porridge, right, And
8:32
someone will Angus over there as a Scotsman and he's just put
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sugar on his porridge. Well, no true Scotsman would put
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sugar in his porridge. So especially moving the goal
8:38
posts and saying, well, that's not a true implementation of
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communism. The fact that every single time
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it's ever been tried has led to mass death and totalitarian
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dictatorship. And you know, the same, I guess
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the same is true for all of these.
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I mean, they're based really on, on these kinds of ease, sort of
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simplistic fallacies, aren't they?
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That's right. Yes, they're the fallacious
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thinking is is a hallmark of these truly terrible ideas.
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And again, I mean they superficially they seem
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convincing. The rationalizations, the
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rationale seems to hold without deep critical examination.
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It's not immediately obvious where they're logical
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inconsistencies or or false presumptions are are hidden.
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And so it's easy to be taken in by them.
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And now this is another thing that's important to to
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emphasize, I think is that is that these ideas are contagious.
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And we shouldn't be blaming individuals or even entire
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communities or societies for being taken in by truly terrible
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ideas. That's what they do.
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They are very viral in that sense.
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So it's not the individuals who who are to blame here.
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It's it's very easy to be swept along by the properties, by
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those qualities that make a truly terrible idea terrible.
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And that is why it's so important to do the hard work of
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standing up against them and refuting them.
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Yeah, and protectionism is another interesting example
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actually, because it's now, it used to be on the left and you
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know, now it's really on the, on the far right.
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And it's pretty much a hallmark of Trump sort of international
10:03
economic policy. And it's based, I think on, on
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the 00 sum thinking, isn't it? That if, if they're, if they're
10:09
richer, then I must necessarily be poorer and then vice versa.
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So the, the idea that by trading we will all become better off is
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actually, I think you say it's a sort of 2nd order benefit.
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So it's actually quite counterintuitive, isn't it?
10:22
That's exactly right. Yeah.
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And so Trump, Trump has this metric of like trade imbalance.
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Well, clearly that's China having, you know, trillions more
10:29
sum of our money in their current account.
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So clearly we're poor as a result.
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But that's I mean, it's, it's like it's almost anti capitalist
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in its in its in how fundamentally it misunderstands
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economics. Yeah, that's exactly right.
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And it it really you've put your finger right on the fundamental
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concept. And this is one that we see in a
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number of different truly terrible ideas and bad ideas as
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well, which is this non 0 versus 0 sum thinking.
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And those are those are fancy words for saying win, win
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situations versus win lose situations.
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And, and when you frame a situation as a win and lose,
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then you're stuck with trade-offs, you're stuck with,
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with unhealthy competition and conflict.
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And it it we've learned and it hasn't been easy, but we've
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learned that win, win situations are worth pursuing and are worth
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maintaining because they do deliver benefits.
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So broadly, cooperation, openness, and making sure that
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the sum is greater than its parts.
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These, these are, these are not totally obvious, not intuitive
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ideas. 0 sum versus non 0 but they're nevertheless it it it's
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essential to to all of civilization.
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We would not have civilization if we weren't able to achieve
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some non 0 some win win thinking.
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But so that's a great form of fallacious thinking to keep an
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eye out for, for truly terrible and just bad ideas all around.
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Yeah, I'm eternally grateful for having done economics at a level
11:59
actually as well as history in English because I learned about
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the principle of comparatory advantage and how that works
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from trading relationships. And because it's so counter,
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it's so unintuitive. I think it's actually was one of
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the valuable lessons I've ever had.
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But now let's move on and talk about D growth specifically.
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But let's you know, let's be clear that we're not, you know,
12:17
you're not straw manning it. So describe for those who don't
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know, the essential tenets of D growth, you know, as fairly as
12:24
possible what it's actually what the proposal actually is.
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And then we can get into, you know, obviously what the
12:30
contradictions are and also what, but why it's also so
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appealing to so many people. Well, sure.
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So they're really, they're really two different ways to
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look at degrowth. On the one hand, there is an
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academic intellectual circle that freights degrowth with an
12:46
entire ideologies worth of thinking and presumptions and,
12:50
and rationalizations and theory and modeling and so forth.
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And so that's pretty standard that that there will be a set of
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meanings around the term degrowth that is richer and
13:00
deeper and more esoteric in the Academy than among the wider
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public. And that degrowth ideology
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that's more academic version has risen to prominence over the
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last 30 years. It it's influence is now
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bleeding into mainstream environmental discourse and
13:16
general discourse. So that's the the first sense of
13:19
of degrowth and it's most strident, it's most extreme
13:23
adherence. They're really pursuing A
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radical anti capitalism social and political reform agenda and
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it's only masquerading. It's only using the environment
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and sustainability as a means to an end.
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The environmental benefits are not the ultimate end in itself.
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That's important to understand. Now we'll, we'll get to, we'll
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get to that in more detail, but the, the tell us about, about,
13:47
about the critique because there's a, there's a kind of
13:49
grain of truth actually at the heart of most.
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Absolutely, absolutely. That's that's, that's right.
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And and so it's, it's really in the second meaning this more,
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this more widespread popular meaning that we see the
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legitimacy of degrowth. It's why it's superficially
14:03
sensible. And that is the ancient idea
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going back thousands of years, that if humanity is too large in
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number, which there are too many of us having too many things,
14:16
doing too many things, then that is going to pose, that is going
14:20
to impose an unsustainable footprint on, on the earth, on
14:25
natural resources. And that is really quite
14:28
sensible. If there are too many people
14:31
having too many things, doing too many things, and that has a
14:34
footprint and the footprint is not sustainable, well then where
14:37
does that lead? And that superficial logic seems
14:42
unassailable. It seems almost like a
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tautology, like it's self evidently true.
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And so it's not immediately obvious why that the aspect of
14:50
the the sort of more general idea of degrowth is valid.
14:54
Yeah, and that's summarized in this, this phrase you often hear
14:57
about we can't have infinite growth on a, on a finite planet
15:00
or infinite growth is the ideology of the cancer cell.
15:02
I think I read that somewhere as well.
15:04
So you know that that superficially seems, you know,
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as you say, it's a tautology. It's it's a, it's a truth in, in
15:11
how it's written. So how could that possibly be
15:13
wrong? So let's pick apart that phrase.
15:16
So it's impossible to have infinite growth on a finite
15:19
planet. Well, sure.
15:21
But the reality is that that's not what we're actually talking
15:24
about. And you do have to dive into
15:27
each one of the words in that phrase to see, to see where it
15:29
all goes wrong. So the the first part to to
15:32
understand is that is what growth actually means.
15:36
OK. Growth is not about having more
15:38
stuff. That is not what we care about.
15:41
What we care about is value. Now, goods and services in the
15:45
economic sense, they deliver value to us.
15:48
That is how we obtain value in the material sense at least,
15:52
which isn't all of life, but it's an essential, an essential
15:55
part. We're not talking about the
15:57
growth of more stuff. We're talking about the growth
15:59
of value. And that is where degrowth goes
16:02
wrong right out of the gate. Is it misunderstands the basics
16:05
of, of the, of the conversation here.
16:08
So, for example, when we replaced horses with
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automobiles, we we weren't in the situation where where the
16:18
entire world was going to have infinite growth of horses and
16:21
cover the entire planet in knee deep in horse manure.
16:24
That was never on the cards. That was never possible.
16:27
But we didn't use horses in a way that is inextricable from
16:32
their side effects. We were using horses to do work
16:34
and for transportation. And when we found better ways to
16:37
get that same value, the side effects disappeared along with
16:41
the old way of doing things. So when we when we adopted
16:44
automobiles, we stopped having horse manure as a problem.
16:47
Now, yes, other problems came along, but you exchange better
16:50
problems for worse problems. That's what progress is.
16:54
OK, that's the first piece. It's just it's fundamentally
16:56
misunderstanding what growth is. Then the second part, I think
17:00
that's most important to unpack there is this idea of infinite.
17:05
We're never talking about infinite.
17:06
That is a straw man. That is a canard, right?
17:10
So infinite, of course. Well, if you leap to Infinity,
17:13
then of course you're going to run into troubles.
17:14
But nobody's talking about infinite growth.
17:18
And so it's when you dial back the hyperbole of the rhetoric
17:22
and you rephrase it in a much more sensible grounded terms of,
17:25
well, can we have more growth than we currently have up to
17:30
some limit, then that becomes an imminently debatable question.
17:35
Infinite growth just throws the baby out with the bathwater.
17:38
But that's not what we're talking about here.
17:40
The question is, can we have more growth of value creation?
17:45
And the answer is very obviously yes, of course we can.
17:48
It's but it's going to take progress.
17:50
It's going to take innovation. There's, there's a lot of stuff
17:53
that gets conflated here, isn't there?
17:55
I mean, that's right. Stuff is conflated with with
17:58
value and growth, as you say. And actually we had in, in in
18:01
fairly early episode of the, of this show, we had George Monbiot
18:05
on this was in season 1. And he talked about the, you
18:10
know, the modern capitalist economy as being fundamentally
18:12
extractive. I think he gave this example of
18:14
the island of Madeira where, you know, the colonists went in and
18:17
they cut down all the trees for sugar and they imported slaves.
18:19
And then eventually, you know, the whole system collapses and
18:22
then they move the, the frontier elsewhere.
18:24
So, you know, in, in his worldview, I think capitalism
18:27
is, is fundamentally extractive and therefore doomed to
18:31
collapse. And it sounds to me like you're
18:33
disagreeing with that. Well, sure, there's no question
18:36
that this is a valid perspective and and critique our current
18:40
system and for you know, all of human history up until this
18:43
point. So 10,000 plus years we have
18:46
lived in a predominantly extractive regime that is the
18:50
paradigm, but that is changing. And the only thing that changes
18:54
that is the advancement of knowledge and in particular
18:57
practical knowledge know how that's the only way we learn how
19:01
to do things better. In other words, how to how to
19:04
create and maintain value in better ways, in ways that take
19:09
fewer resources, if some puts in in ways that take a lesser toll
19:13
on the natural world, a lesser toll on in human terms and so
19:18
forth. And you may notice that that
19:21
overlaps perfectly with technology.
19:24
So my team, for example, at Rethink X, we define technology
19:28
as practical knowledge, as the know how by which we make useful
19:33
transformations of the stuff, the matter, the energy, the
19:36
information around us, the building blocks of the world.
19:40
And it is it advancement in technology means precisely an
19:44
advancement in our practical knowledge.
19:47
And what do we do with that practical knowledge?
19:49
We create value. That's what we do.
19:52
So it is correct to say that we are in an extractive system and
19:57
it is a valid critique to say there are there are limits to
20:01
that extractive system. But what's missing from the
20:04
conversation is the transition, the transformation out of an
20:08
extractive regime to one that is entirely different to one that
20:12
is properly sustainable. And we now see, and this is
20:17
leaping forward perhaps to a second-half of the conversation
20:20
here, but we now see a path. That can take us there
20:23
technologically, a very clear path indeed.
20:26
That's the the major part of what my team's research has been
20:28
doing over the last 10 years is identifying which technologies
20:32
and when they will open up that path away from a a genuinely
20:38
unsustainable extractive mode of of civilization to one that is
20:42
what we call stellar in contrast.
20:45
Yeah, and to give George his due, he's pretty much on board
20:47
with with that transition, certainly as in as far as it
20:50
comes to, you know, clean energy and, and also the, you know, the
20:53
land and food thing. But yes, we'll get on to this in
20:55
episode 2. I think it's worth unpacking a
20:57
bit more about the, the distinction you draw between
21:00
stuff and value, because I think it's so critical and people
21:03
totally misunderstand this. Like the, the laptop that I'm
21:06
currently recording this on, you know, it could be a pile of
21:09
rocks. You could have a bit of cobalt,
21:10
it could have some hydrocarbons for the plastic.
21:12
It could have presumably some lithium from lithium ion
21:14
batteries. You know, that could just be a
21:16
pile of stuff. You could double that pile of
21:17
stuff and it would have no more value.
21:19
But it's, it's the way it's been combined through the application
21:22
of this practical knowledge, which makes it, you know, this,
21:25
this technology, which gives it this, this immense value to be
21:28
able to have the conversation that we're having, right.
21:30
And like, how does that change our notion of what, you know
21:34
what, what growth is and the sort of the material limits that
21:37
might be be inherent in the earth system?
21:39
That's an A superb example, and the the degrowth orthodoxy is
21:46
often highly critical of any claims that we can continue to
21:53
improve the the value creation that we're able to achieve.
21:58
In other words, the degrowth orthodoxy is deeply skeptical of
22:03
the prospect of additional technological advancement.
22:07
There are dismissive terms, oh, that's just a techno fix or it's
22:10
just, that's just techno optimism at work and so forth.
22:12
They're they're really quite derogatory critiques of
22:16
suggesting even the suggestion that new technology will come,
22:20
that it's not that far away and that it will give us the
22:23
capacity to solve problems in ways that we don't have today.
22:27
So I should, I should, you know, very much give the degrowth
22:31
orthodoxy. It's due there.
22:32
It is highly sceptical of the potential of technology to be a
22:36
benefit. And the reason why is that in
22:39
hindsight, in retrospect, looking backwards, it's easy to
22:42
say, well, those older primitive technologies came with terrible,
22:46
dreadful side effects. So whatever benefits they might
22:49
have had, the side effects were were unpleasant, they were
22:53
inhumane. And so therefore, and this is
22:56
the false logical leap, therefore all future
22:59
technologies will also have unacceptable harmful side
23:03
effects. And that's simply not true.
23:05
And we can see that already. We can look at it as historical
23:08
examples and note instances where technologies have have not
23:13
resulted in additional harmful side effects, but it indeed made
23:16
the leap out of an extractive mode into a more stellar one.
23:20
I'll give you one very quick example, and that's digital
23:24
photography. This is a, a, a, a familiar 1.
23:26
So it's worth looking at for just a moment.
23:29
There was a time when all images that were captured with cameras
23:33
were captured onto celluloid film.
23:35
And for those who don't know, celluloid film was actually a
23:37
pretty dirty business. The manufacturer, the
23:40
development, the the use of celluloid film, it involves
23:44
nasty chemicals. It actually involves animal
23:46
agriculture because the gelatin of the film is sourced from
23:51
animals there. It was a large, ugly business.
23:55
And so one might say, well, how could we ever have 1000 times or
23:59
a million times more imaging? How could we ever create that
24:03
much more value without burying the planet in celluloid film,
24:06
which has this terrible footprint?
24:08
And of course, the answer to that was we lept completely away
24:12
from celluloid film. We didn't invent slightly better
24:14
film technology. We bypassed it entirely and
24:17
decoupled the value creation of imaging from the way we were
24:23
doing it with a previous technology.
24:26
And so digital technologies were completely transformative.
24:29
And now we do indeed capture hundreds of millions of times
24:33
more images with our modern cameras than we ever could have
24:37
with celluloid film. And yet celluloid film has
24:40
diminished its footprint on the Earth has virtually disappeared.
24:45
So that's just one example. And and the the logic says we
24:48
can do that with the overwhelming majority of value
24:53
creation writ large. And of course, if you are, if
24:56
you're projecting it forward at the growth stage of celluloid
24:59
film, you'd come up with the the wrong answer, wouldn't you?
25:02
I mean, you know, I mean, you could say the same thing.
25:05
I don't know, like copper wire or something.
25:07
You know, imagine a world with 8 billion people.
25:09
Well, everyone has to have a copper wire so they can talk on
25:11
the phone. Well, that, you know, we'd
25:14
quickly run out of copper and it would be a terrible crisis and
25:16
we'd be finding limits to growth.
25:17
But actually, you know, well, first of all, it was fiber optic
25:21
and now it's even now it's basically going fully wireless.
25:23
So you've got a complete dematerialization of the
25:27
transmission of data. It's basically only using, you
25:29
know, pure energy to run transmit on the electromagnetic
25:32
spectrum rather than through any, you know, physical
25:34
infrastructure. And you know, they would, you'd
25:36
never been able to anticipate that that that kind of shift.
25:39
That's right. And, and, and where, So where
25:41
does all this head is a great question to ask.
25:44
And, and ultimately a world where we're, where we've shifted
25:48
away from extraction to 1, where what we, what my team calls a
25:51
stellar paradigm is 1, where there's much more circularity,
25:55
where resources are reused and recycled and where the initial
25:59
footprint isn't very, isn't very large for building the stock of
26:02
assets that can then on an ongoing basis deliver value.
26:06
Right. We borrow the metaphor of the
26:08
stars because once you get enough critical mass together
26:10
with the star, it ignites, and then you get radiance for for
26:13
eons afterwards without having to keep shoveling fuel into
26:17
that, into that fire, as it were.
26:18
Absolutely, we're going to get on to that on in episode 2.
26:23
But actually I wanted to get back to the one of the main
26:26
problems with degrowth is actually that it's as you point
26:28
out in the book, it's actually not ambitious enough.
26:30
Is it? Because you know, when it, as we
26:32
know with greenhouse gases, we've got to get to 0, right?
26:35
And you don't get to 0 by reducing by 50 or 60% or
26:38
something. It's sort of logical
26:39
impossibility. And, and yet that seems to be
26:41
central to the idea is that, you know, and I guess it's intuitive
26:45
that if we're, you know, producing too much carbon, then
26:48
we should consume less and therefore produce less carbon.
26:50
And that will at least go some way towards helping solve the
26:53
problem. Well, the metaphor that I like
26:54
to use, a visceral 1, is a house on fire.
26:58
So your house is on fire. Imagine it, what do you do?
27:01
This is a crisis. So here the metaphor is let's
27:04
let's pick one particular environmental problem, climate
27:08
change, the elephant in the room for environmental problems.
27:11
So in that, in that metaphor, the flames that that your house
27:15
is on fire. What are the flames or the
27:17
emissions? The flames are greenhouse gas
27:19
emissions in this metaphor. OK, our house is on fire.
27:21
What do we do? Well, the degrowth prescription
27:25
is to put out a little more than half of the fire, degrow the
27:31
economy, degrow the source of the flames 5060%.
27:35
But that in itself, that's rather senseless.
27:38
There's no sustainable amount of fire, right?
27:42
If your house is on fire, even even a little bit of flames, is
27:45
is is a bad situation. It's still a crisis that needs
27:48
solving. So just logically degrowth can't
27:52
can't solve the problem. You can't.
27:54
You can't degrow your way to 0 emissions and still have an A
27:59
civilization and still have an economy, still generate any
28:01
value at all. So it's a non starter just in
28:05
plain logical terms right there. But it's worse than that because
28:09
again, house on fire, you are not done even when you get all
28:13
of the flames extinguished. So in this analogy, net 00 net
28:18
emissions every year, we're not done because the damage from the
28:22
past is still a problem we have to deal with.
28:24
So again, the house on fire analogy, you're not done when
28:28
the fire department is pulling away, their work finished and
28:32
you're staring at the smoldering ruins of your home.
28:35
You still have the enormous challenge of having to rebuild,
28:38
repair, restore all of the damage that was done.
28:41
And that's true of our world as well.
28:44
So for in the in the example of climate change, it's very clear
28:48
now that even if we achieved net 0 tomorrow, we would still be
28:53
dealing with the ramifications, the impacts of climate change,
28:56
most of the worst ones for centuries.
28:59
If we don't also take the additional step of climate
29:03
restoration of pulling carbon out of the atmosphere in oceans
29:07
to restore the planet to its prior safe and stable condition.
29:12
So degrowth cannot do any of that.
29:15
It can't even solve the first half of the problem logically,
29:18
let alone the entire problem, which which includes not just
29:21
mitigation in environmental terms, but restoration as well.
29:26
I guess the other part of this is how you measure growth,
29:29
right? And it's conventionally
29:31
measured, I guess, through the metric of GDP, which, you know,
29:35
degrothers will will say is a very poor measure of how well
29:40
people are doing. Society, you know, people in
29:42
with lower GDP might be, you know, might be happier countries
29:45
might be better off. People are presumably, you know,
29:48
living simpler lives in the past with lower GDP.
29:51
So this idea that GDP is sort of a wonderful metric for how well
29:58
people are doing is fundamentally flawed, I think
30:00
Degrothers would say, right. What's your what's your take on
30:02
that? Well, D growth DD growth
30:06
orthodoxy is very critical of GDP, and with some very good
30:11
legitimate reason. GDP is an imperfect measure of
30:13
human built well-being, there's absolutely no question about
30:15
that. It is flawed, it's imperfect,
30:18
but that doesn't mean that it's useless.
30:20
And again, there you're hanging an awful lot of your weight on
30:25
this one point if if your argument is GDP tells us nothing
30:30
about human well-being. So there's a very big difference
30:32
between it being an imperfect measure and it being a useless
30:35
measure. And the easiest way to see that
30:38
is that GDP, for all of its flaws, my team has even voiced
30:42
some criticisms that go beyond what what the degrowth orthodoxy
30:45
normally does increase with increasing technological
30:48
capability. GDP will capture less and less
30:50
of the value creation that our civilization does, and
30:53
eventually it will become a not very useful metric.
30:56
But for right now, GDP is enormously useful.
31:01
It is imperfect, but nevertheless it corresponds to
31:05
many things that we care deeply about.
31:07
So what I point out in the book, for example, is the extremely
31:11
strong correlation between GDP, imperfect as it is, and a very
31:15
widely well respected measure of human well-being, which is the
31:18
human development index. This is a global standard
31:22
compound metric. In other words, it evaluates
31:24
multiple dimensions of human well-being, health and literacy
31:27
and and infinite and child mortality and so on and so
31:30
forth. And there's it.
31:32
It's unequivocal in the data. GDP is enormously strongly
31:36
correlated with the granular measures of well-being that
31:39
everyone does care about. Now that that correlation may
31:44
eventually break, but for right now, it's incredibly strong.
31:47
And and very important to note, there are no exceptions.
31:51
So there's no no countries, there's no poor country which
31:54
has a higher human development index, and there's no rich
31:57
country which has a very low one at all, correct.
32:00
Correct, correct. And then and what that tells you
32:02
is that for its flaws, GDP is a reasonable proxy for human
32:06
well-being. It's not perfect, but, but it's
32:09
a reasonable proxy. And that doesn't mean that we
32:12
ought to be fixated on GDP, on maximizing GDP because that will
32:16
deliver human well-being. That's taking your eye off the
32:18
ball. We need to recognize it for what
32:20
it is, which is a a useful indicator, a useful proxy, and
32:23
that's all. But the idea that it is useless,
32:27
which is which is, is more more of the impression you would get
32:32
reading the degrowth literature, that is, that does not hold much
32:35
water. I mean, obviously correlation is
32:39
not causation. I mean, it could be the could be
32:41
the human development index which is causing the growth.
32:43
But presumably you'd say, no, that's not the case.
32:47
I mean, it's funny. I, you know, I've, I've spent a
32:48
lot of time working in Africa and other countries in, in what
32:50
we now call the global South. And I've never met a degrowther
32:54
in a, in the university and you know, like in Nairobi or Kampala
32:58
or somewhere. I mean, they just, they just
33:00
don't exist. And I wonder whether that's
33:02
because the reality of material deprivation is, is there in
33:05
front of you when you, when you, when you're living in, in
33:06
somewhere like that. I mean, it's that am I being
33:09
kind of superficial and saying that or is that, is that
33:11
actually a real point? No, I I agree with that
33:14
wholeheartedly. And, and it's not true only in
33:18
countries that are less wealthy than for example, the United
33:21
States and the United Kingdom, but it's true within the the
33:25
groups within the communities in our countries that are not so
33:31
prosperous. You don't find strong
33:33
subscribers to degrowth in the poorest American communities, in
33:40
the communities that have had first hand extended experience
33:44
with the horrors of material privation, with poverty and
33:49
everything that goes along with that.
33:52
It it it is very easy to to see through how how transparent and
33:58
hollow and shallow the some of the theoretical claims and
34:03
promises of this particular truly terrible idea degrowth
34:06
are. It doesn't fool people who have
34:10
generational experience or enormous first hand immediate
34:13
experience with poverty and all of its horrors.
34:17
And so it's this really is a, a luxury belief, this idea that,
34:22
well, everyone will be happier if we just have less material
34:26
wealth, if we have less goods and services overall, and
34:29
especially if we have a, a greater equalization of
34:32
distribution. So if the rich aren't as rich
34:34
and, and, and hopefully they'll hopefully, and again, this all
34:36
falls, falls apart in practice, but the aspiration and the
34:40
promise is that is that the poorest people will be lifted up
34:42
in the process of implementing degrowth.
34:46
That will not happen. But that's the, that's the
34:48
claim. And, and, and, and so just to,
34:51
just to complete that thought, the the, a, a fundamental
34:54
reality of degrowth is that it would impoverish civilization as
34:59
a whole. And for people who have first
35:02
hand experience with poverty, that simply does not.
35:07
Fly. Yeah.
35:08
I mean you, you do the numbers in the book a bit and I think
35:12
you say that if we level everyone out globally, so, you
35:16
know, you make rich countries, what is it, 60% poorer or
35:20
something, then pretty much. Well, I think they have to go
35:23
down by about 90%. I don't know if you can remember
35:25
the numbers off hand, but I think it gets us all to quite a
35:27
low level, right? Well, so the, in order to have a
35:31
60% decline in global wealth, because it's, it's the planet,
35:38
the planetary environmental impact that we need to reduce.
35:41
So we have to reduce the planetary average of our
35:46
ecological footprint by 60% according to the degrowth
35:49
orthodoxy. But what that means is that
35:51
that's what the average has to fall to.
35:54
And if at the same time as as reducing the planet's average by
35:57
60%, we also want to level everybody out.
36:00
Well, anybody who's A and any individual, any community, any
36:05
country that is wealthy today would have to fall
36:08
proportionately further to reach that new global average.
36:11
And the new global average would be about what the per capita GDP
36:15
of Bangladesh is today. And so that would be, like you
36:19
said, more than a 90% drop for the United States to reach the
36:23
new global average. There are a few extremely poor
36:26
countries whose standard of living would actually rise,
36:28
those countries which are unfortunately poorer than
36:31
Bangladesh today on a per capita basis.
36:33
But it would mean absolutely catastrophic apocalyptic decline
36:39
for the the wealthy countries today if, if it were
36:43
implemented. And in fact, this is a very good
36:44
piece of evidence for why it would ever be implemented.
36:47
It's completely unworkable. But but that would be the
36:50
reality is, is we would have an absolutely catastrophic decline.
36:54
And just for perspective, I do the numbers in the book, but
36:56
just for, for context, the COVID-19 pandemic was a 3%
37:02
decline. It was temporary.
37:03
The Great Recession was a 10% decline temporary.
37:07
And the Great Depression a century ago was a 25% decline
37:12
temporarily and the, for the, for the United States economy.
37:17
So we're, if we're talking about a 90 plus percent decline
37:19
permanently, you know, I, I leave listeners and viewers to
37:23
judge for themselves how plausible that is.
37:25
Well, I think it's just it's a complete, it's a catastrophe.
37:28
I mean, probably they would, they would agree that as well.
37:31
But it's interesting. I once met quite a prominent
37:36
degrowther. Well, he was at the same
37:38
conference that I was, I was also speaking at, and I heard
37:41
privately from the organisers that he was the only one who
37:45
insisted on flying in business class.
37:48
And at the time I thought that was amusing because you know
37:51
that level of hypocrisy. Well, you know, I guess we're
37:53
all hypocrites. But it actually occurred to me
37:55
later that the hypocrisy isn't a bug, it's a feature in that
37:59
degrowth is always for someone else.
38:00
It's, you know, you don't see degrowth proponents voluntarily
38:03
giving up 60%, let alone 90% of their own wealth.
38:07
That's right. And this is a, this is a, not a
38:09
unique problem for degrowth and the ideology and it's inherent,
38:14
it's adherence. There is a, there's a high
38:17
priesthood as it were in, in the growth orthodoxy, but we see
38:21
this in other ideologies as well.
38:23
And unfortunately, we're all human beings, as you said, we're
38:26
all hypocrites to some extent. We're all, you know, potentially
38:29
corruptible. And nobody's perfect, Nobody's a
38:32
St. nobody's an Angel. And so I don't want to, to give
38:36
the wrong impression that degrowth is unique in that
38:38
aspect, but that's certainly part of what's going on.
38:41
And one of the reasons why degrowth appeals to the segments
38:46
of, of, of our populations that it does is because it speaks to,
38:51
it speaks to those who feel they've, they, they've, they've
38:56
been done wrong somehow. And so specifically, degrowth is
39:02
very, very appealing to, to young people, especially
39:05
students at universities. It's appealing to academics and
39:09
intellectuals. And it's.
39:13
So what is the source of that appeal?
39:15
Well, a big part of it is grievance.
39:18
A big part of it is resentment. And this is simply the, the ugly
39:20
truth. And, you know, I, I would
39:24
understand the degrowth orthodoxy and individuals
39:26
pushing back against this claim, but I very strongly believe,
39:29
wholeheartedly believe that it's that it's the case that it's
39:31
true that people are attracted to degrowth precisely because it
39:40
is a pathway. It is a vision of a world in
39:42
which the people who presently today do not enjoy the kind of
39:47
esteem they fundamentally believe they're entitled to.
39:51
It's a wave. It's a, it, it reflects a, a
39:53
again a social and a political reform agenda that would
39:57
reshuffle the the strata that would reshuffle the social order
40:02
and the status order such that people who are intellectually
40:05
elite today. University professors,
40:08
university students who are not yet out in their careers and
40:12
financially successful, it would reposition all of those people
40:15
at the elite level that they feel they're entitled to enjoy.
40:19
And it would knock the undeserving, the undeserving
40:23
elite, the rich people, the villains, the bad guys of the
40:26
story of capitalism. It would knock all of them down
40:29
to size. Well, that's an extremely,
40:31
extremely appealing picture. If you're filled with resentment
40:36
because you don't have the kinds of success and particularly the
40:40
financial and material success that you might wish you have or
40:45
at the very least feel you're entitled to have and no nobly
40:49
decline. And, and so, I mean, I mean,
40:52
again, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's entirely plausible
40:56
that a, a very, a fabulously rich individual, a billionaire,
41:00
for example, could be 10s of thousands of times wealthier
41:04
than an award-winning university professor, for example.
41:07
That seems fundamentally unfair from the university professor's
41:11
perspective. And from other people's
41:13
perspective, that seems wrong. OK, fair enough.
41:16
Also it, it seems well, I should mention that long before we were
41:22
even humans, since we invented stone tools as pre human
41:26
hominids more than a million years ago, material prosperity
41:30
has been fundamentally linked to esteem.
41:32
Being materially rich, being materially rich is something
41:36
that that that has an absolutely visceral translation of success
41:41
and esteem socially for human beings.
41:44
There's it's very, very difficult to escape that.
41:46
And so when you are poor, when you're scrambling for grant
41:49
money, when you're struggling to get by with student loans,
41:52
whether you're a professor or a student or or so forth, it feels
41:55
terrible to to struggle like that and then to look and quite
41:59
naturally, I suppose, be filled with resentment for people who
42:02
are doing so fantastically, more successfully in material terms.
42:07
Now, none of this is to advocate for the sorts of disparities we
42:10
see in society being acceptable. They're not.
42:14
Any society where billionaires coexist alongside hungry
42:16
children is a failure, irrespective of whatever other
42:20
merits it might have. It's an abject failure that is
42:23
totally unacceptable. We need to remedy that, but we
42:26
don't need to bulldoze the entire enterprise, burn the
42:28
entire thing to the ground to fix that particular problem with
42:32
it. They're much.
42:33
They're much. We don't need such blood
42:34
instruments to make those corrections.
42:36
But just to get circle back to the point that you were making,
42:40
I think a lot of the the the attraction to degrowth by the
42:43
people it appeals to is is fueled ultimately darkly by
42:49
resentment. Yeah, I don't know if this is me
42:53
being facetious, but I quite, I'm quite happy to degrow Jeff
42:56
Bezos and and Elon Musk and I'm quite happy to degrow everyone
42:59
who's everyone who's richer than me.
43:01
But I think it should stop pretty much at my level.
43:05
And you know, I guess actually when you, when you drill down
43:09
into these things, they, they do fall apart, You know, when
43:12
they're, when they're examined for, for most people, but not
43:15
always. I mean, a, a, a old friend of
43:18
mine who was not hypocritical about this.
43:20
I've and I've never forgotten this.
43:22
We were sitting around a campfire 11 evening and, and he
43:26
was advocating, you know, basically a return to sort of
43:29
medieval peasant, you know, lifestyles and, and I said,
43:33
well, you know, because we're both parents of young kids at
43:36
the time. My kids had, you know, been born
43:40
thanks to the miracles of, of modern, modern medicine, you
43:44
know, I think both the mother and my first child would have
43:46
died in childbirth otherwise. And I, and I think the same
43:50
applied to him. And I said to him, well, you
43:52
know, is that what you wanted? And he actually said, yes, I'd,
43:55
I'd prefer, you know, my children to, to have died
43:59
because I so strongly, so fundamentally believe that
44:02
things were better in the past. And for me, that that moment of
44:05
looking into the dark heart of what this ideology actually
44:08
meant was, was suddenly I've never forgotten.
44:10
Yeah, it's, it's sobering. The I I view that as a very
44:15
discouraging, but nevertheless widespread within the DD growth
44:20
orthodoxy and its adherence. A A a profound failure of
44:23
compassion. Deep, deep failure of
44:26
compassion. The idea that poverty is
44:30
acceptable at all, let alone something to aspire towards,
44:34
reveals to, to my mind at any rate, an utter, utter failure of
44:41
compassion and understanding of what poverty and deprivation
44:45
really is. And I, I, I, I, I think it's
44:49
extremely rare. I, I certainly have never seen
44:52
seen it or encountered it or even heard of it.
44:54
For a, for any individual who's who's known genuine suffering
44:59
caused by poverty, to then turn around and advocate non
45:05
theoretically, to advocate in an, in a non hypothetical way,
45:09
for that to be the, the, the widespread condition for
45:14
humanity that we ought to aspire to that it's very easy to say,
45:18
well, you know it, it would be great to live a simpler life.
45:21
Wouldn't it be nice if we didn't have all of the downsides of
45:25
modern life, all of the pressure of the rat race and all of the
45:29
stuff we own sort of owning us? And, and wouldn't it be better
45:32
if we lived in smaller communities with deeper human
45:34
connections? And wouldn't it be better if we
45:36
weren't getting our goods and services from distant, faceless
45:40
corporations, and instead we're obtaining those goods and
45:43
services, perhaps less of them, perhaps more expensively, but
45:47
from local providers who we know and love?
45:49
Well, sure, there's what's not to love about that picture.
45:53
But unfortunately it is a naive and rather juvenile fantasy.
45:58
Because it's not practical, it's not achievable.
46:01
And we know that's not the case. And the reason why we know
46:03
that's not the case is because we were deeply impoverished in
46:06
the past historically, and there it continues to exist, terribly
46:11
impoverished communities today. And they are not happy.
46:14
They are not bastions of enlightenment.
46:17
They are not centers of happiness and well-being.
46:21
And ironically, given D gross environmental aspirations, the
46:28
impoverished communities today around the world, whether in
46:31
poor communities, in rich countries or poorer countries,
46:34
they are not the leaders in environmental and ecological
46:38
integrity and sustainability. Quite the opposite.
46:41
Prosperity is the enabling condition there.
46:44
And so it really is a failure, I think, of understanding and
46:47
ultimately of compassion, to advocate for a a deprived rather
46:53
than richer and fuller and more prosperous world.
46:56
And, and it's like it's fundamentally misanthropic as
46:59
well. And, you know, and it's sort of
47:00
based on on Malthusianism. And in fact, you call it a
47:04
juvenile fantasy. I mean, it was a fancy I showed
47:06
when I was a juvenile, at least in like a recent graduate.
47:10
And I think perhaps you might even be in the same category as
47:13
this. But I definitely remember once,
47:15
you know, peddling my my bike through through through the
47:18
lanes of Oxford and thinking if I had a button that I could
47:21
press and it would eliminate all of humanity and restore the
47:24
planet to, you know, to nature, would I do that?
47:27
And it was, you know, it was a close run thing.
47:29
It was probably 5050. And actually, I think I think a
47:32
lot of people feel this in a very deep, fundamental way.
47:35
So, and I think actually it's, it's one of the sort of
47:37
foundations of, of modern environmentalism that the Earth
47:40
would actually be better off. And some people have even used
47:42
this term like the human, what is it plague or, you know, virus
47:47
or something like that. And therefore the fewer humans
47:50
and the less we do, and the you know, the, the, the, the, the
47:52
you know, the more absence of humanity that there is, the
47:55
better things are for the planet.
47:56
When we get back to the concept that you brought up earlier in
47:59
the conversation, which is this idea that it's a, a 0 sum, a a
48:03
win lose condition. And in particular there are the
48:06
winners and losers. This, this sets up a trade off,
48:10
a no win situation between humanity and the rest of the
48:16
living world. And again, that that's a false
48:19
choice. That is a false dichotomy.
48:21
There are win win options here, but they're they must
48:26
necessarily involve innovation, progress, and especially an
48:30
advancement in our practical knowledge, in our technology to
48:33
achieve. But it's very clear that we
48:35
know, we can see, and my team has done a lot of work on this.
48:37
We can see pathways to a world where humanity thrives and the
48:44
rest of the natural world thrives as well.
48:46
We can both see what that world would look like, a vision of it,
48:50
and how to chart a path to that. To degrowth has explicitly
48:55
acknowledged that giving up, you know, 60% of global wealth means
48:59
essentially stagnation. Well, or, or, or basically
49:02
stopping or at least dramatically reducing
49:04
technological progress. I mean, do they do they actually
49:06
say that out loud? It depends.
49:08
The answer is that both claims are made.
49:11
So there are, there are some advocates that say, well, it's
49:15
it's we're in such a condition of emergency that it's worth
49:19
worthwhile, it's acceptable giving up everything, all
49:21
technological progress, all social progress down grading
49:25
human well-being, human prosperity across the board.
49:29
Because if we don't do that, for example, this is, you know, Paul
49:33
Ehrlich, author of the population bomb in the 1970s was
49:36
saying, well, if we don't do that, then 15 years from now,
49:37
everything is going to collapse anyway.
49:39
So, so if you're, if you're headed for the Cliff, right,
49:43
then you might as well take your bumps and bruises by bailing out
49:47
before going over the edge. OK, that's one perspective.
49:50
Another perspective, I don't know which ones, honestly, I, I,
49:53
I'd have to see survey data, know which one is more popular.
49:55
But the other perspective is, Oh, well, we can have
49:57
technological progress and grow at the same time.
50:01
And unfortunately, that's not realistic.
50:04
It does that reveals a a lack of understanding of the conditions
50:08
that from which technological progress arises.
50:11
And yes, it would be lovely if we could, if we could have it
50:14
all. It would be lovely if, you know,
50:16
the promises of the moon could be made to come true, but they
50:19
won't. And we, the, the truth is, we
50:22
cannot have the kind of technological advancement that
50:26
we want to need in a, amidst a condition where we have
50:30
catastrophic economic contraction, where we have
50:33
apocalyptic social and, and other forms of, of upset,
50:40
discord, destabilization associated with a, a radically
50:44
downsizing, collapsing economy. Unfortunately, those are not the
50:47
conditions in which scientific progress gets made and
50:50
technological advancements happen.
50:52
It's it's, it's, it's. Unfortunately that's that's not
50:54
plausible. But interestingly, the Nobel
50:56
Prize in economics actually just went to three academics who more
50:59
or less, well, well, very clearly proved this point,
51:01
didn't they, about how growth is generated and how technological
51:05
innovation, you know, from the Enlightenment onwards was, was
51:08
based on scientific research and, and this concept of kind
51:11
of, of creative disruption. So, you know, it's not as if
51:16
these these are not very widely understood and actually, you
51:20
know, fundamentally at the heart of it.
51:23
Well, and another thing to add to that, just to add to that is
51:26
that the degrowth orthodoxy is, is has pivoted incrementally
51:31
from technology is, is a deal with the devil.
51:36
It's never worth making that deal.
51:37
It's always a losing prospect to, well, maybe we can still
51:41
make some technological progress, and maybe that might
51:44
be a good thing, but we still have to, you know, radically
51:46
degrow. There's no way.
51:47
There's no other way to do it. And what I'm seeing increasingly
51:51
is a new line of argument emerging, which is, well, OK,
51:56
technology perhaps could solve our problems, but it won't
52:00
arrive fast enough. We won't get there soon enough.
52:03
So OK, we're stop. We the evidence from
52:07
technological progress is too strong to deny now.
52:09
There's no, there's you're, you're, you don't have a, a leg
52:12
to stand on anymore. If you're calling solar power
52:15
science fiction or electric vehicle science fiction or even
52:19
self driving electric vehicle science fiction or AI science
52:23
fiction. Now, when I was a student at
52:25
university training to be a scientist, that was the
52:28
sentiment among my environmental colleagues.
52:30
All of that, all of those technologies, that's just silly
52:33
science fiction that's centuries and centuries away.
52:36
So that it's we're not even going to think about it.
52:38
Well, now you can't, you can't ignore those things anymore.
52:42
But what you can do is, is pivot to the argument that, well, it's
52:45
not not, well, OK, they're real. They're not science fiction, but
52:48
they're not, they're not going to arrive in time.
52:50
Arrive, meaning we're not going to have them available,
52:52
accessible and deployable soon enough to solve problems with
52:56
them. And of course, this is, this
52:57
will be proven false as well. And a large part of my team's
53:00
research is showing and understanding exactly how and
53:03
why technologies emerge and then are adopted and deployed as
53:06
quickly as they are in the places that they are and what to
53:09
expect looking forward. But again, that's sort of the
53:11
second part of the conversation. Here, I mean amazingly, I guess,
53:15
I guess when Limits to growth first came out, when was that
53:17
1975? I mean, if we'd, if we'd done
53:20
the degrowth thing, then then we, we actually wouldn't have
53:23
the solar panels and the EVs and the things which are going to
53:26
hopefully help us solve climate change.
53:28
So in some ways, if you listen to that, it would have been a
53:31
self fulfilling prophecy. Well, that's exactly right.
53:33
I mean, and, and I actually run this thought experiment briefly
53:36
in the book, but you, you picked exactly the, the, the right idea
53:40
there, which is imagine an alternate timeline, rollback the
53:43
clock and, you know, when was the right time to have started
53:46
degrowing? Was it 50 years ago?
53:48
Was it 100 years ago? Was it 1000 years ago?
53:50
Well, if we'd, if we'd implemented these ideas a
53:53
century ago, we would have had, you know, much, much less
53:56
technological progress. How would we have fared during
53:59
the, the pandemic, for example, without benefit of, of modern
54:03
biotech? What if the world had no
54:07
wireless telecommunications still?
54:08
Because they'll still live like 50 years away.
54:12
That the absolute worst thing. No podcast at all.
54:14
It's much worse than not having any mRNA vaccines.
54:17
That's right. That's right.
54:19
Sorry, I'm being, I'm being facetious again, but I wanted to
54:21
move on to, I think what's a really important dimension of
54:24
this? And, and I illustrate this, you
54:26
know, and I've in, in my own work actually with this story
54:30
about the carbon fairy. I don't know if you've heard it,
54:31
but I used to often ask audiences, you know, if there
54:34
was, if you could wave a magic wand and I'd be talking about
54:36
the, you know, the the horrible impacts of, of climate change.
54:39
If you could buy the magic wand and somehow make the problem
54:42
disappear, like with with nuclear power or some, some sort
54:44
of magical solution, would you, would you do that?
54:47
And most people would say the fact that the vast majority of
54:49
people would say no because they wanted to, to see a much more
54:52
fundamental transformation of society.
54:55
And and you argue in the book actually, that the kind of green
54:59
planetary sustainability stuff on on top of degrowth is
55:02
actually a veneer for a much a much deeper and perhaps darker
55:06
agenda. Tell us about what that is.
55:08
Well, yeah, so I mean, I don't mean to let me state very
55:13
clearly that that many, many close adherence to degrowth
55:18
ideology genuinely do care about the environmental concerns and
55:22
the larger public and the larger environmental community
55:26
advocates, activists who've on boarded some of this terrible,
55:30
truly terrible idea. They have good intentions and
55:33
they have good environmental intentions, but there is a deep
55:37
grain, a deep, deep grain within the orthodoxy, within the
55:42
ideology that is is fundamentally using, poking
55:46
itself in the mantle of environmental virtue as a means
55:50
to advancing a a very different kind of agenda and an agenda
55:53
that not all of us through, even those of us who who otherwise
55:58
find, you know, parts of the degrow story compelling.
56:01
I mean, not everybody wants to have radical social and
56:04
political form reform and overthrow capitalism, even if
56:09
they are taken in by the idea that, well, maybe we ought to,
56:13
maybe the path to solving our problems is, is to, is to
56:16
downsize, to adopt an austere lifestyle, to, to voluntarily
56:20
embrace material deprivation. But that doesn't necessarily
56:24
mean that they're going along for the ride with all of the
56:26
radical social and political thought as well.
56:30
So there's very much a, a, a grain of this, especially in the
56:34
Academy in, in academic degrowth circles.
56:37
So this is, there's, there is a, a, a, a different set of
56:42
priorities and goals in addition to or running parallel with the
56:47
environmental goals here. And it's important to, to, you
56:50
know, to, to see those for what they are, to recognize that
56:53
aspect of things. And it's not widely recognized
56:56
because it isn't, it's not it, it, it doesn't make us good of a
56:58
sales pitch. So you're an average
57:01
environmentalist to say, Oh, no, by the way, we also need to
57:04
totally overthrow capitalism, burn the whole thing to the
57:08
ground because it's irredeemable and not everybody's going to get
57:11
along, get on the train. If that if you lead with that.
57:14
So instead, you know, you lead with something else, which is,
57:16
you know, we, we need to lighten our footprint on the planet or
57:19
we're going to be in real trouble.
57:21
And yeah, it's, it's a, it's, it's, it's, it's a mixed bag
57:24
there. And what I like to say, and I, I
57:26
should, I probably should have mentioned this earlier, is that
57:29
is that the real confusion is in this orthodoxy is one of, of
57:37
absolutism, that this is the only way to solve these
57:40
problems. Again, that, that our current
57:42
situation is irredeemable. It's not something that's,
57:46
that's fixable. Radical revolution is the only
57:49
thing that we'll do. And I, I fundamentally disagree
57:52
with that. And So what I like to say is
57:54
that, and I, I, I, this has resonated with a lot of people
57:57
who whom I've spoken with and, and advocated this view to that
58:01
is it really isn't about doing less to enlighten our footprint
58:06
on the planet. What we need to do is be doing
58:08
better. That is the key and the darkest
58:13
part of the degrowth orthodoxy is that it asserts we can do no
58:17
better, that we've gotten as far as we can, that that progress
58:20
itself, that aspiration to progress is itself futile.
58:26
And that is a dismal, pessimistic, uninspiring view.
58:30
Ultimately, it's rooted in fear. It's driven by, as you mentioned
58:34
earlier, misanthropy. And I just reject those things
58:39
logically. And as a human being, I think we
58:42
can do better than that. I think we must do better than
58:44
that for ourselves and for our children and our grandchildren,
58:48
of course. And so it really is.
58:50
Do we need to lighten our our footprint on the rest of nature?
58:53
Of course. We want a rich and vibrant
58:56
verdant world for our children and grandchildren to inherit.
58:59
Of course we do. But the path there isn't to do
59:02
less, it's to do better. I think, I think Steven Pinker
59:06
asked the question of why do progressives hate progress?
59:09
Which is a neat way of summarizing it.
59:11
And it's, well, he's. Great with words.
59:14
He absolutely is, which is why we had him for our inaugural
59:17
guests. But, you know, you talk about
59:19
pessimism, and I think this is really the heart of it as well.
59:23
It's a, it's a pessimism about not just progress, but about
59:25
technology causing more problems.
59:27
And you know, I've found actually, again, speaking to
59:30
audiences when I challenge their pessimism, it makes people
59:33
angrier than anything else you can say.
59:35
And I wonder whether it's because that somehow undermines
59:38
this sort of inevitability that they have a feeling for, for
59:41
this, for this utopian project, because of course, there's no
59:44
way to achieve it through, you know, standard democratic means,
59:48
is there? I mean or or or or.
59:49
Do they pretend differently? No, there, there really is no
59:52
way to impose degrowth as a project without enormously
59:57
overbearing draconian top down intervention through the state,
1:00:02
through governments. This so tyranny is unavoidable
1:00:05
to it can because what you're doing is is saying you will
1:00:08
adopt our values. It's cultural imperialism.
1:00:10
You will. You will.
1:00:12
Adopt the values of our ideology whether you like it or not, and
1:00:16
you will do and not do the things we say you must do and
1:00:20
not do whether you like it or not.
1:00:22
And there's the only way you get 10s of millions or hundreds of
1:00:25
millions of people to do that is with is with tyrannical use of
1:00:31
state government power. It's unavoidable.
1:00:32
There's no other way to do it. It's not going to happen
1:00:34
democratically. So I I agree fundamentally that
1:00:38
there is there is a dismal aspect to the existing degrowth
1:00:41
orthodoxy. But why do people resist the
1:00:45
your your challenge in them on their pessimism?
1:00:48
I think this is the deep, deep question.
1:00:50
And my personal experience and insight there is that people are
1:00:57
terrified to relinquish their pessimism in that respect
1:01:02
because they don't see a convincing optimistic
1:01:07
alternative. So in the absence of something
1:01:10
genuinely hopeful, that's data-driven, some some rational
1:01:14
basis for optimism, not a pie in the sky.
1:01:17
Oh my God, my, I'm wearing rose colored glasses.
1:01:19
I, I just see the glasses half full.
1:01:21
I'm an optimist. No, no, no wishful thinking,
1:01:24
data-driven rational optimism. If they, if people don't see a
1:01:27
basis for optimism, if they look out at the world and, and they
1:01:31
aren't convinced that there's a way for us to solve these
1:01:33
overwhelming problems, environmental and otherwise,
1:01:36
then they're terrified to to let go of their pessimism and we'll
1:01:42
fight to protect it. And so in my experience, the
1:01:45
most important thing here is to give people an alternative that
1:01:50
is rational, that is plausible, A genuine basis, not a wishful
1:01:55
thinking or delusional basis, but a genuine basis for being
1:01:59
optimistic, for being hopeful about the future, for believing
1:02:03
that we can continue to make progress and that we can achieve
1:02:07
the sort of prosperity for human beings and for the rest of the
1:02:11
natural world. A win win a non 0 outcome.
1:02:16
And my, my experience is that that's the environmental science
1:02:21
community has utterly failed to provide a convincing,
1:02:27
data-driven basis for optimism about how we solve any of these
1:02:31
problems. And my explanation for that is
1:02:34
the reason the environmental science and other environmental
1:02:36
disciplines have failed is because they've dismissed
1:02:39
technology and its role in solving our problems.
1:02:43
There's a natural antagonism towards technology in the
1:02:46
environmental disciplines. It's it's been there for a long
1:02:48
time, but technology is the only way that we have a fact and
1:02:52
data-driven basis for being optimistic about getting our
1:02:55
arms around these. Otherwise what would be
1:02:57
intractable, unsolvable problems.
1:03:00
Now, when I present my team's work about this and show, no,
1:03:04
there is a very clear and plausible technological pathway
1:03:08
to solving some of our greatest environmental challenges, people
1:03:11
are overwhelmingly hungry and thirsty for that alternative,
1:03:16
inspiring view looking forward. So in my experience, people will
1:03:21
only defend their pessimism if there's nothing else on offer to
1:03:25
replace it. But when you extend that branch
1:03:28
for them to grab onto, I've seen people grab onto that with both
1:03:32
hands and they're all their entire heart doing it.
1:03:36
So I think that this is a very important project that that that
1:03:39
goes alongside. On the one hand, we must dispel
1:03:42
degrowth for the true truly terrible idea that it is.
1:03:44
But on the other hand, you can't leave a vacuum, a void there.
1:03:47
That won't do. That would be nihilistic.
1:03:50
What we need is to then replace it with with an alternative path
1:03:55
forward. That's crucial.
1:03:57
And maybe that's what can be what we talk about next time.
1:03:59
I was going to say, I mean, you've, you've basically just
1:04:01
wrapped up the episode perfectly and definitely with nothing more
1:04:06
to say because that really is sorry.
1:04:08
No, I'm very grateful because that really is the perfect
1:04:12
pausing point. I think before we come back in
1:04:14
the next episode and and look, look at this positive vision and
1:04:17
why it's not only more inspiring, but also completely
1:04:22
realistic and data-driven in terms of in terms of look
1:04:24
mapping out the way forward to to a truly sustainable world.
1:04:28
But until that point, I think we'll have to say goodbye.
1:04:31
But we'll be back, as the Terminator said with Adam Draw
1:04:36
in the next episode. But for now, Adam, thank you so
1:04:38
much. Always a pleasure.
1:04:39
Thanks so much, Mark. Thanks so much for listening to
1:04:45
Saving the World from Bad Ideas, a We Planet podcast we plan.
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