Changing the way we grow
How embracing circularity is key to our survival
Collapse by Jared Diamond outlines how four centuries ago, the inhabitants of Easter Island knowingly brought about their own demise. Their culture was built on tribal rivalry but rather than going to battle, the disparate communities of the island would carve ever more and larger stone heads, flaunting their skills and resources before their neighbours. However, the process consumed wood, and over the years, forests on the island started to grow sparse. Rather than conserving their resources, re-prioritising their values as communities and neighbours, the impending crises didn’t stop the production of heads. In fact, if anything, the rate of production increased. Unfortunately, with the loss of local forest and the shelter as well as food for foraging it provided, local wildlife started running thin on the ground too. Eventually, the inhabitants of Easter Island were left with a barren home and no food to eat. Fortunately for us, the stone heads remain to this day.
The Doughnut economic model developed by Kate Raworth explores how our current focus on GDP growth above all else essentially misses the big picture. She points out how other economic indicators, highlighting the structural health of societies, can be just as important, if not more important than ever growing output. And that only focusing on output and its growth can unwittingly lead to severe negative externalities (negative side-effects of free market activity) such as climate change but also deterioration of air quality, deforestation, plastic pollution, ozone depletion, loss of wildlife, loss of community, poverty and social inequality.
These negative externalities are the equivalent of the loss of tree-cover suffered by the inhabitants of Easter Island due to their incessant focus on producing stone heads above all else. Replace stone heads with economic growth and at the rate we’re going, there’ll be no forest left on the island before mid-century. As evolved as we are, can we actually foresee and survive what the tribes of Easter Island couldn’t 500 years ago?
They saw it happening but couldn’t stop themselves. Their competitive nature didn’t allow them to stop carving giant heads. Their egos drove them to dominate the other tribes. I ask;
- Is there any difference between that and our obsession to out-grow and have more wealth than other countries? As well as the obsession of political leaders to stay in power and be re-elected?
- Can we overcome — essentially-tribalism and human ego? Doing so will require enlightened thinking; longterm thinking, thinking beyond borders, beyond growth and onto collective global health and harmony.
To do that we must embrace a different way of consuming and doing business. And a different way of viewing national success — emphasising and prioritising other indictors such as; health of the population, education level, happiness index, NAW (Natural Asset Wealth), emissions & reduction thereof, plastic output per capita, human rights, women’s rights, social equity, social mobility, # of species saved from extinction, forested / re-wilded land area, % renewable energy generation etc (*more on the topic of national economic indicators here).
As Krzysztof Pelc puts it so eloquently in his book Beyond Self-Interest: we must understand that we’ve now reached the minimum standard of living to meet all our basic human needs envisioned by the originators of our free-market economic system including Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes. Both, amoung others at the time, saw endless economic growth as neither possible nor required. Their free-market systems were established as a way for most humans in society to have their needs met to a healthy degree and within a timely manner. Note that when in 1776, Smith published his theories on free-market economic systems and the invisible hand that dictates them in his book ‘The Wealth of Nations’, the United Kingdom had an average life expectancy of 39 and an infant mortality rate of 33%. The state of affairs of general populations around Europe was truly dire. There was a lot of work to be done.
And when Keynes was developing his visions for economic progress and the life his grandchildren may lead, he considered that mine-workers at the time, working six days a week for ten hours a day on just over minimum wage, had their basic needs of food, shelter, education, health and free-time met. And it would be an aspiration to recreate those conditions for the entirety of the UK population. In satisfying these basic needs, humans, in his eyes, would spend more and more time pursuing non-economic ends such a reading, writing, art, sport, philosophising, relationships and travel.
Needless to say, we have since far exceeded his minimum requirements for the pursuit of such ends. Growth in the eyes of the originators of our modern economic system was but a means to an end; to, as humans, become integrated, philosophical and pursue high passions and interests over (base) commerce.
To go beyond earning money and economic growth once our needs were met to a healthy level was a forgone conclusion. However, it seems their prediction of the natural evolution of our economy and values towards higher pursuits has not come to fruition (although the recent popularity of ‘remote work’ and ‘work-life balance’ is a step in the right direction).
Churchill, a darling of the Conservatives, started out as a Liberal Democrat, introduced minimum wage and as home secretary, strongly supported David Lloyd George’s push for national healthcare. We must move beyond partisan politics and understand where our human values are held commonly. Because ultimately, we are all human, and largely have the same values. We just prioritise them differently.
So can we move beyond ego-driven need to have larger economies than our neighbours and the belief that power and financial wealth is the end-all, be-all? We could even learn from nomadic societies that have lived off the land sustainably for millennia. They embrace and understand that life satisfaction largely comes from within, while without a healthy ecosystem around us, we will not survive. Alas, we are not advanced enough as a society to say we can overcome and control our climate although we are building capabilities (see eg. Skytree).
We must be humble enough to ensure harmony between us and the Earth. Indeed, as our population grows beyond 10 billion in 2050, we will need to decouple human activity from emissions. And not because it’s easy but because it’s hard. It requires evolved thinking, foresight and soulful introspection as well as the wisdom to see what really matters. Which is, when you get down to it, life itself.
Our market structures reflect economic values which are outdated. Much like the original US Constitution, we are running off a rule-book that is archaic. We must either change these principles or elect leaders who see beyond them, and will effect real systemic change. In short, we need:
- New economic incentives and disincentives including carbon tax and carbon credits
- New ways of production embracing circularity and sustainable materials
- Education that emphasises alternative economic indicators and highlights the risk of negative externalities as well as the principles driving climate change. The educational tools listed in the Carbon Almanac by Seth Godin is a good start.
- A more reflective society that realises work and economic gains are but a means to an end, not the end-all, be-all
- Reformation of credit and loan markets that lend themselves to the long-term investment horizons of renewable energy and climate-tech
- Reformation of government spending particularly around R&D and climate-tech. Severe increase in government spending on renewable energy.
We must disenthrall ourselves [from our current way of thinking] and save our country [planet], to paraphrase Abraham Lincoln on slavery. Massive change is possible. Evolved thinking that raises us above the narrow-sightedness of the Easter Island tribes and moves us beyond the singular focus of economic growth and towards a more inclusive, grounded way of thinking similar to that of nomadic tribes sustainably living off the land, is possible. In essence, we must level up our psyche to embrace higher pursuits while nurturing and protecting our planetary ecosystem through adjusted economic principles and the development of a fully circular society in harmony with itself and the Earth.
