{"id":61179,"date":"2021-12-30T06:45:22","date_gmt":"2021-12-30T11:45:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=61179"},"modified":"2021-12-30T06:45:22","modified_gmt":"2021-12-30T11:45:22","slug":"vaclav-smil-growth-must-end-our-economist-friends-dont-seem-to-realise-that","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=61179","title":{"rendered":"Vaclav Smil: \u2018Growth must end. Our economist friends don\u2019t seem to realise that\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"<header>\n<div class=\"dcr-amp-vxgh1s\">\n<figure class=\"dcr-amp-1cnd1wv\"><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"i-amphtml-fill-content i-amphtml-replaced-content\" src=\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/57da71c62ea64a5be4c497d276b949e00fb71e23\/0_0_8256_4954\/master\/8256.jpg?width=620&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=6cc6675cdcd21d3b5656baa407c7073a\" sizes=\"(max-width: 1385px) 600px, 100vw\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/57da71c62ea64a5be4c497d276b949e00fb71e23\/0_0_8256_4954\/master\/8256.jpg?width=620&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=6cc6675cdcd21d3b5656baa407c7073a 620w, https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/57da71c62ea64a5be4c497d276b949e00fb71e23\/0_0_8256_4954\/master\/8256.jpg?width=465&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=2789160801e07ca2ba5ad8f451e00d73 930w, https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/57da71c62ea64a5be4c497d276b949e00fb71e23\/0_0_8256_4954\/master\/8256.jpg?width=1020&amp;quality=85&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;s=9c26fc4c5de37ee6815b8db9e7d22577 1020w, https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/57da71c62ea64a5be4c497d276b949e00fb71e23\/0_0_8256_4954\/master\/8256.jpg?width=620&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=f0f746fb6c38541de0c22051f2b7c3dc 1240w, https:\/\/i.guim.co.uk\/img\/media\/57da71c62ea64a5be4c497d276b949e00fb71e23\/0_0_8256_4954\/master\/8256.jpg?width=940&amp;quality=45&amp;auto=format&amp;fit=max&amp;dpr=2&amp;s=d728ac15697c208f6f30f04d3fe8428c 1880w\" alt=\"Vaclav Smil\" \/><input id=\"show-caption\" class=\"dcr-amp-1snrpgp\" type=\"checkbox\" aria-checked=\"false\" \/><label class=\"dcr-amp-4ivpxp\" for=\"show-caption\"><\/label><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<h3 class=\"dcr-amp-1rcstkd\"><a href=\"https:\/\/amp.theguardian.com\/books\/2019\/sep\/21\/vaclav-smil-interview-growth-must-end-economists?CMP=share_btn_tw&amp;__twitter_impression=true&amp;fbclid=IwAR3e8ArN7pRyVHK7XZ4q1ilRr5irNCP334UaO9jMF5Y_zD7171_10hPafts\">Vaclav Smil: \u2018Growth must end. Our economist friends don\u2019t seem to realise that\u2019<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"dcr-amp-1mw12gq\" data-print-layout=\"hide\">\n<p>The scientist and author on his latest book \u2013 an epic, multidisciplinary analysis of growth \u2013 and why humanity\u2019s endless expansion must stop.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/vaclavsmil.com\/\">Vaclav Smil<\/a>\u00a0is a distinguished professor emeritus in the faculty of environment at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. Over more than 40 years, his books on the environment, population, food and energy have steadily grown in influence. He is now seen as one of the world\u2019s foremost thinkers on development history and a master of statistical analysis.\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.thegatesnotes.com\/Books\/Energy\/Harvesting-The-Biosphere\">Bill Gates says<\/a>\u00a0he waits for new Smil books the way some people wait for the next\u00a0<em>Star Wars<\/em>\u00a0movie. The latest is\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/guardianbookshop.com\/growth-9780262042833.html\"><em>Growth: From Microorganisms to Megacities<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><strong>You are the nerd\u2019s nerd. There is perhaps no other academic who paints pictures with numbers like you. You dug up the astonishing statistic that China has\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/cities\/2019\/feb\/28\/the-grey-wall-of-china-inside-the-worlds-concrete-superpower\"><strong>poured more cement every three years since 2003 than the US managed in the entire 20th century<\/strong><\/a><strong>. You calculated that<\/strong><strong>\u00a0in 2000, the dry mass of all the humans in the world\u00a0<\/strong><strong>was\u00a0<\/strong><a href=\"https:\/\/www.gatesnotes.com\/Books\/Harvesting-The-Biosphere\"><strong>125m metric tonnes<\/strong><\/a><strong>\u00a0compared\u00a0<\/strong><strong>with just 10<\/strong><strong>m tonnes for all wild vertebrates<\/strong><strong>. And now you explore patterns of growth, from the healthy development of forests and brains to the unhealthy increase in obesity and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Before we get into those deeper issues, can I ask if you see yourself as a nerd?<\/strong><br \/>\nNot at all. I\u2019m just an old-fashioned scientist describing the world and the lay of the land as it is. That\u2019s all there is to it. It\u2019s not good enough just to say life is better or the trains are faster. You have to bring in the numbers. This book is an exercise in buttressing what I have to say with numbers so people see these are the facts and they are difficult to dispute.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Vaclav Smil: \u2018Growth must end. Our economist friends don\u2019t seem to realise that\u2019 The scientist and author on his latest book \u2013 an epic, multidisciplinary analysis of growth \u2013 and why humanity\u2019s endless expansion must stop. Vaclav Smil\u00a0is a distinguished professor emeritus in the faculty of environment at the University of Manitoba in Winnipeg, Canada. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3,4,7],"tags":[391,32358,6917,5934],"class_list":["post-61179","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-energy-2","category-environment","category-survival-2","tag-growth","tag-jonathan-watts","tag-the-guardian","tag-vaclav-smil"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61179","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=61179"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61179\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61180,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61179\/revisions\/61180"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=61179"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=61179"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=61179"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}