{"id":8202,"date":"2015-05-17T07:49:14","date_gmt":"2015-05-17T12:49:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=8202"},"modified":"2015-05-17T07:49:14","modified_gmt":"2015-05-17T12:49:14","slug":"preempting-a-misleading-argument-why-environmental-problems-will-stop-tracking-with-gdp","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=8202","title":{"rendered":"Preempting a Misleading Argument: Why Environmental Problems Will Stop Tracking with GDP"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3><a href=\"http:\/\/steadystate.org\/preempting-a-misleading-argument\/\" target=\"_blank\">Preempting a Misleading Argument: Why Environmental Problems Will Stop Tracking with GDP<\/a><\/h3>\n<p>I hate to say I told you so, and could be too dead to do so, so I\u2019ll tell you in advance: One decade soon, environmental problems will stop tracking with GDP.<\/p>\n<p>But the reasons? Well, they probably aren\u2019t what you think, especially if you\u2019ve been drinking the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/steadystate.org\/dichotomies\/\">green Kool-Aid<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>For decades, big-picture ecologists and eventually the \u201cecological economists\u201d pointed out the fundamental conflict between economic growth and environmental protection. Every tick of GDP\u00a0came with the tock of habitat loss, pollution, and, as we gradually realized, climate change. A growing GDP requires a growing human population or a growing amount of goods and services per person. In the American experience of the 20<sup>th<\/sup>\u00a0century, it was easy to see both \u2013 population and per capita consumption \u2013 spiraling upward, and just as easy to see the environmental impacts reverberating outward. Much of the world saw the same, although in some countries GDP growth was driven almost entirely by population growth.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/steadystate.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Fracking.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"wp-image-7651\" src=\"http:\/\/steadystate.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/Fracking-300x217.jpg\" alt=\"Photo Credit: Simon Fraser University\" width=\"275\" height=\"199\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Unfortunately, a lot of time was spent overcoming fallacious but slick-sounding shibboleths like \u201cgreen growth,\u201d \u201cdematerializing\u201d the economy, and the \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/supplyshock.files.wordpress.com\/2015\/05\/fish-conservation-sustainable-fisheries-no-more-fish-stories.pdf\">environmental Kuznets curve<\/a>.\u201d It seemed these were \u2013 or easily could have been \u2013designed by advertisers on Madison Avenue, Big Money in general, or economists in their service, to prevent consumers and policy makers from responding rationally to environmental deterioration. Suggestive phrases such as \u201cconsumer confidence\u201d spurred the consumer along, buying more stuff to increase the profits of corporations and, in turn, the campaign purses of politicians.<\/p>\n<p>&#8230;click on the above link to read the rest of the article&#8230;<\/p>\n<div><\/div>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Preempting a Misleading Argument: Why Environmental Problems Will Stop Tracking with GDP I hate to say I told you so, and could be too dead to do so, so I\u2019ll tell you in advance: One decade soon, environmental problems will stop tracking with GDP. But the reasons? Well, they probably aren\u2019t what you think, especially [&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":[2,4],"tags":[161,5477,234,240,5476,353,5478,391],"class_list":["post-8202","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-environment","tag-consumerism","tag-ecological-economists","tag-ecology","tag-economic-growth","tag-environmental-problems","tag-gdp","tag-green-growth","tag-growth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8202","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=8202"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8202\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8203,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8202\/revisions\/8203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}