We Know Overshoot is the Problem
Or do we?
Source: Stockholm Resilience Center
Since the first human civilizations formed about 6,000 years ago, we have been on the road to overshoot. Pushing nature past the carrying capacity of Earth wasn’t inevitable. It became more likely as we used Earth’s resources with little regard for whether that resource use was sustainable.
Since those first civilizations sprouted up in Mesopotamia, there had always been new places to get resources, and the use of those resources was never enough cumulatively to tip the planet into an existential environmental crisis.
That has all changed in the last 50 years, in my lifetime. The only way to get back to the safe operating space that humanity enjoyed for thousands of years, is to address multiple environmental crises at once.
No pressure.
Start with where you live.
The biosphere is our home. There is no new neighborhood to move to if we screw up this one. Yet, we are treating the biosphere as though that is the case.
I’m tempted to just post this next graphic and call it a day, but then you wouldn’t be getting your money’s worth.
It isn’t that complicated. The economy sits within a broader society, which sits in the environment. If we destroy the environment we destroy both the economy and society.
Yet the below graphic is how the relationship between the economy, society, and the environment is often thought of:
You might not see this diagram in your neo-classical economist textbook. But if you read the textbook, this is the impression given. You have an economy that dominates our lives, and society and the environment are things outside the economy. They exist and have an impact on the economy, but they are seen as “over there”, outside the day-to-day workings of the economy.
If they were seen as just as important, or more important than the economy, then “economics” would have been “ecological economics” from day one. That is not the case. It is only recently that ecological or environmental economics has gained purchase.
I’ll prove it to you. Name one major university that DOES NOT have an economics department. You probably can after a little help from Google – but there are few. Then I searched how many universities have ecological or environmental economics programs. The Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) lists 11 undergraduate programs in this field, though this number only includes programs at AASHE member institutions.
The economics we use to explain our world, that we teach to the future generations who will run the world soon, is woefully, laughably behind the times.
You live within nature, not outside it.
The below picture is often how our relationship with nature is depicted. We are standing outside it, looking in.
It isn’t that complicated. The economy sits within a broader society, which sits in the environment. If we destroy the environment, we destroy both the economy and society.
Yet the below picture is how the relationship between the economy, society, and the environment is often thought of:
If you read this on the 60th story of a high rise in New York, London, or Hong Kong, you are still in the biosphere – someone has just paved it below your feet. You are within a natural system that you cannot escape. You can pretend that is not the case all you want, but you do so at your peril.
No matter how far you live away from a tree, a farm, or an ocean, those natural things dictate your survival. If the trees go away, if the farm goes away, if the ocean goes away, so will you.
We do not have dominion over nature.
Nature has had, does have, and always will have dominion over us.
To change the world, change your mind.
We can’t possibly tackle the problem of overshoot until we collectively acknowledge that overshoot is the problem.
We aren’t there yet.
Until a critical mass of us realizes that overshoot is the problem, and we demand our leaders address it – we won’t.
It is the only issue that matters in the long term. But it is nowhere in public discussions about what is going on.
That needs to change.
How do we change that?
Make it popular with the young generation. Get the message out in a two minute clip because they have TikTok attention spans. Call it the Save Yourself Challenge or something. Convince people to join any ot every foundation for saving the planet so they get news. Push for killing off the fossil fuel industry as much as possible. Never vote for Republicans or let them run uncontested. What's Greta doing these days? Bet she has a whole list ten times this long.
But I've got more too. I am totally down for people giving a damn.
yes, ecological overshoot is the core dynamic. And yes, ecological economics is a very useful reformulation of economic theory that, if adopted, would move us in the right direction. But ecological economics is vastly different from environmental economics, and they should not be confused. Environmental economics is a branch of neoclassical economics that basically attempts to internalize costs that are otherwise externalized. While this might sound like a good idea, it has some serious problems. It does nothing to stop the externalized costs from occurring in the first place. And it would require an army of accountants to track and costs just those externalities we are aware of. But in many cases we arent aware of the externalities until they are causing a problem we can't avoid. Ecological economics is a major reconceptualization of basic economic theory that is based on both science and ethics - two perspectives our current system ignores. It seeks to prevent externalities in the first place. An excellent introduction to ecological economic concepts is Peter Victor's book https://wiseresponse.org.nz/2022/05/11/book-review-herman-dalys-economics-for-a-full-world-his-life-and-ideas/ Ecological economics provides a basic description of the steady state economy that degrowth is the path toward - essential reading for anyone committed to degrowth.