This graph of world population growth probably doesn’t provide the scare factor it once did. We see it too often nowadays. Still, the population trend of the last 200 years can’t be ignored when thinking about the sort of world the next generation will inherit, the world as it will be in [...]
Archive for the ‘affluence’ Category
population, size matters
Posted in affluence, consumerism, growth, population, science, sustainability on September 22, 2008 | 3 Comments »
it needn’t be Dickensian
Posted in affluence, consumption, economy, energy, family planning, feminism, global warming, growth, human rights, politics, population, poverty, sustainability on March 30, 2008 | 8 Comments »
As I mentioned in the previous post, recently the Wall Street Journal published an article, New Limits to Growth Revive Malthusian Fears, with an interesting graphic at the bottom.
Here’s my redering of the WSJ data regarding how US commodity prices and world population have changed over time:
The CRB Spot Index is based on the [...]
inflation, oil, & sustainability
Posted in affluence, consumption, economy, sustainability on March 16, 2008 | 32 Comments »
In the last few weeks there has been a noticeable change in tone. Wall Street, which for the last 8 months has been seized by the mortgage and liquidity crises, has finally noticed that $100 oil and the prospects of $4 gasoline might just become a real problem. A growing number of economists are becoming [...]
neuroscience and poverty
Posted in affluence, human rights, poverty on February 18, 2008 | 3 Comments »
Too the abundant ethical reasons to abolish poverty, we can now add a scientific one: impaired brain development. Even the most hardened conservative can understand the positive consequences for the economy if we can reduce the number of brain damaged potential workers — although another consequence might be a reduction in the number [...]
sustainability requires justice
Posted in affluence, consumerism, consumption, economy, global warming, growth, human rights, politics, population, sustainability on January 5, 2008 | 22 Comments »
Every large corporation has a department named human resources. I never liked that term. The one it replaced, personnel, was more appropriate and dignified. Human resources sounds like we’re talking about things on par with raw materials like iron and coal — which is too often exactly how people are thought [...]
gasoline, bread, and the value of time
Posted in affluence, consumerism, consumption, economy, energy, growth, sustainability on January 4, 2008 | 2 Comments »
Recently two very different claims caught my attention:
In an interview, Matt Simmons remarked that even at $3.20/gallon gasoline was a great value. (The interview was one of the ones here but I’m not sure which.)
Two people commenting on my recent post, baking bread, a lesson in sustainability, thought that baking bread at home [...]
“happiness versus consumption”
Posted in affluence, consumption, growth, sustainability on December 27, 2007 | 2 Comments »
Colin Beavan says,
… the overarching point of the image is to show, first of all, that there comes a point where using more resources actually reduces your quality of life.
Zone 3 [overabundance] represents a lifestyle where your life and your mind are crowded with what you have and what you do and you are overwhelmed….
In [...]
presidential commission reports on population growth
Posted in affluence, biodiversity, consumption, economy, energy, family planning, growth, human rights, politics, population, sustainability on December 23, 2007 | 2 Comments »
Back in March, after completing a two-year study on population growth in the United States, a presidential commission issued its report. The commission’s chairperson wrote in the report’s “letter of transmital”:
After two years of concentrated effort, we have concluded that, in the long run, no substantial benefits will result from further growth of the [...]
the power of blogging
Posted in affluence, blogging, consumerism, consumption, energy, sustainability on December 14, 2007 | 5 Comments »
Apparently Al Gore read this post from back in March and has been working furiously ever since.
Al Gore, who was criticized for high electric bills at his Tennessee mansion, has completed a host of improvements to make the home more energy efficient, and a building-industry group has praised the house as one of the nation’s [...]
the limits of human needs (the end of the economic growth, part 3)
Posted in affluence, consumerism, consumption, economy, global warming, growth, population, prisons, sustainability on December 13, 2007 | 13 Comments »
See also part 1 and part 2 of this series on the work of Charles Siegel.
The first section of The End of Economic Growth, titled The Limits of Human Needs, is what initially drew me to Siegel’s thinking. It’s also the subject of this third entry in the Charles Siegel series.These graphs are [...]
modeling the future
Posted in affluence, consumption, economy, energy, global warming, growth, population, sustainability on December 10, 2007 | 6 Comments »
Paul Chefurka builds models involving energy, population, and GDP based on respected data sources and a bit of informed intuition. There’s a lot to be said about the nature of modeling, how to understand projections from models, and the conclusions Chefurka derives from them, and I hope to address those issues in the future. [...]
the end of economic growth, part 2
Posted in affluence, consumerism, consumption, economy, growth, politics, sustainability on December 5, 2007 | 3 Comments »
Part one of this series introduced Charles Siegel’s essay The End of Economic Growth. In this second installment, I begin to expose his reasoning (mixed with my own).
This graph is a variant of one that Siegel presents:
From the 1840’s to the 1930’s the average work week in the US steadily declined while our standard [...]
GPI: Genuine Progress Indicator
Posted in affluence, consumerism, consumption, economy, growth, politics, sustainability on December 3, 2007 | 14 Comments »
The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) is such a crude measure of the health of an economy it grows even when negative things like oil spills and crime occur. The oil spill clean up and the cost of prisons make the GDP go up — not down. GDP does not measure how good we’re [...]
the end of economic growth, part 1
Posted in affluence, consumerism, consumption, economy, growth, human rights, politics, population, sustainability on December 2, 2007 | 2 Comments »
We often hear that we are reaching the limits of growth because of ecological constraints, but we rarely hear that we are also reaching the limits of human needs.
— from the The End of Economic Growth by Charles Siegel (2006), director of the Preservation Institute. (HT to Krishnaraj Rao.)
It’s a unique point to make. [...]
ecological/steady-state economics, an introduction
Posted in affluence, consumption, economy, growth, population, science, sustainability on November 13, 2007 | 12 Comments »
Most of what I’ve learned about ecological economics has come from exploring Dave Iverson’s blog Ecological Economics and following up ideas I found there. Just recently I realized that the notes I’ve made for myself might of interest to others learning about the topic. So, with only a bit of rework, that’s what [...]
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