Free Collision Course: Endless Growth on a Finite Planet by Kerryn Higgs Page A

Affairs (UK)
IEA
International Energy Agency (OECD)
IIED
International Institute for Environment and Development (FAO)
ILO
International Labour Organization (UN)
IMF
International Monetary Fund
IPA
Institute of Public Affairs (Australia)
IPCC
International Panel on Climate Change
MAI
Multilateral Agreement on Investment
mb/d
million barrels per day
MDG
Millennium Development Goal
MPS
Mont Pèlerin Society
NAFTA
North American Free Trade Agreement
NAM
National Association of Manufacturers (US)
nef
new economics foundation
NRC
National Research Council (US)
NSS
National Sample Survey (India)
OECD
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
OPEC
Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries
ORC
Opinion Research Corporation (US)
PBS
Public Broadcasting Service (US)
PPP
Purchasing power parity
SAP
structural adjustment program (IMF, World Bank)
SBS
Special Broadcasting Service (AUS)
SDI
Strategic Defense Initiative (“Star Wars”)
SEPA
State Environmental Protection Administration (China)
SEPP
Science and Environmental Policy Project
TASSC
The Advancement of Sound Science Coalition
TISS
Tata Institute of Social Sciences
TNC
Transnational corporation
UN
United Nations
UNCED
United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (Earth Summit/Rio)
UNCTAD
United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
UNCTC
United Nations Centre on Transnational Corporations
UN/DESA
United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs
UNDP
United Nations Development Programme
UNEP
United Nations Environment Programme
UN-Habitat
United Nations Human Settlements Programme
UNICEF
United Nations Children’s Fund
UNU
United Nations University
USAID
US Agency for International Development
WCD
World Commission on Dams
WCED
World Commission on Environment and Development (Brundtland Commission)
WEF
World Economic Forum
WIDER
World Institute for Development Economics Research (UNU)
WTO
World Trade Organization
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Introduction
    Since the middle of the twentieth century, the scale of the human enterprise has rapidly escalated, and with it the exploitation of the natural world as a source of raw materials and a sink for the disposal of waste. Though the roots of this explosion lie in the history of the last five hundred years at least (in the rise of capitalism, European colonialism, Enlightenment science, and the Industrial Revolution), the associated disruption of the global biosphere has become evident only over the last half century.
    This book is about the story of this growth, its astonishing acceleration since World War II, and its equally astonishing impact on the natural world. Above all, it’s about the way the notion of ever-expanding economic growth has gained virtually ubiquitous popularity, both with policymakers and in public discourse, while the idea put forward by physical scientists—that we live on a finite planet that cannot sustain infinite economic expansion—has been treated as an opinion of the lunatic “doom-saying” fringe. Even as concepts such as sustainability and “going green” have, in recent times, paid lip service to the need to act, the commitment to growth without end has not wavered.
    From the 1960s on, a succession of books pointed to the perils of pollution, untrammeled population growth, and ignoring ecology in the economic calculus. The Limits to Growth 1 was written by MIT researchers in 1972 and commissioned by the Club of Rome, an international think tank promoting “identification and analysis of the crucial problems facing humanity and the communication of such problems to the most important public and private decision makers as well as to the general public.” The Limits authors, with expertise across many disciplines, including biophysics, system dynamics, and management, found that unmodified economic growth was likely to collide with the realities of a finite planet within a century. They saw grave problems emerging from five major tendencies: accelerating industrialization,