Limits to Growth, Planetary Boundaries and Planetary Health: history and future

This is a background paper for a workshop held at the University of Sydney on December 13, 2017, in conjunction with the launch of a platform about planetary health. My slides are here.

Planetary health has been described as the amalgamation of the health of human civilisation and its underpinning natural systems. There is wide agreement among natural scientists that the current modification of nature is unprecedented, judged by biodiversity depletion, easily accessible fossil fuel, nitrogen in soil and water, and the level of atmospheric greenhouse gases, indicators which, are key “planetary boundaries”.(1) At the same time the number and average life expectancy of humans (and the numbers of the tiny range of animal and plants which humans eat) has never been higher.

Civilisation, in fact, may be likened to an enormous nature-transforming machine, with a seemingly unstoppable trajectory. But is there a limit? If so is it near?

Almost 2,000 years ago Tertullian lamented how the Mediterranean world was becoming full.(2) 219 years ago, another Christian, Malthus, published his analysis of the “principle of population”,(3) arguing, essentially, that humans would fill whatever ecological niche was available to them, limited by their capacity to grow food. Malthus informed Darwin and Wallace’s theory of evolution,(4) but revealed ignorance of at least one exception to his principle, that of Indigenous Australians, who appear, on the whole, at that time, to have lived within their “eco-social” limits for millennia, thanks mainly to the preventive check of child spacing rather than the “malignant” checks of periodic famine, epidemic, or genocide.(5)

In the 1960s, when global human population growth peaked as a percentage, before the success of the Green Revolution (which greatly increased crop yields due to new crop strains and the use of fossil fuel-dependent fertilisers, pesticides and irrigation) was fully appreciated, concern grew that parts of the world were destined for what some called “Malthusian” traps, as regional human carrying capacity(6) was exceeded, including in parts of sub-Saharan Africa.(7) About then, the Club of Rome commissioned a computerised study to try to dynamically and quantitatively model the human future until 2100.

This study, called the Limits to Growth, became an unexpected best seller, but was intensely criticised by an emerging generation of “neoliberal” economists. The Limits to Growth found that the supply of natural resources, obviously essential for well-being, would become scarce by 2100 under all but the most optimistic scenario, in which human population growth was slowed. Critics dismissed this core assumption, arguing that even if scarcity did occur, market forces would evolve substitutes.

By 2000, the Limits to Growth was almost forgotten, considered by many experts to have been discredited as civilisation still persisted at that time. Among these critics was the 2003 Global Environmental Outlook 3, the flagship report of the United Nations Environment Programme, which incorrectly claimed that Limits to Growth predicted world collapse by 2000.(8)

In contrast, The Limits to Growth concluded that collapse, were it to occur, would be well after 2000. In the “standard run” (see figure) collapse commences by 2050, though this may be postponed by more “enlightened” policies, even if introduced late. Under all of its range of assumptions the study concluded that global food supplies would keep pace with population growth for at least several decades into the new millennium.(8, 9)

Figure The standard run of the Limits to growth finds that human population size declines in the 21st century. If so, this implies a phenomenon of “peak health”(10), likened to peak oil. After Turner.(11) Figure forthcoming.(12)

Although the long version of the early Planetary Boundaries study(13) acknowledges a debt to the Limits to Growth,(14) the Planetary Boundaries work only hints at the effects on health, well-being and civilisation, should too many boundaries be transgressed. Perhaps its authors (of whom few if any would be recognised as leading social scientists) wisely sought to leave such considerations to other writers, aware of the furore encountered by the authors of the Limits to Growth and other bearers of bad news, from Malthus to the Ehrlichs(15) and Lester Brown.(16)

Planetary Health literature draws extensively on the Planetary Boundaries framework, but seems to shy away from mentioning the Limits to Growth.(14) Nonetheless Planetary Health courageously extends Planetary Boundaries towards a domain where controversy and perhaps vilification await, fates experienced by other health writers who have attempted to sound the alarm.(17)

Malthusian checks in 2017 and the role of inequality in shaping Our Common Future

Optimists contend that market forces and ingenuity will continue to long outwit limits, even as famines have returned to parts of sub-Saharan Africa and Yemen,(18) and as awareness and apprehension of the enormous scale of future refugee numbers increase, including by the military.(19) The suffering of 600,000 Rohingya, driven from Myanmar in 2017, is but one recent example, a flight not driven by climate change, but other aspects of Limits to Growth, including limited tolerance and co-operation.(12)

It is important to recognise that policies and views are shaped by those with the greatest military and economic power, whose influence permeates the scientific literature and academic appointments. Civilisation remains extremely unequal, with a global Gini co-efficient (a widely used measure of inequality) which far exceeds the most unequal individual nation.(20) This inequality is mentioned in planetary health scholarship but is probably generally interpreted as a call for greater health justice. This call is valid, but in my view, there is insufficient appreciation, including within planetary health writing, that the extent of inequality helps propel civilisation towards a brink, essentially because elites feel disconnected from the masses, and immune to whatever perils lie ahead.(21, 22)

The release of the Paradise Papers(23) shows, again, the scale of legal tax evasion which results from and fuels global inequality.(24) Prestigious companies and at least one anti-poverty campaigner, Bono, have been revealed as participating in this. It is as if powerful individuals and companies distrust society, thinking their personal control of resources will do more good. But such individualism is a recipe for collapse. We need a return to the idealism at the birth of the United Nations, born from sober judgement, following two World Wars,(22, 25, 26) and we need more courage in academic and political spheres.

Acknowledgements: Thanks to Dr Graham Turner for providing the data in the figure, Dr Devin Bowles and Professors Andy Morse and Jouni Jaakkola for helpful comments

References

1. Steffen W, Richardson K, Rockström J, et al. Planetary boundaries: Guiding human development on a changing planet. Science 2015; 347(6223): 1259855.
2. Holland BK. A View of Population Growth Circa A.D. 200. Population and Development Review 1993; 19: 328-9
3. Malthus TR. An Essay on the Principle of Population. London: J. Johnson; 1798. see here for the 6th edition
4. Young RM. Malthus and the evolutionists: the common context of biological and social theory. Past and Present 1969; 43: 109-45
5. Butler CD. Population trends and the environment. In: Friis RH, ed. Praeger Handbook of Environmental Health. Westport, Connecticut: Praegar; 2012: 215-31. See
6. Butler CD. Human carrying capacity and human health. Public Library of Science Medicine 2004; 1(3): 192-4.
7. André C, Platteau J-P. Land relations under unbearable stress: Rwanda caught in the Malthusian trap. Journal of Economic Behavior and Organization 1998; 34(1): 1–47.
8. Turner GM. A comparison of The Limits to Growth with 30 years of reality. Global Environmental Change 2008; 18: 397– 411.
9. Meadows D, Meadows D, Randers. J, Behrens III W. The Limits to Growth. New York: Universe Books; 1972.
10. Brijnath B, McMichael AJ, Butler CD. Rio+20: Don’t forget health in sustainability talks. Nature 2012; 486: 191.
11. Turner GM. Is Global Collapse Imminent? An Updated Comparison of The Limits to Growth With Historical Data. Melbourne: Melbourne Sustainable Society Institute, The University of Melbourne, 2014.
12. Butler CD. submitted.
13. Rockström J, Steffen W, Noone K, et al. Planetary boundaries: exploring the safe operating space for humanity. Ecology and Society 2009; 14(2).
14. Butler CD. Limits to growth, planetary boundaries, and planetary health. Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability 2017; 25: 59-65.
15. Ehrlich PR, Ehrlich AH. Can a collapse of global civilization be avoided? Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 2013; 280(1754): 20122845.
16. Crossette B. The persistent prophet--Lester Brown's new-found optimism. Scientific American 2009; special edition.
17. Abbasi K. King in a maverick style. BMJ 1999; 319: 942.
18. Gettleman J. Drought and war heighten threat of not just 1 famine, but 4. The New York Times 2017.
19. Environmental Justice Foundation. Beyond Borders. 2017.
20. Milanovic B. Global Income Inequality in numbers: in history and now. Global Policy 2013; 4(2): 198-208.
21. Motesharrei S, Rivas J, Kalnay E. Human and nature dynamics (HANDY): Modeling inequality and use of resources in the collapse or sustainability of societies. Ecological Economics 2014; 101: 90-102.
22. Butler CD. Inequality, global change and the sustainability of civilisation. Global Change and Human Health 2000; 1(2): 156-72.
23. Pilkington E, Smith D. Bernie Sanders warns of 'international oligarchy' after Paradise Papers leak The Guardian 2017.
24. Johnson J. Three richest Americans now own more wealth than bottom half of US combined: report. Common Dreams.
25. Asbrink E. 1947 When Now Begins: Scribe; 2017.
26. Glendon MA. A World Made New: Eleanor Roosevelt and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. New York: Random House; 2001.

Agriculture, inequality and poverty in India - problems with the Green Revolution

 
I just read two papers about the plight of farmers in India and nutrition. The first is in the magazine Down to Earth, called "Why Marathwada is becoming a graveyard for farmers". The second is not open access, but published in the journal Public Health. Its title is "Modern agriculture and food and nutrition insecurity: paradox in India". The second is scholarly, the first gives it a human face, starting by describing an indebted farmer who uses pesticide to commit suicide.
 
There are many interacting, interlocking factors that underlie India's poverty; some of them agricultural, some of them social. For example, the farmer who consumed the pesticide in had "borrowed Rs 60,000 from a government-owned bank and Rs 150,000 from a private moneylender. " The interest rate from the moneylender is likely to be usurious - even from microcredit schemes in India etc it is often very high (even after adjusting for inflation). The article would be strengthened by listing the interest rates.

Poor farmers are really vulnerable. There is an enormous asymmetry between them and those who are able to exploit him, such as the moneylenders. This asymmetry is not only of wealth, income, education and health, but also of information.

The part of Maharashtra discussed in this report relies mostly on rain and has been traditionally prone to droughts. Another factor in the poverty there is population pressure, which forces people to try to make a living on less agriculturally favoured areas. Yet another factor is cultural identified in the article: "They cannot take the humiliation of not being able to pay the debt or meet social obligations" - social pressure is important .. this is a cultural cause, not an agricultural cause.

Population pressure and a failure to protect the commons is also shown by the failure sufficient water.  The dam water goes preferentially to industry. Water in upstream dams are not released - this is a significant failure of governance, and a good example of the "Matthew effect" ("he who has gets"). It's a good but sad analysis - and with another El Niño declared it looks like it will get worse, at least in the next year.


Problems with the Green Revolution

The second paper is a more formal documentation of the limited evidence described in the first, from a poor part of Maharashtra. It shows how the "Green Revolution" (modern agricultural practices with high yielding seeds, intensive fertiliser and irrigation) has failed to deliver nutrition and other forms of security to the poor and vulnerable in India. The Green Revolution transformed India from a land of famines (including after it obtained freedom from British colonisation) to a net food exporter within 25 years, despite continued high population growth.  However, the paradox is that a considerable proportion of the Indian population, especially in the North, remain undernourished: surveys conducted in 2005-06 found 38% of children less than five were stunted -- with consequent cognitive impairment.

The paper in fact argues that Indian inequality has increased. Though no convincing statistical evidence of this is provided it is a reasonable assertion; in any case poverty and undernutrition (which the authors correctly attribute in part to poor health services and poor hygiene) remain at levels that should be unacceptable in a society that is more or less well governed. India (at least in its north) clearly is still not well-governed.

The paper also argues that uncritical government advocacy favoured three major cereals (rice, wheat, maize), but neglected traditional and nutritionally valuable crops including sorghum, millets, and pulses. The reduction in pulse consumption places the poor at risk of critical amino acid scarcity.

Furthermore, the reduction in (nitrogen-fixing) legume crops (especially in rotation with the main grains) has increased the demand for nitrogenous fertiliser. A combination of factors has led to aquifer depletion and soil deterioration including salinity. To this must be added high population growth (especially in the north). These are exemplify the concept that what Hardin termed as a "tragedy of the commons". (For example, if the groundwater is dropping and I fear my neighbour is taking more than his or her share, and if there is no over-lying sanction or custom to reduce my own use of the groundwater then it seems in my interest to act the same as my neighbour.) What lies ahead for India?

The authors conclude that it is vital for the new agricultural paradigm to be made truly more pro-people, including by addressing issues of poverty, gender, livelihood and environment. This cannot happen automatically without supportive government policies.

I would add that it also requires policies and a mindset far broader than most people conceive as "agriculture" - such as rural education and greater fairness in the application of laws and rules, with less discrimination against minorities and the poor.

The World Scientist’s Warning to Humanity

I leave the last word to Norman Borlaug, awarded the 1970 Nobel Prize for his role in the delivering the Green Revolution. Unlike many agricultural economists, including those who framed various world hunger targets, Borlaug and many other Nobel Laureates (including over half of those then alive) who signed the World Scientist’s Warning to Humanity. The text of this warning, one of whose signatories was Norman Borlaug, expresses far less optimism about the future than cornucopians like Bjorn Lomborg would like to believe.