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The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality
Economics has failed us ... but there is life after growth! Economists insist that recovery is at hand, yet unemployment remains high, real estate values continue to sink, and governments stagger under record deficits. The End of Growth proposes a startling humanity has reached a fundamental turning point in its economic history. The expansionary trajectory of industrial civilization is colliding with non-negotiable natural limits. Richard Heinberg’s latest landmark work goes to the heart of the ongoing financial crisis, explaining how and why it occurred, and what we must do to avert the worst potential outcomes. Written in an engaging, highly readable style, it shows why growth is being blocked by three These converging limits will force us to re-evaluate cherished economic theories and to reinvent money and commerce. The End of Growth describes what policy makers, communities, and families can do to build a new economy that operates within Earth’s budget of energy and resources. We can thrive during the transition if we set goals that promote human and environmental well-being, rather than continuing to pursue the now-unattainable prize of ever-expanding GDP. Richard Heinberg is the author of nine previous books, including The Party's Over , Peak Everything , and Blackout . A senior fellow of the Post Carbon Institute, Heinberg is one of the world's foremost peak oil educators and an effective communicator of the urgent need to transition away from fossil fuels.
288 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2011
93 people are currently reading
2294 people want to read
About the author
Richard Heinberg
50 books95 followersRichard William Heinberg is an American journalist and educator who has written extensively on energy, economic, and ecological issues, including oil depletion. He is the author of 13 books, and presently serves as the senior fellow at the Post Carbon Institute.
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May 23, 2016
This is a tough book to review because basically, it depends on the audience. Generally, though, I like the book and agree with the thesis. Heinberg's book is right in all major respects, well-written, and important.
Please consider this a five-star review if you are asking yourself, "what's all this talk about 'peak oil'?" or if your last encounter with the idea of limits to the economy is dim memories of reading "The Limits to Growth" in the 1970's. On the other hand, if you regularly peruse the Peak Oil News (from ASPO-USA), the Energy Bulletin, the Oil Drum, the "The Crash Course," or Gail Tverberg's blog (http://ourfiniteworld.com/), you will find very little that you don't already know: two or three stars. Since I don't know who's going to read this review, I'm arbitrarily calling it four stars. I generally praise the book but have two specific criticisms over which I want to go into quite a bit of detail.
I fall in the category of a fairly knowledgeable reader and have pretty much heard this already. Economic growth is over. Heinberg argues that the "Limits to Growth" theories are essentially correct after all and looks at alternatives. There are two questions of detail, but important details, which are lacking in the book: how the post-growth economy will work, and how and what we will eat in this economy. I also have problems with Heinberg's research methods and and his rebuttal of his opponents (more about this below). But first, here's the two specific problems I see:
(1) A clear picture of how the post-growth economy is going to work is missing; we see themes, but it is not worked out in detail or even fully in outline. The last two chapters, chapters 6 and 7, do throw out some good ideas but this is not a comprehensive overview of the needed approaches. On the other hand, no one has really done this and it would be difficult; we really need a kind of popularization of the whole discipline of ecological economics. This book could have been that popularization, but Heinberg has focused his work just on the problem, more than the solution.
(LATE BREAKING FLASH: "Plenitude" by Juliet B. Schor may be this book. I haven't read it, but it's in our house and I'll get to it as soon as Kate finishes it. Here's the link: Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth)
(UPDATE 1/17/2012: "Plenitude" is quite interesting and adds some insights, but is not a popularization of how a post-growth economy would work. She is not entirely clear that we have hit the limits to growth.)
(2) Also missing is any serious mention of diet. Heinberg has told me personally that he has been a vegetarian for decades, but you can't tell it from his writings. There are only cursory references to diet, usually along the lines of brief platitudes like "we need to cut back on our meat consumption also." This is too bad; a critical change that we will need to make in our lifestyles as a result of the end of growth is a drastic reduction in meat consumption in the West.
I wish Heinberg would be more aggressive in his research. I've read a number of Richard Heinberg's books and I think I know how he researches and writes his books. They're all good: "The Party's Over," "Blackout," "Peak Everything," and "Powerdown" stand out. They tend to be a bit repetitive in their themes, but the themes are important and there aren't a lot of people putting stuff in print (as opposed to blogs) about this. Heinberg, I believe, finds a thesis, and looks at how others are defending it. "This is a defensible thesis," he says to himself, and investigates further. He looks at alternative points of view. He reaches a conclusion: "this is not just defensible, this is right, and important, too." And then he explains it to others.
This is good, but I think before one popularizes an idea we need to make sure it is really intellectually all there. Ecological economics, as a discipline, is not fully developed. So we both want to work out the key concepts in this discipline and simultaneously popularize them. Heinberg is not interested in coming up with his own ideas; as far as I can tell, he is fully occupied with defending other people's ideas. I think Heinberg is smarter than that and I'd like to see (in his blog or in a book or elsewhere) some of his thinking about things he doesn't understand. Sometimes things you don't understand turn out to be things that, well, you just don't understand that well. But other times, the reason YOU don't understand something is because NOBODY understands it.
Doesn't he see a vegetarian diet as an obvious answer to the whole problem of resource shortages? He should at least address the question of diet and tell us. I don't find the answers to questions of diet in "The Food and Farming Transition" (http://www.compassionatespirit.com/wp...). There is generally a bias -- covert, or sometimes blatant -- against veganism in the energy descent community. From the other side, the vegan community has also largely ignored environmental questions, with a few exceptions such as Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang of "Livestock and Climate Change" fame and Dawn Moncrieffe of "A Well-Fed World." Heinberg is ideally positioned to lead the way here, but alas, he isn't. I'm doing a lot of work on these issues myself, so if anyone is interested, let me know (keith "at" compassionatespirit "dot" com).
Another question of detail is how he answers objections to his thesis. There are six chapters, and chapters 4 and 5 stand out as the rebuttal. In the case of Chapter 4, it isn't clear that there are actual opponents within the economic community to which he is responding. Chapter 4 asks, won't substitution, efficiency, and innovation come to the rescue? Good question. But, are there any economists kaking these positions? I know that there are people like Julian Simon, and philosophers like Mark Sagoff ("Price, Principle, and the Environment"). But who are Heinberg's opponents here? Just a question. I get the impression that this holy Trinity of "substitution, efficiency, and innovation" is just an unexamined prejudice on the part of economists, rather than any coherent attempt to refute the idea of the limits to growth.
Chapter 5 tries to refute, in advance, any attempts to say that growth has returned just on the basis of one country or other experiencing growth, or describing the slight recovery from the Great Recession as "growth." That growth is increasing in one part of the world doesn't mean that growth has returned -- just that some economy is growing locally at someone else's expense, while the world as a whole goes downhill. And that a huge collapse followed by a slight uptake of indicators is not "growth" is also true. But to my mind it this deserves a paragraph or two at most. Isn't this obvious? Well, maybe not.
In conclusion, this is a great book and you should ignore all my critical comments and read it anyway. If you're a vegan you should read it because then you might have a clue why I am so concerned about the prospect of peak oil. If you're already well familiar with the limits to growth thesis and regularly attend ASPO-USA conventions, you should read it because you'll know what is being done to popularize and extend the whole thesis of an end to growth soon. And if you're clueless, after reading this book you'll have a clue.
Please consider this a five-star review if you are asking yourself, "what's all this talk about 'peak oil'?" or if your last encounter with the idea of limits to the economy is dim memories of reading "The Limits to Growth" in the 1970's. On the other hand, if you regularly peruse the Peak Oil News (from ASPO-USA), the Energy Bulletin, the Oil Drum, the "The Crash Course," or Gail Tverberg's blog (http://ourfiniteworld.com/), you will find very little that you don't already know: two or three stars. Since I don't know who's going to read this review, I'm arbitrarily calling it four stars. I generally praise the book but have two specific criticisms over which I want to go into quite a bit of detail.
I fall in the category of a fairly knowledgeable reader and have pretty much heard this already. Economic growth is over. Heinberg argues that the "Limits to Growth" theories are essentially correct after all and looks at alternatives. There are two questions of detail, but important details, which are lacking in the book: how the post-growth economy will work, and how and what we will eat in this economy. I also have problems with Heinberg's research methods and and his rebuttal of his opponents (more about this below). But first, here's the two specific problems I see:
(1) A clear picture of how the post-growth economy is going to work is missing; we see themes, but it is not worked out in detail or even fully in outline. The last two chapters, chapters 6 and 7, do throw out some good ideas but this is not a comprehensive overview of the needed approaches. On the other hand, no one has really done this and it would be difficult; we really need a kind of popularization of the whole discipline of ecological economics. This book could have been that popularization, but Heinberg has focused his work just on the problem, more than the solution.
(LATE BREAKING FLASH: "Plenitude" by Juliet B. Schor may be this book. I haven't read it, but it's in our house and I'll get to it as soon as Kate finishes it. Here's the link: Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth)
(UPDATE 1/17/2012: "Plenitude" is quite interesting and adds some insights, but is not a popularization of how a post-growth economy would work. She is not entirely clear that we have hit the limits to growth.)
(2) Also missing is any serious mention of diet. Heinberg has told me personally that he has been a vegetarian for decades, but you can't tell it from his writings. There are only cursory references to diet, usually along the lines of brief platitudes like "we need to cut back on our meat consumption also." This is too bad; a critical change that we will need to make in our lifestyles as a result of the end of growth is a drastic reduction in meat consumption in the West.
I wish Heinberg would be more aggressive in his research. I've read a number of Richard Heinberg's books and I think I know how he researches and writes his books. They're all good: "The Party's Over," "Blackout," "Peak Everything," and "Powerdown" stand out. They tend to be a bit repetitive in their themes, but the themes are important and there aren't a lot of people putting stuff in print (as opposed to blogs) about this. Heinberg, I believe, finds a thesis, and looks at how others are defending it. "This is a defensible thesis," he says to himself, and investigates further. He looks at alternative points of view. He reaches a conclusion: "this is not just defensible, this is right, and important, too." And then he explains it to others.
This is good, but I think before one popularizes an idea we need to make sure it is really intellectually all there. Ecological economics, as a discipline, is not fully developed. So we both want to work out the key concepts in this discipline and simultaneously popularize them. Heinberg is not interested in coming up with his own ideas; as far as I can tell, he is fully occupied with defending other people's ideas. I think Heinberg is smarter than that and I'd like to see (in his blog or in a book or elsewhere) some of his thinking about things he doesn't understand. Sometimes things you don't understand turn out to be things that, well, you just don't understand that well. But other times, the reason YOU don't understand something is because NOBODY understands it.
Doesn't he see a vegetarian diet as an obvious answer to the whole problem of resource shortages? He should at least address the question of diet and tell us. I don't find the answers to questions of diet in "The Food and Farming Transition" (http://www.compassionatespirit.com/wp...). There is generally a bias -- covert, or sometimes blatant -- against veganism in the energy descent community. From the other side, the vegan community has also largely ignored environmental questions, with a few exceptions such as Robert Goodland and Jeff Anhang of "Livestock and Climate Change" fame and Dawn Moncrieffe of "A Well-Fed World." Heinberg is ideally positioned to lead the way here, but alas, he isn't. I'm doing a lot of work on these issues myself, so if anyone is interested, let me know (keith "at" compassionatespirit "dot" com).
Another question of detail is how he answers objections to his thesis. There are six chapters, and chapters 4 and 5 stand out as the rebuttal. In the case of Chapter 4, it isn't clear that there are actual opponents within the economic community to which he is responding. Chapter 4 asks, won't substitution, efficiency, and innovation come to the rescue? Good question. But, are there any economists kaking these positions? I know that there are people like Julian Simon, and philosophers like Mark Sagoff ("Price, Principle, and the Environment"). But who are Heinberg's opponents here? Just a question. I get the impression that this holy Trinity of "substitution, efficiency, and innovation" is just an unexamined prejudice on the part of economists, rather than any coherent attempt to refute the idea of the limits to growth.
Chapter 5 tries to refute, in advance, any attempts to say that growth has returned just on the basis of one country or other experiencing growth, or describing the slight recovery from the Great Recession as "growth." That growth is increasing in one part of the world doesn't mean that growth has returned -- just that some economy is growing locally at someone else's expense, while the world as a whole goes downhill. And that a huge collapse followed by a slight uptake of indicators is not "growth" is also true. But to my mind it this deserves a paragraph or two at most. Isn't this obvious? Well, maybe not.
In conclusion, this is a great book and you should ignore all my critical comments and read it anyway. If you're a vegan you should read it because then you might have a clue why I am so concerned about the prospect of peak oil. If you're already well familiar with the limits to growth thesis and regularly attend ASPO-USA conventions, you should read it because you'll know what is being done to popularize and extend the whole thesis of an end to growth soon. And if you're clueless, after reading this book you'll have a clue.
April 23, 2013
I was extremely disappointed with this book. It fails to persuade at all. I'm a massive proponent of sustainability and I also believe that GDP is an inappropriate measure for tracking the development of a sophisticated society.
The peak everything sections are OK but as with many of these writers the implication is that disaster starts now. It doesn't. Things will get worse, in terms of availability and price, with different resources at different times. The responses to each will be different and impacts will be different depending in the country and even the region within a country you happen to live in.
The simplistic assumption that the price of oil (and other things nearing peak) will spike then fall creating recession followed by growth and that in turn means no long term investment in alternatives is possible is silly. While the spiking is true the underlying trend is consistently upward. Plus the cost of all the alternatives is consistently downward. At some point the market will simply drive the change.
Then the issue is do we have time? Of course we do because there is a massively energy dense fuel already available. Nuclear. Yes Uranium is also peaking but Thorium isn't and that avoids some of the pitfalls of Uranium. Uranium (plus natural gas as the author also acknowledges) can act as a bridge until all the engineering issues are resolved with building Thorium plants (although they already have one in India). Yes the waste fuel is a problem that means the building of these plants has mostly stopped due to negative public opinion. But if the crises with oil gets as extreme as supposed in this book then society will change its mind. And the waste is so much less than the massive environmental impact created by oil refineries - anyone seen the Mississippi delta? Thousands dead and dying of cancer, huge areas of land destroyed through contamination.
And if the Chinese can build a hotel in six days and the Americans can send a man to the moon and the Danish and British stimulate a massive boom in wind turbines then of course a country can rebuild a nuclear capacity much quicker than people like this author always assume. Twenty years to rebuild that capacity? In a crises? It'll be done in less than five.
But again that's only if the crises is too extreme. If the transition has to happen fast. If all the alternatives, like solar, biofuels, algae, tidal, do not pan out economically in time. And yes I know people then point to peak everything but again and again we have moved on from one material to another. Again and again we have massively increased our efficiency in energy and material use. With water we already know how to be massively more efficient with things like drip irrigation. We simply haven't reached the economic tipping point that'll force us to do it.
The sections of the book on debt are certainly worrying. But they are so poorly written that they simply don't explain clearly enough how and why we are all going to crash and burn! There are other far better books that give much deeper analyses of the system the the risks and the possible ways out. This book just aims to scare and do so mostly with rhetoric rather than cogent fact based argument.
One part towards the end does start to get interesting. That is effectively around the cognitive dissonance that humans seem to be hard wired for when it comes to long term planning and thought. And I'm sure I'll be accused of sticking my head in the sand and "assuming" we will fix everything. But it felt like there was a little teaser here and not much depth. There is plenty of research that could have been assessed and disseminated in an easy to consume way. But no.
The end two chapters of the book, which I was actually most looking forward too, are the worst. They just list other texts or web sites or randomly give brief insights into what a few groups of people are doing. These chapters felt like the author was just shrugging and saying "I gave no idea but here's a few things that might interest you". They do, but this is a book I paid for. I can surf the web on my own dime and do my own research. I expect an author whose book I paid for to do some of that for me. And to have an opinion. It felt lazy and sloppy in the extreme.
Rarely have I been so angry about paying for a book.
The peak everything sections are OK but as with many of these writers the implication is that disaster starts now. It doesn't. Things will get worse, in terms of availability and price, with different resources at different times. The responses to each will be different and impacts will be different depending in the country and even the region within a country you happen to live in.
The simplistic assumption that the price of oil (and other things nearing peak) will spike then fall creating recession followed by growth and that in turn means no long term investment in alternatives is possible is silly. While the spiking is true the underlying trend is consistently upward. Plus the cost of all the alternatives is consistently downward. At some point the market will simply drive the change.
Then the issue is do we have time? Of course we do because there is a massively energy dense fuel already available. Nuclear. Yes Uranium is also peaking but Thorium isn't and that avoids some of the pitfalls of Uranium. Uranium (plus natural gas as the author also acknowledges) can act as a bridge until all the engineering issues are resolved with building Thorium plants (although they already have one in India). Yes the waste fuel is a problem that means the building of these plants has mostly stopped due to negative public opinion. But if the crises with oil gets as extreme as supposed in this book then society will change its mind. And the waste is so much less than the massive environmental impact created by oil refineries - anyone seen the Mississippi delta? Thousands dead and dying of cancer, huge areas of land destroyed through contamination.
And if the Chinese can build a hotel in six days and the Americans can send a man to the moon and the Danish and British stimulate a massive boom in wind turbines then of course a country can rebuild a nuclear capacity much quicker than people like this author always assume. Twenty years to rebuild that capacity? In a crises? It'll be done in less than five.
But again that's only if the crises is too extreme. If the transition has to happen fast. If all the alternatives, like solar, biofuels, algae, tidal, do not pan out economically in time. And yes I know people then point to peak everything but again and again we have moved on from one material to another. Again and again we have massively increased our efficiency in energy and material use. With water we already know how to be massively more efficient with things like drip irrigation. We simply haven't reached the economic tipping point that'll force us to do it.
The sections of the book on debt are certainly worrying. But they are so poorly written that they simply don't explain clearly enough how and why we are all going to crash and burn! There are other far better books that give much deeper analyses of the system the the risks and the possible ways out. This book just aims to scare and do so mostly with rhetoric rather than cogent fact based argument.
One part towards the end does start to get interesting. That is effectively around the cognitive dissonance that humans seem to be hard wired for when it comes to long term planning and thought. And I'm sure I'll be accused of sticking my head in the sand and "assuming" we will fix everything. But it felt like there was a little teaser here and not much depth. There is plenty of research that could have been assessed and disseminated in an easy to consume way. But no.
The end two chapters of the book, which I was actually most looking forward too, are the worst. They just list other texts or web sites or randomly give brief insights into what a few groups of people are doing. These chapters felt like the author was just shrugging and saying "I gave no idea but here's a few things that might interest you". They do, but this is a book I paid for. I can surf the web on my own dime and do my own research. I expect an author whose book I paid for to do some of that for me. And to have an opinion. It felt lazy and sloppy in the extreme.
Rarely have I been so angry about paying for a book.
November 3, 2017
The first one hundred or so pages can be skipped if one has a basic understanding of economics and what happened during the global financial crisis. This was retelling, a long way to set the scene and provided little insight.
From page 100, the author’s discussion of natural resources, scarcity and depleting natural capital is one of the reasons for end of growth. Has the passage of time served this book well? Not so sure. Commodity price fell (due to lack of demand), oil & coal is now trading around USD 50- from highs. The ‘inevitable result of steeply rising coal prices’, does not look so inevitable.
Author does not fully factor in the demand for oil and coal with availability of alternatives and falling costs of installing these technologies eg wind/solar power; energy efficiency. I agree with the author we can’t move completely to renewable energy in the short term, however solutions with respect to solving for intermittency will result in a larger portion of the energy mix coming from energy.
Author predicts coal production to rise to 8000Mt by 2020, from levels around 5000 Mt but in 2016 coal consumption was flat leaning towards declining.
Later author discusses the end of big loans for unneeded infrastructure projects by multilateral banks in developing countries, but if anything activity is continuing and investment is growing. He doesn’t articulate why investment is not needed.
The ideas raised in this book are of interest but I find the conclusions just seem off the mark. Further, it’s unlikely governments will forgo growth for greater sustainability, given the impact it will have on them politically and on the broader society.
From page 100, the author’s discussion of natural resources, scarcity and depleting natural capital is one of the reasons for end of growth. Has the passage of time served this book well? Not so sure. Commodity price fell (due to lack of demand), oil & coal is now trading around USD 50- from highs. The ‘inevitable result of steeply rising coal prices’, does not look so inevitable.
Author does not fully factor in the demand for oil and coal with availability of alternatives and falling costs of installing these technologies eg wind/solar power; energy efficiency. I agree with the author we can’t move completely to renewable energy in the short term, however solutions with respect to solving for intermittency will result in a larger portion of the energy mix coming from energy.
Author predicts coal production to rise to 8000Mt by 2020, from levels around 5000 Mt but in 2016 coal consumption was flat leaning towards declining.
Later author discusses the end of big loans for unneeded infrastructure projects by multilateral banks in developing countries, but if anything activity is continuing and investment is growing. He doesn’t articulate why investment is not needed.
The ideas raised in this book are of interest but I find the conclusions just seem off the mark. Further, it’s unlikely governments will forgo growth for greater sustainability, given the impact it will have on them politically and on the broader society.
October 2, 2015
Not my usual genre but I enjoyed the history of economics and the fact that the author did try to put a positive spin on the future of humanity at the end. For the most part, this book provided an honest look at our situation as it is and what we are headed for. I would love to bury my head in the sand right now.
February 14, 2013
While reading this book I couldn't help but continually reflect back on my reading of "Abundance", by Peter Diamandis. Both are really good books with powerfully contrasting arguments and outlooks for humanity in the not so far off future. I think the two books should be read in tandem. Abundance is so overly optimistic in its views that even I was momentarily beguiled into its slipstream of persuasive perspectives on the infinite ability of technological innovation to fuel man's ambition to expand and survive abundantly. It is a great read, full of amazing examples and arguments on why the innovative human mind somehow finds a way, but its arguments are constructed within a framework that is deeply flawed - a scaffolding that has come up about 100 stories short on the ziggurat that megalomaniacal mankind would like to continue building on this earth.
Man's infinite ambitions and voracious appetites for more can not be sustained in a world that is constrained to finite resources, in a universe governed by physical laws that will only allow for so much growth. Heinberg's book is factual and very informative. It does not paint a bleak, gloom and doom type picture of our future as a species. Conversely it provides ideas and actions that we can take as individuals, as communities and as nations that will allow us to continue existing peaceably in our environment after the realization sets in that growth is no longer an option. The actions that he prescribes are not radical, but they would require mass cooperation, living with less, drastic financial/economic reforms, and basically people coming to the realization that we were not created to rule over and rape this planet of all it has while we can, but rather we exist on this planet as its most intellectually advanced creature and with that intellect we do have the capacity for a sustainable and happy existence in a world we must learn to share.
Man's infinite ambitions and voracious appetites for more can not be sustained in a world that is constrained to finite resources, in a universe governed by physical laws that will only allow for so much growth. Heinberg's book is factual and very informative. It does not paint a bleak, gloom and doom type picture of our future as a species. Conversely it provides ideas and actions that we can take as individuals, as communities and as nations that will allow us to continue existing peaceably in our environment after the realization sets in that growth is no longer an option. The actions that he prescribes are not radical, but they would require mass cooperation, living with less, drastic financial/economic reforms, and basically people coming to the realization that we were not created to rule over and rape this planet of all it has while we can, but rather we exist on this planet as its most intellectually advanced creature and with that intellect we do have the capacity for a sustainable and happy existence in a world we must learn to share.
October 17, 2011
This is by far the most comprehensive and honest analysis of our global economy and where it's headed than anything else I have read. A must read for anyone who is concerned about what the future might be like.
March 22, 2015
Richard Heinberg has been a pundit on the Peak Oil beat for more than ten years. With each passing year, his awareness of diminishing resources has grown. In 2007 he redefined the problem as Peak Everything. He came to see that industrial civilization was gobbling up non-renewable resources at a rate that spelled serious problems for the generation currently alive, which included himself. Yikes!
This mind-expanding learning process provided a miraculous cure for blissful ignorance, and replaced it with a healthy awareness of an unhealthy reality. Heinberg has been jumping up and down and shouting warnings for a long time, but the world has largely ignored him. The world perceived our incredibly unhealthy reality to be perfectly normal, because we were all born into it, as were our parents and grandparents. Normal means normal. Stop jumping up and down, already! Get a life!
Heinberg avoided suffering from normal thinking because, late at night, he secretly explored the magic and mysteries of history, which gave him special powers of vision. He came to see that the twentieth century was simply a calamitous freak in human history, powered by recklessly binging on cheap and abundant energy, a nightmare that can never again be repeated, thank goodness. Hence, normal was insane. Normal was in big danger. He kept shouting at us.
In July 2008, the price of oil skyrocketed to $150. In September, the financial system went sideways. Was this The Big One? Had the luxurious unsinkable Titanic fatally impaled itself on an invincible iceberg? Was the pleasure cruise about to become a life-threatening struggle for survival? The shadows suddenly became much darker, strong winds howled, thunder rumbled, and the Earth shook.
This big shift inspired Heinberg to write a new book, The End of Growth. His thesis was that time is running out on the era of perpetual economic growth (i.e., “normal” life as we know it). Obviously, never-ending expansion was impossible on a finite planet. Heinberg foresaw that growth might continue for a while in a few places, but growth for the overall global economy was essentially finished. There were three reasons for this.
First, the days of cheap oil were behind us. Global oil production peaked in 2005, and this high level of production could not be indefinitely maintained. Eventually production would shift into its decline phase — less oil for sale, and more expensive. No combination of alternative energy sources could replace the role of oil in industrial society, or even come close. The supply of oil was finite, and the cheap and easy oil had already been reduced to noxious clouds of carbon emissions.
Second, economic growth was getting more resistance from environmental challenges. Fresh water was getting scarce in many places. Climate change was creating costly problems. Food production could barely keep pace with rising population. The health of cropland, range land, and forests was declining. Oceanic fisheries were depleted. The prices for important minerals and metals were rising.
Third, on 15 September 2008, the financial system experienced a terrifying near death experience. Much of what had appeared to be a growing economy was actually a colossal bubble of growing debt, like a Ponzi scheme. Borrowed money had turbocharged the global economy for almost 30 years. It was a merry party of intoxicated gaiety and foolish excess, but now it was time for the dry heaves and roaring hangover. The party was over, and everything was a mess.
Peak cheap energy, by itself, was enough to bring an end to perpetual growth. But combined with a wheezing planet and a terminally ill financial system, the result was like a perfect storm, hastening the inevitable demise of industrial civilization. We had crossed a watershed, moving from a time of growth to a time of contraction. We had begun a long journey back toward traditional normality — a muscle-powered way of life — because muscle power will once again become cheaper than doing work with machines.
Heinberg did an impressive job of describing the crash of ’08 in manner that is thorough and easy to understand. It’s not a pretty picture. Legions of greed-crazed speculators did whatever they could to seize as much wealth as possible, by any means necessary, legal or not. By 2003, banks were giving mortgages to people with no money and no source of income. Then they quickly offloaded these toxic assets onto clueless investors, who believed that they were top quality investments. In this manner, many trillions of dollars were vaporized.
In the absence of a growing economy, it will be impossible to service today’s stratospheric debts. The banking system still holds vast quantities of absolutely worthless “assets,” which maintain a temporary illusion of viability. We can expect to see continued bank failures, corporate bankruptcies, and home foreclosures. “At some point in the next few years, stock and real estate values will plunge, banks will close, and businesses will shutter their doors,” warned Heinberg.
If the objective is “recovery” — returning to the idiocy of unlimited pathological borrowing — there simply is no workable solution available, at any price, no matter how hard we wish. Instead, we would be wise to learn how to adapt to the new conditions, and direct our attention to reducing the turbulence and suffering of the contraction process. We’re not looking at the end of the world here, just an uncomfortable return to stability. The healing process is likely to take generations, but the final result may actually be quite pleasant. A tolerable collapse is theoretically possible. No matter how the drama unfolds, the inevitable bottom line is that our economic system and lifestyles will become far simpler.
For most of the book, Heinberg persuasively discusses why the growth economy is ending. Near the end, he presents “solutions.” Like most folks, he dreams of a future in which the benefits of industrial civilization are preserved, whilst the myriad problems of industrial civilization magically disappear. This is not clear thinking.
He asks, “Can we surrender cars, highways, and supermarkets, but still keep cultural exchange, tolerance, and diversity, along with our hard-won scientific knowledge, advanced healthcare, and instant access to information?” Well, yes we can, for a while, but this would require disregarding long-term sustainability. We can’t have the benefits without the problems. Can’t we live without Facebook and cell phones? Yes.
This mind-expanding learning process provided a miraculous cure for blissful ignorance, and replaced it with a healthy awareness of an unhealthy reality. Heinberg has been jumping up and down and shouting warnings for a long time, but the world has largely ignored him. The world perceived our incredibly unhealthy reality to be perfectly normal, because we were all born into it, as were our parents and grandparents. Normal means normal. Stop jumping up and down, already! Get a life!
Heinberg avoided suffering from normal thinking because, late at night, he secretly explored the magic and mysteries of history, which gave him special powers of vision. He came to see that the twentieth century was simply a calamitous freak in human history, powered by recklessly binging on cheap and abundant energy, a nightmare that can never again be repeated, thank goodness. Hence, normal was insane. Normal was in big danger. He kept shouting at us.
In July 2008, the price of oil skyrocketed to $150. In September, the financial system went sideways. Was this The Big One? Had the luxurious unsinkable Titanic fatally impaled itself on an invincible iceberg? Was the pleasure cruise about to become a life-threatening struggle for survival? The shadows suddenly became much darker, strong winds howled, thunder rumbled, and the Earth shook.
This big shift inspired Heinberg to write a new book, The End of Growth. His thesis was that time is running out on the era of perpetual economic growth (i.e., “normal” life as we know it). Obviously, never-ending expansion was impossible on a finite planet. Heinberg foresaw that growth might continue for a while in a few places, but growth for the overall global economy was essentially finished. There were three reasons for this.
First, the days of cheap oil were behind us. Global oil production peaked in 2005, and this high level of production could not be indefinitely maintained. Eventually production would shift into its decline phase — less oil for sale, and more expensive. No combination of alternative energy sources could replace the role of oil in industrial society, or even come close. The supply of oil was finite, and the cheap and easy oil had already been reduced to noxious clouds of carbon emissions.
Second, economic growth was getting more resistance from environmental challenges. Fresh water was getting scarce in many places. Climate change was creating costly problems. Food production could barely keep pace with rising population. The health of cropland, range land, and forests was declining. Oceanic fisheries were depleted. The prices for important minerals and metals were rising.
Third, on 15 September 2008, the financial system experienced a terrifying near death experience. Much of what had appeared to be a growing economy was actually a colossal bubble of growing debt, like a Ponzi scheme. Borrowed money had turbocharged the global economy for almost 30 years. It was a merry party of intoxicated gaiety and foolish excess, but now it was time for the dry heaves and roaring hangover. The party was over, and everything was a mess.
Peak cheap energy, by itself, was enough to bring an end to perpetual growth. But combined with a wheezing planet and a terminally ill financial system, the result was like a perfect storm, hastening the inevitable demise of industrial civilization. We had crossed a watershed, moving from a time of growth to a time of contraction. We had begun a long journey back toward traditional normality — a muscle-powered way of life — because muscle power will once again become cheaper than doing work with machines.
Heinberg did an impressive job of describing the crash of ’08 in manner that is thorough and easy to understand. It’s not a pretty picture. Legions of greed-crazed speculators did whatever they could to seize as much wealth as possible, by any means necessary, legal or not. By 2003, banks were giving mortgages to people with no money and no source of income. Then they quickly offloaded these toxic assets onto clueless investors, who believed that they were top quality investments. In this manner, many trillions of dollars were vaporized.
In the absence of a growing economy, it will be impossible to service today’s stratospheric debts. The banking system still holds vast quantities of absolutely worthless “assets,” which maintain a temporary illusion of viability. We can expect to see continued bank failures, corporate bankruptcies, and home foreclosures. “At some point in the next few years, stock and real estate values will plunge, banks will close, and businesses will shutter their doors,” warned Heinberg.
If the objective is “recovery” — returning to the idiocy of unlimited pathological borrowing — there simply is no workable solution available, at any price, no matter how hard we wish. Instead, we would be wise to learn how to adapt to the new conditions, and direct our attention to reducing the turbulence and suffering of the contraction process. We’re not looking at the end of the world here, just an uncomfortable return to stability. The healing process is likely to take generations, but the final result may actually be quite pleasant. A tolerable collapse is theoretically possible. No matter how the drama unfolds, the inevitable bottom line is that our economic system and lifestyles will become far simpler.
For most of the book, Heinberg persuasively discusses why the growth economy is ending. Near the end, he presents “solutions.” Like most folks, he dreams of a future in which the benefits of industrial civilization are preserved, whilst the myriad problems of industrial civilization magically disappear. This is not clear thinking.
He asks, “Can we surrender cars, highways, and supermarkets, but still keep cultural exchange, tolerance, and diversity, along with our hard-won scientific knowledge, advanced healthcare, and instant access to information?” Well, yes we can, for a while, but this would require disregarding long-term sustainability. We can’t have the benefits without the problems. Can’t we live without Facebook and cell phones? Yes.
December 16, 2012
The book effectively uses representative and systematic data to argue we are in ecological overshoot and economic overshoot. Either one is alarming; together they sound a critical alarm; if only it can be heard!
The author distinguishes between economies—the exchange of goods and services—and economics—a money-based model of an economy. Fractional reserve banking, debt-based currencies, and displacing externalities allow the two to diverge significantly. As a result, our financial accounting systems are giving us false signals.
We live in a world with ever-increasing levels of financial debt—public and private. We are also depleting the earth’s natural resources, including fresh water, fertile soil, forests, marine ecosystems, biodiversity, fossil fuels, minerals, and pollution sinks. Since debt represents a promise of future repayment of labor and resources the book argues it is inevitable that the aggregate promises to repay will eventually exceed the available resources for repayment. In fact, that may have already have happened.
He argues convincingly that “we have created an economic machine that needs debt like a car needs gas,” and that “the existing market economy has no ‘stable’ or ‘neutral’ setting: there is only growth or contraction.”
Economics relies on several premises which are clearly false:
1) Growth can continue indefinitely,
2) Externalities can be safely ignored,
3) Natural resources represent income that increases as they are extracted rather than capital which depreciates as it is depleted, and
4) Resources can be substituted for one another with infinite flexibility.
He concludes “…the world economic system is held together largely by the belief and faith that it will continue to grow. It’s a confidence scheme, in the purest sense.”
Limits to ecological growth are well documented in the book: global marine seafood capture peaked in 1994, global oil production is probably past its peak, and we are approaching peak coal, peak water, and peaks for several key minerals. Unfortunately efficiency, substitution, innovation, and other technological magic are insufficient to close the gap between our present consumption and earth’s limits.
As these limits are recognized more broadly, competition to retain a large slice of a shrinking pie will intensify. This is likely to unfold as increased struggles between nations, competition among world currencies, old vs. young, rich vs. poor, consumption and opulence vs. conservation and flourishing, short term opportunists against long-term thinkers, and along other lines of conflict. Planning can reduce the chaos while denial, delay, and panic will aggravate the disputes.
He concludes: “We have accumulated too many financial-monetary claims on real assets—consisting of energy, food, labor, manufactured products, built infrastructures, and natural resources” to ever be repaid. This leads to his rather bleak default scenario—his prediction of what will happen if leadership remains absent. It features various forms of debt-jubilees—schemes to discharge debt—with various big-time winners and losers.
Compared to other literature on limits to growth, I find these scenarios grimmer. I hope this is only his hyperbole, but I fear it is his expertise and candidness.
Our post-growth world needs to meet several criteria:
1) The economy must be steady-state and not one that relies on growth,
2) Renewable resources will be harvested at a rate slower than they are replenished,
3) Non-renewable resources will be extracted at declining rates, supported by increased rates of recycling,
4) Human population will stabilize at a level supported by these sustainable practices.
To help us imagine life after growth the last chapters describe several communities experimenting with sustainable economies designed to increase well-being and happiness rather than GDP.
The transition will be difficult, but the sooner we start, the better options we have. “All of the solutions to our growth-based problems involve some form of self-restraint,” he states before asking, “The crucial question is, how serious will that crisis have to be to get our collective attention and force us to change our behavior?”
Unfortunately deniers addicted to unsustainable growth are unmoved by facts. I am concerned the well-presented facts and well-drawn conclusions of this important book will do nothing to influence those invested in preserving their obsolete and dangerous world views.
The author distinguishes between economies—the exchange of goods and services—and economics—a money-based model of an economy. Fractional reserve banking, debt-based currencies, and displacing externalities allow the two to diverge significantly. As a result, our financial accounting systems are giving us false signals.
We live in a world with ever-increasing levels of financial debt—public and private. We are also depleting the earth’s natural resources, including fresh water, fertile soil, forests, marine ecosystems, biodiversity, fossil fuels, minerals, and pollution sinks. Since debt represents a promise of future repayment of labor and resources the book argues it is inevitable that the aggregate promises to repay will eventually exceed the available resources for repayment. In fact, that may have already have happened.
He argues convincingly that “we have created an economic machine that needs debt like a car needs gas,” and that “the existing market economy has no ‘stable’ or ‘neutral’ setting: there is only growth or contraction.”
Economics relies on several premises which are clearly false:
1) Growth can continue indefinitely,
2) Externalities can be safely ignored,
3) Natural resources represent income that increases as they are extracted rather than capital which depreciates as it is depleted, and
4) Resources can be substituted for one another with infinite flexibility.
He concludes “…the world economic system is held together largely by the belief and faith that it will continue to grow. It’s a confidence scheme, in the purest sense.”
Limits to ecological growth are well documented in the book: global marine seafood capture peaked in 1994, global oil production is probably past its peak, and we are approaching peak coal, peak water, and peaks for several key minerals. Unfortunately efficiency, substitution, innovation, and other technological magic are insufficient to close the gap between our present consumption and earth’s limits.
As these limits are recognized more broadly, competition to retain a large slice of a shrinking pie will intensify. This is likely to unfold as increased struggles between nations, competition among world currencies, old vs. young, rich vs. poor, consumption and opulence vs. conservation and flourishing, short term opportunists against long-term thinkers, and along other lines of conflict. Planning can reduce the chaos while denial, delay, and panic will aggravate the disputes.
He concludes: “We have accumulated too many financial-monetary claims on real assets—consisting of energy, food, labor, manufactured products, built infrastructures, and natural resources” to ever be repaid. This leads to his rather bleak default scenario—his prediction of what will happen if leadership remains absent. It features various forms of debt-jubilees—schemes to discharge debt—with various big-time winners and losers.
Compared to other literature on limits to growth, I find these scenarios grimmer. I hope this is only his hyperbole, but I fear it is his expertise and candidness.
Our post-growth world needs to meet several criteria:
1) The economy must be steady-state and not one that relies on growth,
2) Renewable resources will be harvested at a rate slower than they are replenished,
3) Non-renewable resources will be extracted at declining rates, supported by increased rates of recycling,
4) Human population will stabilize at a level supported by these sustainable practices.
To help us imagine life after growth the last chapters describe several communities experimenting with sustainable economies designed to increase well-being and happiness rather than GDP.
The transition will be difficult, but the sooner we start, the better options we have. “All of the solutions to our growth-based problems involve some form of self-restraint,” he states before asking, “The crucial question is, how serious will that crisis have to be to get our collective attention and force us to change our behavior?”
Unfortunately deniers addicted to unsustainable growth are unmoved by facts. I am concerned the well-presented facts and well-drawn conclusions of this important book will do nothing to influence those invested in preserving their obsolete and dangerous world views.
April 24, 2014
Clearly written without an overload of details-this book makes the case for all of us.
I have never understood why mainstream economic theory ignored the impact of a huge population. Even as that impact has grown, classical economists continue to use outmoded theories of macroeconomics, ignore effects of the flow of capital, and refuse to acknowledge that there could be a limit to the resources so many billions of people use or need—like water. Isn’t that a requirement for life? Like air. Will they be selling clean air next?
Heinberg makes the case that we have seen the end of growth because it is doing us more harm than good. It is not a panacea for jobs and well-being. The nations that now have stable populations have an excellent opportunity to implement policies that will insure quality in living, find relief from the rat race, and enable the growth of knowledge and innovation within Earth’s limits.
I have never understood why mainstream economic theory ignored the impact of a huge population. Even as that impact has grown, classical economists continue to use outmoded theories of macroeconomics, ignore effects of the flow of capital, and refuse to acknowledge that there could be a limit to the resources so many billions of people use or need—like water. Isn’t that a requirement for life? Like air. Will they be selling clean air next?
Heinberg makes the case that we have seen the end of growth because it is doing us more harm than good. It is not a panacea for jobs and well-being. The nations that now have stable populations have an excellent opportunity to implement policies that will insure quality in living, find relief from the rat race, and enable the growth of knowledge and innovation within Earth’s limits.
December 24, 2011
I agree with the other reviewers that this book does a very good job of stating the problem, and outlining how our current economic system is done for, but doesn't offer a clear, easy solution. Well, that's because the solution won't be easy. The first step is to convince enough people of the problem. This book adds to that discussion. But, of course, is mostly preaching to the choir. It's up to those of us who have read it, and other similar books, and have seen for ourselves what is going on to try to create a solution. My favorite quote from the book:
"If we aim for what is no longer possible, we will achieve only delusion and frustration. But, if we aim for genuinely worthwhile goals that can be attained, then even if we have less energy at our command and fewer material goods available, we might nevertheless still increase our satisfaction in life."
"If we aim for what is no longer possible, we will achieve only delusion and frustration. But, if we aim for genuinely worthwhile goals that can be attained, then even if we have less energy at our command and fewer material goods available, we might nevertheless still increase our satisfaction in life."
July 29, 2012
Mostly boring as authors first engineer a manmade energy scarcity by ruling out nuclear power and then derive ideologically acceptable storyline of decay, collapse, and revolution. The sections about monetary issues were somewhat interesting, but the rest not that much. Lots of rationalizations also for keeping poor people poor. Apparently subsistence farming is good, because it is resilient when we run out of energy etc...no discussion about what it implies to actually live with few hundred dollars a year. Lots of discussion also about alternatives to GDP, but now a word about the fact that most of them have actually pretty strong correlation with GDP.
November 9, 2011
Terrific book! Highly recommended. Although great ideas, some of the solutions are so far away from any political will to implement that they seem almost impossible. The detail to which the author details the issues and causes is at times almost overwhelming.
January 30, 2013
January book group selection. Important topic, poorly written book. Michael Lewis does an infinitely better job of making economic topics readable and understandable. Plus the author gave short shrift to the "adapting" part.
September 2, 2014
Dry, dry, dry. I agree with his thesis and I doubt most that don't want to hear the message of restraint will. It's an academic treatment that few outside of us wonks would trudge through. I struggled to finish it since it dis seem to drone on. As a text/reference book, it's OK.
February 5, 2012
This book made me want to hide under the bed. The author makes a pretty compelling case that we're all hurtling toward resource depletion and financial collapse. I want my mommy.
February 13, 2012
If you're already a reader of theoildrum.com, Charles Hugh Smith's blog, or John Michael Greer's blog, you won't learn anything new from this book.
February 11, 2015
This is a fantastic book. Richard Heinberg does a great job of analyzing our current situation in a clear and sober way that still leaves plenty of hope that we have the ability to create a better world that is no longer based on infinite growth on a finite planet. The problems that loom before us seem so big that it's easy to fall into a sort of paralysis. What can we possibly do? Technology will save us! Heinberg does a great job of examining each of these in turn, and while tomorrow is guaranteed to no one, I think the book ends on a positive note.
If you want to better understand the events that are unfolding in Greece and the Eurozone, this is the book. What's going on with oil? Heinberg is your guy. Will renewable energy save the day? Again and again, Richard Heinberg offers a very sober analysis of where we are and what technology can realistically help us to do in the near future as deal with the ecological constraints of our economy.
On the solution side of things, Heinberg is a little more shaky. It's not that I disagree with him either. It's just the idea that any one of us is going to have all the answers is improbable. Yet he boils it down to things that really do matter and can really help. He provides a wealth of books and websites for further reading, including a website that is aimed at local solutions. Better yet, he points the spotlight on people and groups around the world that are already doing this work. Here my only real problem with him is that he leaves so many out! But that's to be expected. Even he acknowledges that many of these very active and successful groups are all but unknown to the larger communities in which they live. Getting to know your neighbors, cooperative living, intentional communities, co-ops, urban farming...the list goes on and on. It's a future of mutual aid, democracy, and real community. What could be better?
All in all, it's a fantastic book that gives great insight into the limits of our current economic system and it's subordinate role to the environment. It provides a realistic and hopeful understanding of human caused global climate change. And, lastly, it provides a framework for hope that we have the cooperative spirit to forge a new economic system that works with the planet not against it. I'd highly recommend this wonderful book.
If you want to better understand the events that are unfolding in Greece and the Eurozone, this is the book. What's going on with oil? Heinberg is your guy. Will renewable energy save the day? Again and again, Richard Heinberg offers a very sober analysis of where we are and what technology can realistically help us to do in the near future as deal with the ecological constraints of our economy.
On the solution side of things, Heinberg is a little more shaky. It's not that I disagree with him either. It's just the idea that any one of us is going to have all the answers is improbable. Yet he boils it down to things that really do matter and can really help. He provides a wealth of books and websites for further reading, including a website that is aimed at local solutions. Better yet, he points the spotlight on people and groups around the world that are already doing this work. Here my only real problem with him is that he leaves so many out! But that's to be expected. Even he acknowledges that many of these very active and successful groups are all but unknown to the larger communities in which they live. Getting to know your neighbors, cooperative living, intentional communities, co-ops, urban farming...the list goes on and on. It's a future of mutual aid, democracy, and real community. What could be better?
All in all, it's a fantastic book that gives great insight into the limits of our current economic system and it's subordinate role to the environment. It provides a realistic and hopeful understanding of human caused global climate change. And, lastly, it provides a framework for hope that we have the cooperative spirit to forge a new economic system that works with the planet not against it. I'd highly recommend this wonderful book.
June 15, 2021
This book, started in 2008 and published in 2011 after the financial crisis. While making very good points, the book has intentionally spun a defeatist tale of finite requirements to energy, agriculture and fresh water and laboured this over about 200 pages. Many of the arguments take on a pessimistic view, switching to anecdotal evidence when required - the best example being the claim that industrial accidents and death from natural disaster are increasing (which is wrong). While I agree that our consumer culture is not sustainable for the environment or our growth economy, I think a lot of the argument focused on energy issues. He may well be right, but there is some optimism the energy crisis can be solved.
The book operates on the theory that economic growth has turned a corner and we must prepare to live in a world without it. The author says GDP growth as we see following 2008 are the result of stimulus injections by the government taking out loans from bonds and putting the money into the economy.
Heinsberg says that growth occurs because we are always acquiring new resources. But the planet is finite. So to keep growth up we either have to make production more efficient (cost cutting labour or cheaper materials) or substitute how we acquire energy (fossil fuels) which the author suggests is too difficult with fossil fuels. He argues that economies need energy and without fossil fuels we don't have any. The problem with this argument is that energy isn't actually finite, we just have to convert energy from other things like solar, hydro, wind, geothermal, nuclear fission
Fusion. Assuming growth will end because fossil fuels run out is a big assumption considering there are alternatives (except for plastics right now), but he is right in that resources are certainly finite - aluminium, iron, fish, wood, copper, zinc, lead, uranium and the capacity for waste is finite. The author is correct, if fossil fuels ran out tomorrow it would be a big problem. The other alternative is industry that does not require raw materials i.e software or renewable energies.
This book was written over 10 years ago now but I can see many of the same patterns existing pre 2008 before our latest recession and has pointed me towards some very useful statistics.
Following COVID-19, the reserve Bank of NZ lowered interest rates to stimulate the economy, boost employment. This resulted in a housing boom.
Now the private debt is at 315 billion (165%), the highest of debt proportional to income since 1998. 40% of first home buyers in 2020 took on debt to once ratios of >5. But public debt is 100 billion which is 30% of the GDP (Greece was 16% in 2010, but the US is 108% and UK 100% now). NZ median house price to median income is 8.4, compared with 4.6 in America in 2006 (FUCK). It is now more affordable to buy a house in London or San Francisco than Auckland.
Of course now there are new rules that require banks to hold higher cash reserves and limit riskier lending.
The key part of this book is what we will do when the fallacy of growth-debt cycle halts and we have a final economic crash. Growth has become the necessary thing to provide more and more goods and services for a growing consumer population. The issue being that all of our monetary systems are built on growth. Loans are taken out with interest being paid to the loaner on the assumption that the borrower's capital will grow. When this basic premise fails it all does. There is a reason why the world's GDP is much higher than the actual cash that exists. The money we have in the bank only exists if debts are continued to be repaid. If we all tried to access our money at once it would not work.
I find it frustrating that it took 190 pages to get away from a rant about energy to economics. The sections on China's booming growth, demographic absurdities and currency wars and benefits of keeping currency values low (encourages export and increases prices on imports which encourages saving and can pay debt off easier) was very interesting. I liked the history on debasement of gold from currency during World War 1 and after France hoarded all the gold.
The context of resource priorities among the world's nations was extremely interesting. At the end though Heinsburg predicts mass conflict through either trade war or actual war. I hope he is wrong about this.
The criticism on immigration was interesting and at odds with other things I have read. Many of the European nations actually rely on immigration to prop up aging populations with sub replacement fertility rates. Heinsburg argued that America was above replacement rates and immigration should stop. Heinsburg did make an excellent point, that if there is a recession, family planning and gender equality needs to be a priority as we know that social disruption affects women disproportionately, leading to rising fertility and compounding whatever our resource crisis is.
I liked the look at both sides of the argument on development and 'developing' nations. It is interesting that indeed living standards worldwide have increased, but Heinsburg complains this is disproportional to very few industrialising nations and the averages obscure the countries which have lost ground in terms of quality of life. I totally agree with the anti development people that GDP should not be used to measure human quality of life and that America (and now China) probably has a vested interest in giving large loans to developing poorer nation's infrastructure at the expense of their sovereignty.
The book has introduced the concept of the post-development world which will place more of an emphasis on labour and knowledge than capital and energy. This means we will have to put more of a focus on local materials for building and innovating technologies that can generate small scale local power, purify water locally and grow food locally.
Overall theme is to maintain social cohesion and sense of community.
Some good practical ideas for a steady state economy are:
Tax externalities of industry (cost to environment)
Tax speculative land gains
1% transaction tax to prevent financial speculation
Break up the world Bank to prevent profits from low income industrialising nations from leaving the country
Make banks not for profit
Use other measures other than GDP because:
-Having self reliance by eating at home decreases GDP
-It does not encompass distribution of money
-It does not factor in what the goods and services are and whether they are necessary
An alternative to GDP is the Genuine Progress Indicator which adjusts for environmental damage, income distribution, housework, volunteering, crime, leisure time, life-span of consumer durables and level of public infrastructure.
Also Gross National Happiness - time use, living standards, good governance, psychological well-being, community vitality, culture, health, education, ecology
Build resilience through community and personal self reliance
Encourage cooperatives with have goals other than profit or get involved in other community initiatives such as free health clinics, health centres, community food or co-op, community gardens, free legal advice, tool libraries
Create household self resilience
The book operates on the theory that economic growth has turned a corner and we must prepare to live in a world without it. The author says GDP growth as we see following 2008 are the result of stimulus injections by the government taking out loans from bonds and putting the money into the economy.
Heinsberg says that growth occurs because we are always acquiring new resources. But the planet is finite. So to keep growth up we either have to make production more efficient (cost cutting labour or cheaper materials) or substitute how we acquire energy (fossil fuels) which the author suggests is too difficult with fossil fuels. He argues that economies need energy and without fossil fuels we don't have any. The problem with this argument is that energy isn't actually finite, we just have to convert energy from other things like solar, hydro, wind, geothermal, nuclear fission
Fusion. Assuming growth will end because fossil fuels run out is a big assumption considering there are alternatives (except for plastics right now), but he is right in that resources are certainly finite - aluminium, iron, fish, wood, copper, zinc, lead, uranium and the capacity for waste is finite. The author is correct, if fossil fuels ran out tomorrow it would be a big problem. The other alternative is industry that does not require raw materials i.e software or renewable energies.
This book was written over 10 years ago now but I can see many of the same patterns existing pre 2008 before our latest recession and has pointed me towards some very useful statistics.
Following COVID-19, the reserve Bank of NZ lowered interest rates to stimulate the economy, boost employment. This resulted in a housing boom.
Now the private debt is at 315 billion (165%), the highest of debt proportional to income since 1998. 40% of first home buyers in 2020 took on debt to once ratios of >5. But public debt is 100 billion which is 30% of the GDP (Greece was 16% in 2010, but the US is 108% and UK 100% now). NZ median house price to median income is 8.4, compared with 4.6 in America in 2006 (FUCK). It is now more affordable to buy a house in London or San Francisco than Auckland.
Of course now there are new rules that require banks to hold higher cash reserves and limit riskier lending.
The key part of this book is what we will do when the fallacy of growth-debt cycle halts and we have a final economic crash. Growth has become the necessary thing to provide more and more goods and services for a growing consumer population. The issue being that all of our monetary systems are built on growth. Loans are taken out with interest being paid to the loaner on the assumption that the borrower's capital will grow. When this basic premise fails it all does. There is a reason why the world's GDP is much higher than the actual cash that exists. The money we have in the bank only exists if debts are continued to be repaid. If we all tried to access our money at once it would not work.
I find it frustrating that it took 190 pages to get away from a rant about energy to economics. The sections on China's booming growth, demographic absurdities and currency wars and benefits of keeping currency values low (encourages export and increases prices on imports which encourages saving and can pay debt off easier) was very interesting. I liked the history on debasement of gold from currency during World War 1 and after France hoarded all the gold.
The context of resource priorities among the world's nations was extremely interesting. At the end though Heinsburg predicts mass conflict through either trade war or actual war. I hope he is wrong about this.
The criticism on immigration was interesting and at odds with other things I have read. Many of the European nations actually rely on immigration to prop up aging populations with sub replacement fertility rates. Heinsburg argued that America was above replacement rates and immigration should stop. Heinsburg did make an excellent point, that if there is a recession, family planning and gender equality needs to be a priority as we know that social disruption affects women disproportionately, leading to rising fertility and compounding whatever our resource crisis is.
I liked the look at both sides of the argument on development and 'developing' nations. It is interesting that indeed living standards worldwide have increased, but Heinsburg complains this is disproportional to very few industrialising nations and the averages obscure the countries which have lost ground in terms of quality of life. I totally agree with the anti development people that GDP should not be used to measure human quality of life and that America (and now China) probably has a vested interest in giving large loans to developing poorer nation's infrastructure at the expense of their sovereignty.
The book has introduced the concept of the post-development world which will place more of an emphasis on labour and knowledge than capital and energy. This means we will have to put more of a focus on local materials for building and innovating technologies that can generate small scale local power, purify water locally and grow food locally.
Overall theme is to maintain social cohesion and sense of community.
Some good practical ideas for a steady state economy are:
Tax externalities of industry (cost to environment)
Tax speculative land gains
1% transaction tax to prevent financial speculation
Break up the world Bank to prevent profits from low income industrialising nations from leaving the country
Make banks not for profit
Use other measures other than GDP because:
-Having self reliance by eating at home decreases GDP
-It does not encompass distribution of money
-It does not factor in what the goods and services are and whether they are necessary
An alternative to GDP is the Genuine Progress Indicator which adjusts for environmental damage, income distribution, housework, volunteering, crime, leisure time, life-span of consumer durables and level of public infrastructure.
Also Gross National Happiness - time use, living standards, good governance, psychological well-being, community vitality, culture, health, education, ecology
Build resilience through community and personal self reliance
Encourage cooperatives with have goals other than profit or get involved in other community initiatives such as free health clinics, health centres, community food or co-op, community gardens, free legal advice, tool libraries
Create household self resilience
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
June 9, 2012
This book argues that our economy is shifting in a fundamental and unprecedented way, from a growth-based economy to a steady-state economy. The reason is a number of factors that all seem to be converging at once: debt crises, environmental crises, and resource depletion. This book does tend to be overly alarmist, and toward the end it's overly optimistic about grassroots movements, but for the most part it makes an impressive case.
I hadn't fully appreciated how much our debt- and growth-based economy resembles an enormous Ponzi scheme, just as the mortgage debt crisis on 2008 did. Like a Ponzi scheme, once it stops growing, the whole thing collapses like a house of cards. Yes, we've had economic crises before, but this book explains why this time it's different: we no longer have a seemingly endless supply of cheap energy, resources, and debt to tap into. We basically spent and innovated our way out of the Great Depression. Debt must be serviced, so there is a limit to debt, and we are VERY close to that limit already.
Innovation depends heavily on cheap energy and resources, and we're running out of that as well. The only innovation that really makes sense right now are for substitutions and improving the efficiencies of our current dependencies, and this book devotes a chapter to explaining the limits we face in that area as well. And anyway, there is far too little emphasis currently being put on such innovation. We're still partying like it's 1999. At some point, we will have no choice but to face the limits of our finite ecosystem, and we'll be much better off if we face the music sooner rather than later. We're either already are or soon will be past the point of no return. Catastrophe is pretty inevitable, and all the government seems to be doing is buying time, at an enormous cost.
Maybe it's not as dire as all that, but this book is the first argument I've found that is clearly not a head buried in the sand or arm-waving, but clearly facing the harsh reality dead-on.
I hadn't fully appreciated how much our debt- and growth-based economy resembles an enormous Ponzi scheme, just as the mortgage debt crisis on 2008 did. Like a Ponzi scheme, once it stops growing, the whole thing collapses like a house of cards. Yes, we've had economic crises before, but this book explains why this time it's different: we no longer have a seemingly endless supply of cheap energy, resources, and debt to tap into. We basically spent and innovated our way out of the Great Depression. Debt must be serviced, so there is a limit to debt, and we are VERY close to that limit already.
Innovation depends heavily on cheap energy and resources, and we're running out of that as well. The only innovation that really makes sense right now are for substitutions and improving the efficiencies of our current dependencies, and this book devotes a chapter to explaining the limits we face in that area as well. And anyway, there is far too little emphasis currently being put on such innovation. We're still partying like it's 1999. At some point, we will have no choice but to face the limits of our finite ecosystem, and we'll be much better off if we face the music sooner rather than later. We're either already are or soon will be past the point of no return. Catastrophe is pretty inevitable, and all the government seems to be doing is buying time, at an enormous cost.
Maybe it's not as dire as all that, but this book is the first argument I've found that is clearly not a head buried in the sand or arm-waving, but clearly facing the harsh reality dead-on.
June 29, 2014
If there is a single book out now that contains all the arguments for the post carbon decline that the world will be seeing this century, this is it. Various other authors have opined on the impossibility of endless economic growth on our finite planet, and postulated on how the future could look like in a fuel scarce world, but Heinberg does a great job on putting all the pieces together in quite a comprehensive manner, beginning with the basics and history of economic thought that has led to our growth driven industrial society, how Peak Oil and natural resource decline are the fundamental causes of the coming unraveling of debt created economic expansion, how the geopolitics and social trends of the world could play out in that context, and last but not least what governments, communities and individuals can and should do to be better prepared for the inevitable transition. All the background information can be found here, if not in the text then in the references (though unfortunately there is no bibliography section at the end, just notes), including illuminating graphs and statistics that illustrate his points. The author does not dwell on the negatives, like how global population would be reduced due to the end of fossil fuels, but point out the many initiatives and actions that can and have been taken by many communities (no doubt so far only in the richer developed nations) that offer some ideas for our collective adaptation.
For those well versed in the realities of resource depletion and the futility of our current growth obsessed world, there is not much new here to be gleaned, safe perhaps for the detailed account of the recent financial crisis and subsequent bailout package. The qualities of this book are it's convincing cover-all-the-bases treatment of the subject that serves to spread the word on the unpalatable truth of the coming dawn of an economically static future.
For those well versed in the realities of resource depletion and the futility of our current growth obsessed world, there is not much new here to be gleaned, safe perhaps for the detailed account of the recent financial crisis and subsequent bailout package. The qualities of this book are it's convincing cover-all-the-bases treatment of the subject that serves to spread the word on the unpalatable truth of the coming dawn of an economically static future.
August 12, 2020
I seem to be late to the party, and this author is certainly not the first to suggest the idea, but peak oil is a fascinating concept. It makes sense to me that the world's economic growth over the past century has been driven by cheaper energy from the earth, and it's concerning that we haven't done more to become carbon independent. America has become a natural gas leader in recent years, but the author was correct that fracking companies are not making profits. This book is nine years old as of my reading, and the vast majority of frackers are unprofitable. According to the WSJ, they can only raise 1/3 of the capital they could get when the book came out. On the positive side, renewables have gotten much cheaper than they were ten years ago, but the name for metals we need to make them are called "Rare Earth Metals". Not exactly inspiring for the hope of getting solar panels on every roof.
Whatever the case, even if you disagree that peak oil and metals will be the disaster he claims, the evidence exists that we can't expect continued growth forever. Maybe we will create nuclear fusion soon, and we will have the unlimited, cheap energy we all crave, but I personally don't want to count on that. Maybe it's time to start preparing for a future based on resilience over growth.
Whatever the case, even if you disagree that peak oil and metals will be the disaster he claims, the evidence exists that we can't expect continued growth forever. Maybe we will create nuclear fusion soon, and we will have the unlimited, cheap energy we all crave, but I personally don't want to count on that. Maybe it's time to start preparing for a future based on resilience over growth.
September 20, 2019
I was really disappointed with this book and found it to be nothing but a missed opportunity. Heinberg, writing in the immediate aftermath of the 2008 recession, paints the bleakest picture of the world economy dedicating the vast majority of the book to predicting no sustained growth ever again and the imminence of an energy crisis. Unfortunately for him neither of these predictions have come to pass in the decade since the book was written. I was particularly disappointed because I agree with his general argument that the limited nature of the world’s resources does suggest an eventual exhaustion of growth, even if one is not immediately forthcoming. I had picked up the book with the hope that the author would discuss how the economy could evolve to address a resource-deprived world but Heinberg limits his discussion of solutions to the last chapter and seems to content to endorse a return a local agricultural economy.
May 7, 2020
3.5 stars.
Frankly, a lot of this was over my head. I can understand the words and everything, but the conclusions he's coming to, I can't really conceptualise how he got to them. It's not that I disagree, but this is not really a super entry-level book and I don't have the required background knowledge to understand the correlations between some of what he's talking about.
It's pretty approachable as far as subject matter is concerned, the topic is incredibly interesting, and he does make an effort to explain everything but there's a bunch of jargon and some things get lost in translation. Also, this book shows its age. It was very obviously written 10 years ago, and terrifyingly, the book is prophetic in some regards, particularly with regard to the oil industry in North America. I really wish it weren't so US-centric too.
Frankly, a lot of this was over my head. I can understand the words and everything, but the conclusions he's coming to, I can't really conceptualise how he got to them. It's not that I disagree, but this is not really a super entry-level book and I don't have the required background knowledge to understand the correlations between some of what he's talking about.
It's pretty approachable as far as subject matter is concerned, the topic is incredibly interesting, and he does make an effort to explain everything but there's a bunch of jargon and some things get lost in translation. Also, this book shows its age. It was very obviously written 10 years ago, and terrifyingly, the book is prophetic in some regards, particularly with regard to the oil industry in North America. I really wish it weren't so US-centric too.
January 15, 2012
A sobering analysis of the current state of the world economy, and where it is headed in the future.The basic premise is that our current rate of energy consumption and resource depletion is unsustainable, and in the shorter term than one would hope. I am not an economist nor do I fully understand all that was presented in this book. It seems logical to me, however, that these issues and questions must be raised and considered NOW rather than when a economic crisis of titanic proportions overwhelms us. Having read this book is going to cost me some sleep...
March 17, 2012
If you've ever had the disquieting sensation that global capitalism has no long term plan beyond the infinite consumption of everything, this book provides a stark confirmation. It also offers a level-headed assessment of myriad crises and amelioration strategies on a spectrum of plausibility. The author calls for a popular movement much like what Occupy has become.
November 12, 2014
The first section on the current situation was well known for me and probably for anybody who follows economics. Th second section, the one with his answers, was a bit disapointing. Nothing very precise, many wishes, principles, but no real way to apply all those except the usual small comunities...
December 19, 2021
Discusses the elephants in the room around the near future of economic growth or the lack of it. I found it a little repetitive although it drilled in the stark fact. We need to change our narrative that we are consumers to that we are sustainers and that our monetary based economies need to shift to a resource based economies and rather promptly.
November 26, 2011
If there was an option to give a book three-and-a-half stars, then that's probably what I'd give "The End of Growth." Nevertheless, the book was somewhat disappointing.
Heinberg's examination of economic theories was mostly weak, with the exception of bringing to light economic models that either incorporate or are based upon ecological principles. The weakness is tied to his review of Keynes and Hayek. He addresses their differences but glosses over some finer-grained, but no less important, details.
First of all, there is overwhelming evidence that Keynes was right, that government can play a role in stimulating the economy.
However, because Heinberg focuses on debt so much, including what the Obama stimulus added to the national tab, what is lost is that Keynes wasn't a supporter of debt per se. What Keynes, or New Keynesians (such as Paul Krugman), argued was that in good times, government should act fiscally responsible, running a surplus. It's in bad times, when the private market has been otherwise sidelined, that government should engage in deficit spending to kick the economy back into growth mode.
Once that growth mode is reached, then the government can unwind its stimulus.
That's an important detail Heinberg skips. Instead, he focuses on our so-call crushing debt. In fact, Heinberg makes our debt out to be some imminent crisis when, in fact, it manifestly is not. Yes, in the long run we need to get our fiscal house in order. But this is an issue with a 20-year - probably more - horizon.
Remember: It wasn't too long ago that the U.S. was running a surplus. The Clinton administration made that happen, and then G.W. Bush came into office and decided to spend a trillion or two to wage war against a country that didn't attack us and, on top of that, to cut taxes - mostly for the rich. Hence, the red ink. My point here is that reducing our debt and deficits isn't rocket science. It's not out of our control. It can be done. It's also not the boogie man we need to be dealing with now.
But oddly - and surprisingly - Heinberg, on the issue of debt, is basically on the side of the Tea Party. He, like the Tea Partiers, makes debt out to be The Big Crisis when, in fact, The Big Crisis is the 14 million Americans who are out of work because of the greed of Wall Street and because of a paucity of financial regulations.
Is Heinberg's book simply ill-timed? I can't help but think of what's happening now (rampant unemployment and human misery) and then put that up against Heinberg's suggestion that we start dismantling "mainstream" economics and instead build a new life built on fewer fossil fuel inputs - even though it's not really all that clear when the "peak" or "peaks"will arrive. Maybe they already have. But shouldn't we focus on creating jobs now, isn't that the pressing problem - no matter what Heinberg or the intellectually bankrupt Republicans say?
I'd like to ask Heinberg whether he's talked to a family lately - maybe one where the father or mother (or both) is unemployed - and told them they'd better turn down those unemployment benefits because, you know, those are just mere claims on future growth that's not going to happen because we're running out of cheap energy ...
One more thing on the stimulus/debt issue: The problem with the Obama stimulus isn't that it added more to our debt - as Heinberg argues - the problem is that it WASN'T ENOUGH. That's right. The financial meltdown sucked about $2 trillion or so out of the economy and credible economists argued the stimulus should have been at least $1 trillion to kick us back into growth mode.
They were right. They were also right about the quality of the Obama stimulus; that is, he never should have made one-third of it tax cuts. That was political sop to the GOP, which was never going to support anything the president attempted anyway. But perhaps that's for another discussion ... suffice it to say, Heinberg sees everything as debt, debt, debt while missing more than a few important details about economic modeling and policy.
While I accept Heinberg's premise that we can't have infinite growth - that we live on a planet with finite capacity to support life - I'm skeptical of his claim that our current economic model is fundamentally flawed, that's it's just not going to work anymore.
Fact is, Obama and the Democrats, despite the flaws of the stimulus, prevented a second Great Depression. The economic model - Keynes - worked. But, again, it was the quantity and quality that needed major adjustments. To his credit, Obama finally woke up from his center-right stupor - stopped talking about how the federal government has to tighten its belt like the average American household (the two entities have nothing in common) - and rolled out another jobs plan. Alas, it's not going anywhere for the obvious reason ...
Also, and perhaps this is the most important point I want to make, the greatest problem this country faces is its corrosive, dysfunctional, corporate-cowed, money-strangled politics - chiefly on the federal level. Until that changes, we'll never pass legislation to curb climate change ... we'll never pass the additional stimulus we need now ... we'll never raise taxes on the super-wealthy, pass universal health care and cut defense spending - all things that would significantly lower the debt Heinberg is so worried about.
Heinberg's worried about climate change? Well, why not tax carbon and use the proceeds to invest in alternative energy? Australia recently adopted a tax on carbon. If I'm not mistaken, so did Vancouver, British Columbia. And even our House of Representatives came up with a flaccid cap-and-trade bill. It would have been better than nothing, which is what we have now.
Heinberg says we can't borrow and invest for growth because cheap energy is going away? Well, borrowing and investing is how plenty of the wealth - middle-class, too - in this and other advanced economies was created: Banks lend money, businesses and people spend it on startups, houses, manufacturing, etc. and the economy grows.
And what, exactly, are the timelines on running out of cheap energy? While Heinberg's case on Peak Oil is solid, it still isn't clear to me when the peak will arrive.How much of the high price of a barrel of oil is pure market speculation (investors finding shelter in commodities because stocks or bonds are taking a bath) and how much of it is a pure finite supply issue? I don't know. I don't think Heinberg knows.
How long would it take for us to transition to a more sustainable economy? Will the "green" investments made through the Obama stimulus help? Will the new federal gas mileage standards help? How much will they help? Heinberg does not address these questions. I'd like him to. He certainly has the brain for it, not to mention the writing chops.
I still think it's possible for us to make an economic transition that maintains good, proven economic theory (Keynes) but that makes needed investments in solar, wind, geothermal and other alternative-energy technologies. If, and I know this is a big if, we have enough time, we could make a reasonably well-managed transition to an economy that doesn't rely on an energy portfolio that's heavily weighted toward fossil fuels.
I've attempted to expose the weaknesses of Heinberg's book. But I also want to point out that it has plenty of strengths, too. He brings to light movements in communities toward more sustainable living arrangements. He shows how our economy depends on cheap energy inputs. And he punches holes in the notion of infinite growth.
He's very focused on the future. And while I appreciate long-term thinking, right now - with high unemployment and the very fabric of a society coming apart - our focus NOW ought to be on the economic policies and much-needed reforms we need to get us back to - and here's that dirty word - growth.
Heinberg's examination of economic theories was mostly weak, with the exception of bringing to light economic models that either incorporate or are based upon ecological principles. The weakness is tied to his review of Keynes and Hayek. He addresses their differences but glosses over some finer-grained, but no less important, details.
First of all, there is overwhelming evidence that Keynes was right, that government can play a role in stimulating the economy.
However, because Heinberg focuses on debt so much, including what the Obama stimulus added to the national tab, what is lost is that Keynes wasn't a supporter of debt per se. What Keynes, or New Keynesians (such as Paul Krugman), argued was that in good times, government should act fiscally responsible, running a surplus. It's in bad times, when the private market has been otherwise sidelined, that government should engage in deficit spending to kick the economy back into growth mode.
Once that growth mode is reached, then the government can unwind its stimulus.
That's an important detail Heinberg skips. Instead, he focuses on our so-call crushing debt. In fact, Heinberg makes our debt out to be some imminent crisis when, in fact, it manifestly is not. Yes, in the long run we need to get our fiscal house in order. But this is an issue with a 20-year - probably more - horizon.
Remember: It wasn't too long ago that the U.S. was running a surplus. The Clinton administration made that happen, and then G.W. Bush came into office and decided to spend a trillion or two to wage war against a country that didn't attack us and, on top of that, to cut taxes - mostly for the rich. Hence, the red ink. My point here is that reducing our debt and deficits isn't rocket science. It's not out of our control. It can be done. It's also not the boogie man we need to be dealing with now.
But oddly - and surprisingly - Heinberg, on the issue of debt, is basically on the side of the Tea Party. He, like the Tea Partiers, makes debt out to be The Big Crisis when, in fact, The Big Crisis is the 14 million Americans who are out of work because of the greed of Wall Street and because of a paucity of financial regulations.
Is Heinberg's book simply ill-timed? I can't help but think of what's happening now (rampant unemployment and human misery) and then put that up against Heinberg's suggestion that we start dismantling "mainstream" economics and instead build a new life built on fewer fossil fuel inputs - even though it's not really all that clear when the "peak" or "peaks"will arrive. Maybe they already have. But shouldn't we focus on creating jobs now, isn't that the pressing problem - no matter what Heinberg or the intellectually bankrupt Republicans say?
I'd like to ask Heinberg whether he's talked to a family lately - maybe one where the father or mother (or both) is unemployed - and told them they'd better turn down those unemployment benefits because, you know, those are just mere claims on future growth that's not going to happen because we're running out of cheap energy ...
One more thing on the stimulus/debt issue: The problem with the Obama stimulus isn't that it added more to our debt - as Heinberg argues - the problem is that it WASN'T ENOUGH. That's right. The financial meltdown sucked about $2 trillion or so out of the economy and credible economists argued the stimulus should have been at least $1 trillion to kick us back into growth mode.
They were right. They were also right about the quality of the Obama stimulus; that is, he never should have made one-third of it tax cuts. That was political sop to the GOP, which was never going to support anything the president attempted anyway. But perhaps that's for another discussion ... suffice it to say, Heinberg sees everything as debt, debt, debt while missing more than a few important details about economic modeling and policy.
While I accept Heinberg's premise that we can't have infinite growth - that we live on a planet with finite capacity to support life - I'm skeptical of his claim that our current economic model is fundamentally flawed, that's it's just not going to work anymore.
Fact is, Obama and the Democrats, despite the flaws of the stimulus, prevented a second Great Depression. The economic model - Keynes - worked. But, again, it was the quantity and quality that needed major adjustments. To his credit, Obama finally woke up from his center-right stupor - stopped talking about how the federal government has to tighten its belt like the average American household (the two entities have nothing in common) - and rolled out another jobs plan. Alas, it's not going anywhere for the obvious reason ...
Also, and perhaps this is the most important point I want to make, the greatest problem this country faces is its corrosive, dysfunctional, corporate-cowed, money-strangled politics - chiefly on the federal level. Until that changes, we'll never pass legislation to curb climate change ... we'll never pass the additional stimulus we need now ... we'll never raise taxes on the super-wealthy, pass universal health care and cut defense spending - all things that would significantly lower the debt Heinberg is so worried about.
Heinberg's worried about climate change? Well, why not tax carbon and use the proceeds to invest in alternative energy? Australia recently adopted a tax on carbon. If I'm not mistaken, so did Vancouver, British Columbia. And even our House of Representatives came up with a flaccid cap-and-trade bill. It would have been better than nothing, which is what we have now.
Heinberg says we can't borrow and invest for growth because cheap energy is going away? Well, borrowing and investing is how plenty of the wealth - middle-class, too - in this and other advanced economies was created: Banks lend money, businesses and people spend it on startups, houses, manufacturing, etc. and the economy grows.
And what, exactly, are the timelines on running out of cheap energy? While Heinberg's case on Peak Oil is solid, it still isn't clear to me when the peak will arrive.How much of the high price of a barrel of oil is pure market speculation (investors finding shelter in commodities because stocks or bonds are taking a bath) and how much of it is a pure finite supply issue? I don't know. I don't think Heinberg knows.
How long would it take for us to transition to a more sustainable economy? Will the "green" investments made through the Obama stimulus help? Will the new federal gas mileage standards help? How much will they help? Heinberg does not address these questions. I'd like him to. He certainly has the brain for it, not to mention the writing chops.
I still think it's possible for us to make an economic transition that maintains good, proven economic theory (Keynes) but that makes needed investments in solar, wind, geothermal and other alternative-energy technologies. If, and I know this is a big if, we have enough time, we could make a reasonably well-managed transition to an economy that doesn't rely on an energy portfolio that's heavily weighted toward fossil fuels.
I've attempted to expose the weaknesses of Heinberg's book. But I also want to point out that it has plenty of strengths, too. He brings to light movements in communities toward more sustainable living arrangements. He shows how our economy depends on cheap energy inputs. And he punches holes in the notion of infinite growth.
He's very focused on the future. And while I appreciate long-term thinking, right now - with high unemployment and the very fabric of a society coming apart - our focus NOW ought to be on the economic policies and much-needed reforms we need to get us back to - and here's that dirty word - growth.
December 5, 2022
We are pushed to the corner...
POSTED AT AMAZON 2012
....and hardly there is a way out. No matter what we try, it will somehow backfire. I started reading about 'the end' and 'peaks of resources' 12 years ago. Notably it was The Ingenuity Gap: Facing the Economic, Environmental, and Other Challenges of an Increasingly Complex and Unpredictable Future by Canadian thinker Professor Thomas Homer-Dixon. At that time 'debt-money' seemed to be not a main issue. Then I followed 6 years later with his The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization . Believe me, almost all he wrote, we experience today...
This will apply of course to Richard Heiberg book, most updated at this moment, fresh after dire (and still continuing) financial collapse of 2008. Now we approach so called 'Peak Everything'. 'State of the World' (recent model) shows limits to growth scenario (nice graph on p.5).
"The End of Growth" is a XX century 'Economy 101' and much more. After colonization era had ended, neo-liberals' globalization scheme made the world's economy more complex and vulnerable. Author explains difficult topics using a very accessible, easy language. Plenty of great graphs helps tremendously as well. What I found is that 'the end of growth' dilemma has been a subject of writings since about 100 of years !
Can we adopt?... solutions are listed. Some of them are utopian, particularly for those who live and work in big cities (this includes Transition Towns, Common Security Clubs or Community Economic Laboratories). I just do not see how such communal organizations may become overwhelmingly popular and vastly spread. Frankly, knowing humans (interestingly, author explains a key role of dopamine within our brain) and particularly how stubborn are leaders of 'developed' countries (just keep that can kicking along the road as long as possible), I doubt that smooth transition away from current growth-based, fossil-fueled economy, towards the future sustainable economy, will occur. We will simply hit the wall at the full speed. Nevertheless read this book and recommend it to your local politician - this is what I did. We must be prepared! The end of growth, hopefully the end of dying for growth ( Dying For Growth: Global Inequality and the Health of the Poor by Jim Yong Kim; 2002), approaches fast. What next is anybody's guess.
POSTED AT AMAZON 2012
....and hardly there is a way out. No matter what we try, it will somehow backfire. I started reading about 'the end' and 'peaks of resources' 12 years ago. Notably it was The Ingenuity Gap: Facing the Economic, Environmental, and Other Challenges of an Increasingly Complex and Unpredictable Future by Canadian thinker Professor Thomas Homer-Dixon. At that time 'debt-money' seemed to be not a main issue. Then I followed 6 years later with his The Upside of Down: Catastrophe, Creativity, and the Renewal of Civilization . Believe me, almost all he wrote, we experience today...
This will apply of course to Richard Heiberg book, most updated at this moment, fresh after dire (and still continuing) financial collapse of 2008. Now we approach so called 'Peak Everything'. 'State of the World' (recent model) shows limits to growth scenario (nice graph on p.5).
"The End of Growth" is a XX century 'Economy 101' and much more. After colonization era had ended, neo-liberals' globalization scheme made the world's economy more complex and vulnerable. Author explains difficult topics using a very accessible, easy language. Plenty of great graphs helps tremendously as well. What I found is that 'the end of growth' dilemma has been a subject of writings since about 100 of years !
Can we adopt?... solutions are listed. Some of them are utopian, particularly for those who live and work in big cities (this includes Transition Towns, Common Security Clubs or Community Economic Laboratories). I just do not see how such communal organizations may become overwhelmingly popular and vastly spread. Frankly, knowing humans (interestingly, author explains a key role of dopamine within our brain) and particularly how stubborn are leaders of 'developed' countries (just keep that can kicking along the road as long as possible), I doubt that smooth transition away from current growth-based, fossil-fueled economy, towards the future sustainable economy, will occur. We will simply hit the wall at the full speed. Nevertheless read this book and recommend it to your local politician - this is what I did. We must be prepared! The end of growth, hopefully the end of dying for growth ( Dying For Growth: Global Inequality and the Health of the Poor by Jim Yong Kim; 2002), approaches fast. What next is anybody's guess.
February 1, 2012
If you’re worried about the recession and looking for reassurance that the world’s economies will soon be back on track and everything will return to normal, you should probably stop reading now.
But maybe you’re concerned about all the debt we’re in. Maybe you’re skeptical about how we currently measure societal progress and personal well-being. If you’re prepared to examine the hard, unsettling economic and environmental realities that await us, then may I recommend to you, brave reader, Richard Heinberg’s The End of Growth.
Heinberg’s overarching message is that the current economic downturn is not temporary and that, because we have now reached fundamental, unalterable ecological limits, economic growth is gone for good. In other words, the world is in for a permanent economic depression, as currently defined. Heinberg sets up his defense of this profound assertion by first exploring the historical context of the discipline of economics, demonstrating how theories that have existed since Adam Smith’s time still influence our decision making about national debt dilemmas.
Heinberg then recounts the 2008 economic crisis in considerable detail and using a lot of jargon. After reading this section, I’m still not sure I know the difference between a mortgage-backed security and a collateralized debt obligation, but I can tell you this: people got greedy. The economy has gotten way, way, (way) too complicated. And our entire economy is now fundamentally addicted to debt and to continued, indefinite growth. Oops.
Heinberg goes on to explain that because we’re reaching peak…well…peak everything, and because economic growth relies on natural resources and the Earth’s ability to process our wastes, this growth simply can’t continue. He says that our money has come to represent claims on goods and services that just don’t exist. Through debt and “fiat” currency, the amount of money in the world just gets bigger and bigger, while the Earth’s total stock of resources remains the same. Something has to give.
Unlike previous authors, going back to Thomas Malthus, then later Dennis and Donella Meadows, Herman Daly, and more recently, Tim Jackson and Gus Speth—to all of whom Heinberg gives their due—he’s not just saying that economic growth should stop or that it will stop. He’s saying that it in fact has stopped, whether we like it or not. Discussion in the popular media aside, this is not a choice. Physical laws dictate that all living things must stop growing at some point and, our adamant resistance notwithstanding, the human species has reached that point.
But haven’t we heard before how growth will stop because we’ve run out of resources? (Think The Population Bomb.) So far, it hasn’t happened. Innovation (say the business people), substitution (say the economists), and efficiency (say the scientists) have always allowed us to overcome any resource limitations and advance along the path of progress and growth—and they will continue to do so in the future. But Heinberg says, not this time. Today, innovation mostly just involves tweaking existing technologies. And some materials fundamental to economic growth—most notably fossil fuels—simply have no substitutes. And efficiency can be used to decouple energy use from economic growth only to a certain point.
Heinberg asserts that the end of growth has profound social and economic implications for “developed” and “developing” countries alike. The argument from the rich has long been that we don’t have to be concerned about redistributing the economic pie (both among and within countries) because the pie is constantly growing; well, without growth, that argument falls apart. And remember all that “development” that developing countries were going to do? …Maybe not so much. In short, Heinberg says we’ll no longer have the prospect of growth to paper over issues of inequity. The Occupy movement began after this book was published, but if Heinberg is right, it’s just the beginning of many inequity-based upheavals to come.
Great, so we’re screwed. Now what? The bad news is that we can’t keep “improving” in the ways we have traditionally defined it—primarily by consuming ever more and better stuff. The good news, say Heinberg and many others, is that maybe we don’t need growth to be better off. Maybe our measurements of well-being and progress have been flawed all along. Heinberg advocates for “redefining progress” using alternative economic metrics that, unlike GDP, are not based on how fast we make and consume stuff, but rather on how happy and healthy we are, whether or not our communities are thriving, and how much agency we have in our lives.
And what about all those fossil fuels still in the ground? Heinberg says we must use what viable reserves that remain to transition as gracefully—and quickly—as possible to a steady-state, equitable, renewably powered, bioregion-based economy. No problem, right? But here’s the thing: that’s our only choice. Anything less, and the outcomes are well nigh unthinkable. Welcome to the 21st century!
On the whole, I can’t recommend The End of Growth highly enough. Heinberg is skilled at writing about complex topics in an accessible way without dumbing them down. That said, some concepts he discusses just don’t lend themselves to simplification, so unless you’re accustomed to readings with lots of technical jargon and graphs, parts of the book (especially the chapter describing the causes of our current economic crisis) may be a bit of a slog. But skim, slog, summarize—whatever you need to do to get the gist. It’s worth it! We can’t find our way out of this mess until we have a good understanding of exactly how we got into it.
The End of Growth is essential reading for anyone concerned about the fate of humans. If you care about what may (or may not) become of us, and how we might reasonably go about steering that prospect toward a more desirable outcome, you should study the contents of this book closely. Sharing its contents widely is crucial to our well-being and to the well-being of our progeny.
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This review was originally published at (www.newdream.org/blog/2012-01-the-end...)
But maybe you’re concerned about all the debt we’re in. Maybe you’re skeptical about how we currently measure societal progress and personal well-being. If you’re prepared to examine the hard, unsettling economic and environmental realities that await us, then may I recommend to you, brave reader, Richard Heinberg’s The End of Growth.
Heinberg’s overarching message is that the current economic downturn is not temporary and that, because we have now reached fundamental, unalterable ecological limits, economic growth is gone for good. In other words, the world is in for a permanent economic depression, as currently defined. Heinberg sets up his defense of this profound assertion by first exploring the historical context of the discipline of economics, demonstrating how theories that have existed since Adam Smith’s time still influence our decision making about national debt dilemmas.
Heinberg then recounts the 2008 economic crisis in considerable detail and using a lot of jargon. After reading this section, I’m still not sure I know the difference between a mortgage-backed security and a collateralized debt obligation, but I can tell you this: people got greedy. The economy has gotten way, way, (way) too complicated. And our entire economy is now fundamentally addicted to debt and to continued, indefinite growth. Oops.
Heinberg goes on to explain that because we’re reaching peak…well…peak everything, and because economic growth relies on natural resources and the Earth’s ability to process our wastes, this growth simply can’t continue. He says that our money has come to represent claims on goods and services that just don’t exist. Through debt and “fiat” currency, the amount of money in the world just gets bigger and bigger, while the Earth’s total stock of resources remains the same. Something has to give.
Unlike previous authors, going back to Thomas Malthus, then later Dennis and Donella Meadows, Herman Daly, and more recently, Tim Jackson and Gus Speth—to all of whom Heinberg gives their due—he’s not just saying that economic growth should stop or that it will stop. He’s saying that it in fact has stopped, whether we like it or not. Discussion in the popular media aside, this is not a choice. Physical laws dictate that all living things must stop growing at some point and, our adamant resistance notwithstanding, the human species has reached that point.
But haven’t we heard before how growth will stop because we’ve run out of resources? (Think The Population Bomb.) So far, it hasn’t happened. Innovation (say the business people), substitution (say the economists), and efficiency (say the scientists) have always allowed us to overcome any resource limitations and advance along the path of progress and growth—and they will continue to do so in the future. But Heinberg says, not this time. Today, innovation mostly just involves tweaking existing technologies. And some materials fundamental to economic growth—most notably fossil fuels—simply have no substitutes. And efficiency can be used to decouple energy use from economic growth only to a certain point.
Heinberg asserts that the end of growth has profound social and economic implications for “developed” and “developing” countries alike. The argument from the rich has long been that we don’t have to be concerned about redistributing the economic pie (both among and within countries) because the pie is constantly growing; well, without growth, that argument falls apart. And remember all that “development” that developing countries were going to do? …Maybe not so much. In short, Heinberg says we’ll no longer have the prospect of growth to paper over issues of inequity. The Occupy movement began after this book was published, but if Heinberg is right, it’s just the beginning of many inequity-based upheavals to come.
Great, so we’re screwed. Now what? The bad news is that we can’t keep “improving” in the ways we have traditionally defined it—primarily by consuming ever more and better stuff. The good news, say Heinberg and many others, is that maybe we don’t need growth to be better off. Maybe our measurements of well-being and progress have been flawed all along. Heinberg advocates for “redefining progress” using alternative economic metrics that, unlike GDP, are not based on how fast we make and consume stuff, but rather on how happy and healthy we are, whether or not our communities are thriving, and how much agency we have in our lives.
And what about all those fossil fuels still in the ground? Heinberg says we must use what viable reserves that remain to transition as gracefully—and quickly—as possible to a steady-state, equitable, renewably powered, bioregion-based economy. No problem, right? But here’s the thing: that’s our only choice. Anything less, and the outcomes are well nigh unthinkable. Welcome to the 21st century!
On the whole, I can’t recommend The End of Growth highly enough. Heinberg is skilled at writing about complex topics in an accessible way without dumbing them down. That said, some concepts he discusses just don’t lend themselves to simplification, so unless you’re accustomed to readings with lots of technical jargon and graphs, parts of the book (especially the chapter describing the causes of our current economic crisis) may be a bit of a slog. But skim, slog, summarize—whatever you need to do to get the gist. It’s worth it! We can’t find our way out of this mess until we have a good understanding of exactly how we got into it.
The End of Growth is essential reading for anyone concerned about the fate of humans. If you care about what may (or may not) become of us, and how we might reasonably go about steering that prospect toward a more desirable outcome, you should study the contents of this book closely. Sharing its contents widely is crucial to our well-being and to the well-being of our progeny.
...
This review was originally published at (www.newdream.org/blog/2012-01-the-end...)
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