Top 3 Ways Economic Growth will Solve Climate Change

Climate change is a serious problem that deserves a serious solution. “Degrowth” is not one. Economic and population growth is — and this video illuminates three reasons sustainable development can only be achieved with economic growth.

#1: Economic growth means greater efficiency in technology.
#2: Economic growth is driving people and resources to cities (which are good for the environment and innovation.)
#3: Growth leads to wealth, which leads to greater care for the environment.

CHAPTERS
0:00 Debunking Degrowth
0:51 Video Roadmap
1:38 Reason #1: Economic growth = greater efficiency
4:19 Reason #2: Economic growth is driving people and resources to cities
6:02 Reason #3: Growth leads to wealth, which leads to greater care for the environment
8:15 Growth is the answer

#climatechange #degrowth #sustainability #economicgrowth

LEARN LIBERTY:

[counter-intelligence]

What I most hate about "degrowth" is that they invented a new word to hide that they argue for impoverishment.

[theblacklakes]

The fact that there are people advocating for de-growth in any way is simply horrific

[Isvakk]

I'm still very curious about what LL thinks of carbon taxes.

[kimlibera]

The bakery is a good example. We here this same paradigm with healthcare--would not we just go with 1 healthcare system instead of all these group plans. Demand is too high, needs not met. It never works toward efficiency.

[macsnafu]

This is a good start, but these ideas really need more elaboration if you're going to convince people. You have to overcome propaganda and deeply ingrained biases and fallacies.

[mattbaron]

Good video but I have a question. Reasons 1 and 2 make sense, but reason 3 is more confusing. Basically, people are more concerned about getting their basic needs met than caring for the environment. But doesn't that mean that once people are able to provide for themselves, they are able to have other priorities as well, similar to Maslow's hierarchy of needs? I would think that a modest citizen that has their needs met has less of a carbon footprint than a billionaire with 3 houses and a private jet. It makes sense to say that innovation is useful when it allows people to efficiently allocate resources, but growth for growth's sake doesn't seem to mean much. We also need to have the right values: the whole argument here relies on the idea that people already care about the environment but have more immediate concerns. Sadly, we live in a world where a lot of people don't care about the environment, or other important matters such as elections/civic engagement, faith/spirituality, health/wellness, etc. Living virtuously and modestly, caring about the world around us while living within our means, seems to be essential to any promise to make the world a better place. As amazing as the free market is, being the change we want to see in the world does require more than just profit incentives.

[jasonmcphee]

Great Video. However, pricing pollution is an important concept in allowing the markets to address it. Often these innovations worked hand in hand with trying to avoid the cost of penalties for pollution. Consider how clean cars are today. That didn't happen in a vacuum. Just go back to videos of LA and San Francisco from the 60's. You'll be shocked at how bad the air quality looks. Of course, the challenge is determining the right pollution price as the market doesn't really price the externality.

[jamesjross]

I think the real answer is far more complicated and will involve growth in industries that meet the goals and compromises in other areas.

[JohnReon]

You should look at what happened in the past about the three year global winter starting in 536 AD to 539 AD and 1816 the year with out a summer. All in documented globally. We are do for this to happen again and it will not be caused by Man.

[michaelwhite]

Are you saying we should all move to the city and allow factory farms to produce all of our food, instead of the family farms?

[jsn]

So I shouldn't take economic advice from an emotionally unstable twelve year old?

[Delgwah]

100 trillion a year divided by the entire worlds population. We have a problem. I purpose 604, 800, 000, 000, 000 a year world budget. This way, as you say, each human being gets 7, 000 per month, all that exists now can improve, as you say will happen. The monetary system can happen as it does to this day. But without the inability to budget everyone in, and resorting to short cuts, waste, contamination, and the inability to give all; a financial voice. Things may improve? Point is; Our resources may still be there for future years if we uncouple them from being the only choice we have to grow and survive in our journey through time.

[amadexi]

The video makes the mistake of attempting to apologize for growth by trying to find convoluted reasons of why growth somehow leads to less consumption (which is stupid).

Don't apologize. Growth is natural, consuming is natural. Is the essence of life itself. Reaching a cap of (or worse, decreasing) consumption would be the sign of a failing and doomed life form.

While consumption of specific things may decrease, there is no real upper limit to what we can consume. We will keep consuming more and more forever.


In fact I would say that hopefully, earth is just the beginning, and in millions of years, humanity may likely consume amounts of resources across the universe, that dwarves what earth contains.
(Or space travel is impossible and we will just die on earth).

[johndol]

i agree to many arguments but damn F cities...

[kimlibera]

Problem with carbon markets is you must always retain a large polluter on market to keep those fines coming in. So let me guess--such polluter will be installed in Africa where the people have no power & the head honshos will be bought off by the other countries.

[antc]

So what about the billions of people with living standards well below that of the US? As their education, urbanisation and wealth increase, so will global consumption. It is well known that resource consumption of the west far exceeds many countries and our CO2 emissions per capita also far outweigh there's. The planet is currently demonstrating environmental stress, degradation of ecosystems and rapid changes never seen before in such a short period of time. Many of these observations are affecting places and people outside of the west. Following a GDP focus is simply human-centric and misses the point that not only are we part of the global ecosystem, we're dependant on it. We need to move away from a GDP focus and implement Environmental Performance Index (EPI), which ranks countries based on their environmental health and ecosystem vitality, using metrics like air and water quality, biodiversity, and climate change policies. Until then, there will be no effective change. Emissions will continue and technology cannot rebuild a heathy, diverse ecosystem. And population growth? Simple finite resources on the planet logically answers that one.

[BbobIII]

OK I'm not a capitalist but Greta Thunberg sounds like she's in a skit😂

[EricColeThornton]

I have given some thought to the idea of economic growth before. Yes, technology will make production more efficient, but eventually we will experience diminishing returns from tech. The planet has finite resources, so it is worth considering if eternal growth is possible. We don't know that answer to that question yet... perhaps there will be new recycling methods in the future, or perhaps we will mine minerals from asteroids. On the flip side, perhaps we will hit a limit on how far tech can take us. We don't know the answer yet, but it is worth keeping an open mind and consider the idea that eternal growth may not be possible, even if we want it to be. Remember, one of the foundational ideas in Economics is that we have scarce resources, and we must choose how to use them. Our economic growth may also face limitations due to scarcity.

[SaveEarthNowOfficial]

Let’s all do something for the climate, go donate to charities or whatever, at least do something. This is our only planet, at least for the moment..

[silverhawkscape]

Infinite Growth is a Pipe dream. You have an infinitely growing economy with Finite resources.