Envisioning an Alternative Future

Abstract

As suggested 40 years ago, the limits to growth as measured by human consumption of net primary production (NPP) may well be reached in the next few decades. At that time, we will have reached the planetary limits to further growth in human activity. But, long before that point is reached, we will be faced with peaks in energy production and economic growth that directly impact human populations. Furthermore, our current industrial civilization powered by fossil fuels is changing Earth’s climate system and accelerating its loss of biodiversity and wildlife habitats. Due to demographic momentum, growth in human populations will continue for some time despite reduced reproductive rates in many developed parts of the world. There is little that can be done now to prevent world population from reaching almost 10 billion in 2050. Wealthy nations can work toward ecological sustainability and international stability by reducing material consumption and stabilizing their populations. Nations with widespread poverty can help encourage, through diplomatic means, this transition of wealthy nations while pursuing truly needed levels of economic growth in their own countries. Although “contraction and convergence” are far from politically viable in the early twenty-first century, some degree of both—contraction of the global economy and convergence of per capita consumption—is perhaps the only sustainable option in international affairs, and offers a basic element of fairness in the context of global limits to growth.