Ted Trainer.

University of NSW.

13.12.02

This Report (Foran and Poldy, 2002) by the Resource Futures group within CSIRO considers the implications of three population scenarios for Australia, a slight population reduction, growth to 25 million and growth to 32 million (50 million by 2100). The second or "base case" represents continuation of the present trajectory and policies.

The very important contribution made by the Report is in focusing the discussion of Australia’s situation, future and policy options on the crucial considerations, viz. our physical and ecological resources, as distinct from the monetary factors which often lead conventional economists to put forward mistaken analyses of issues to do with sustainability. The Report provides a great deal of valuable information and the following discussion questions little of its factual content.

The problems lie mostly at the level of interpretation and especially of impressions given or enabled. For example an article in the Sydney Morning Herald took the Report as establishing that an Australian population of 50 million would be a reasonable goal. This is not surprising given for example the following statements in the Report.

The Report’s own data shows that even the lowest of the three population scenarios explored cannot be achieved without generating resource and ecological problems that are at least extremely serious, and some of which appear to be impossible to solve. In other words the Report’s interpretations are at best quite misleading in understating the magnitude and difficulty of the problems generated by commitment to affluent consumer society. The Report enables the impression that we can and should go on pursuing the business as usual of increasingly affluent living standards and economic growth. At the very least a report of this kind should oblige its readers to consider the "limits to growth" possibility which many students of the global predicament have come to in recent decades, viz. that an affluent Australian society of 19 million is already grossly unsustainable and that a sustainable and just world cannot be achieved without dramatic reductions in present rich world per capita consumption, and therefore without extreme change in lifestyles, patterns of settlement and values, and change to an economy that is not driven by market forces or profit and in which there is no growth

It is of course not surprising that the Report has not dealt with such a possibility, given the fierce opposition that any challenge to the dominant commitment to affluence and growth provokes. The Report’s timidity is understandable as it has already ventured so far from conventional analyses of the economy solely in monetary terms.

The magnitude of the overall problem is considerably underestimated.

The Report is to the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs and is therefore understandably focused on population. However the major fault in the Report is that attending primarily to increase in population gives a seriously misleading impression of the future consequences of pursuing our growth and affluence. As Paul Ehrlich stressed long ago resource and ecological impact is a function of population multiplied by affluence multiplied by technology. By far the most important factor in this IPAT equation is affluence. World population is not likely to multiply by more than 1.5 before it stabilises. However if rich world economic output were to continue to grow at 3.7%p.a., which has been the Australian average for approximately a decade, then by 2050 it will have multiplied by about 8, and will double every approximately 20 years thereafter. Thus the fundamental questions that should preoccupy inquirers concerned with sustainability are to do with the implications of economic growth, not population growth. Twice as many people on current living standards will probably consume only about twice as much, but on the living standards they will have in 2050 in a growth economy they will consume far more.

In deflated/real terms the rate of economic growth per capita in Australia over the past decade has been in the region of 2.3% (Hamilton, 2002, p. 10.) With population growing at around 1% p.a., the real GDP growth rate has been 3.3% p. a. At this rate the total volume of producing and consuming taking place in 2050 will be about five times the present volume.

In general resource use probably increases at a slower rated than the rate of economic growth, but, as the Report notes, various analysts have emphasised the close general relation between growth and energy use, and between income and energy use. Fig.5.14 shows that as growth rises energy use increases with no sign of tapering or approaching a ceiling. Many resource-intensive activities show very high rates of increase. International travel from Australia is increasing at 4.5% p.a. (Chapter. 2, p. 21.) Non-commodity freight shows a similar trend. OECD car ownership has grown by 4.2% p.a. for 20 years. (OECD, 2002 (Chapter 3, p. 15.) World water use is increasing at 2.5 times the rate of population increase. (Ch. 6, p 22.)

ABARE’s Energy Outlook 2000 shows that the average annual rate of growth in energy use in Australia over the decade of the 1990s was around 2.5% p. a. The Australian Yearbook shows that between 1982 and 1998 Australian energy use increased 50%, an arithmetical average growth rate of 3.13% p.a., and the rate has been faster in more recent years. (Graph 5.12.) The implication of these figures is very significant. If this rate of increase were to continue to 2050 annual energy use would be about 4.5 times as great as it is now.

The Report frequently analyses the present rate of consumption of a particular resource and concludes that if population were to increase to 25 million by 2050 or to 32 million, the annual volume of consumption of the resource would multiply by a factor of about 1.5 to 2. This gives the distinct impression that the general resource and ecological problem set by a population of 32 million by 2050 is to provide or cope with aggregate levels of production and consumption and ecological impact that are only up to twice their present levels, when the actual multiples will probably be more than four times the present levels, and doubling every 19 years thereafter.

At a number of points the Report deals tangentially with the key mechanism operating here, sometimes referred to as the Jevons paradox or the rebound effect". It is well known that when more efficient technologies are introduced, resource and ecological impacts sometimes intensify, because the reduced costs prompt people to increase their consumption of the item, or to spend the saved income on something else. This is understandable because people recognise that they can now acquire more benefit for each dollar spent than previously. The Report refers (Ch.5., pp. 22, 23.) to an instance Lenzen (1998) reports where income increased by a factor of 3- and resource consumption increased by a factor of 4-.

It is misleading to identify this as a paradox. What we are dealing with here is the central characteristic of our economy, i.e., economic growth. If the Australian economy goes on growing at 3.7% p.a. then by definition people will go on increasing their consumption of goods and services at 3.7% p.a. and if after 50 years they are only buying twice as much food because there are only twice as many people, they will be buying much more than twice as much of many other things.

To some slight extent the Report includes this effect, for instance when it assumes that the tendency for the average house size to increase with affluence will continue (for a time). However it also shows that housing expenditure varies greatly with income. The amount of consumption with respect to housing in 2050 is therefore best estimated not in terms of the increased number of people, but in terms of the increase in the average income that will have occurred by then, along with how much housing people on that increased income consume today.

In other words the resource and ecological problems Australia will have to deal with if it remains committed to the "base case" consumer-capitalist path will probably be more than twice as great as the Report makes them appear. Obviously the multiple is greater still for the high population growth scenario. If a 2.3% pa increase in real per capita GDP is combined with a 1.7% p.a rate of population growth, then by 2070 Australia's real GDP will be 16 times as great as it is now, and the general resource and ecological problems set will have become far greater than the Report envisages. The energy task for an Australia of 32 million in 2050 each on the increased amount of energy use resulting from continuation of the recent trend would be to provide around 19,000 PJ, compared with the present 4800 PJ and the 7000 PJ the Report sets as the base case task for 2050

Will "Dematerialisation" and services solve the problem?

In recent years it has often been claimed national energy use has "de-coupled" from GDP and that the economy is "dematerialising", i.e., that growth has now moved largely to service and information sectors and is requiring little energy or resources. There are a number of reasons why this claim seems to be mistaken (Trainer, 2001.) especially the tendency for energy-intensive production to be relocated in Third World countries, evident in changes in US trade figures over recent years. Also important has been the change to higher quality fuels (e.g., from coal to gas), and for some energy-intensive industries to be relocated in the Third World, such as ship building and logging. In Australia’s case energy embodied in imports appears to be similar to that in exports (Lenzen, 1998),which is remarkable given that our exports are so very highly energy intensive. Recent figures in the Report show the energy content of imports now exceeds that of exports, and is rising.

The increasing significance of services and information industries in the economy is also assumed to be "decoupling" economic growth and energy use.. However this effect is likely to be less than might be at first assumed. Firstly as the Report’s figures indicate services involve considerable resource use per dollar of output, perhaps around one quarter as much energy per dollar as manufacturing. More importantly many service industries could not exist if materials and energy were not being used in the non-service industries which they serve, such as retailing, insurance, accounting, advertising, consulting, design, legal services, much technical training, and travel and tourism services. Many maintenance, repair and recycling services might also be included in this list.

Does the Report end before the problems really begin?

It could be argued that the Report deals only with the few decades in which Australia is likely to live well by using up the last of its mineral and energy resource capital. It notes (Chapter 4, p. 11) that in 50 years there will probably be few if any minerals left to export, or petroleum or gas, and land degradation might by then have seriously reduced our capacity to export agricultural produce. Meanwhile we will have added people, which will have increased the need to import but which will make little contribution to our capacity to earn export income because this comes mostly from mining and agriculture which employ few, and we will have built much bigger cities with proportionately more difficult problems of air pollution, congestion etc, in turn multiplying infrastructure and resource demands.

The Report notes this general possibility of great difficulties arising after 2050 but does not portray these as alarming, mainly because it reinforces the impression that technical advance and development of renewable energy can solve the problems. (Discussed below.)

How many Australians could an ecologically defensible export strategy support?

Australia is highly dependent on export earnings, especially as globalisation has reduced our manufacturing self-sufficiency, and generated a huge debt and consequent constant outflow of funds. We use the export earnings to pay for a large volume of imports and without this our "living standards" would be much lower. Physical items make up 75% of our exports. (Chapter 7, p. 6.)

How many imports could we pay for if our exports were not so ecologically problematic? Our biggest earner is coal. How much of that would we export in a world that did not generate a greenhouse problem? We export much gas, and this is often cast as ecologically desirable since gas releases less carbon per unit of useful energy, but that should not detract from the fact that gas use is a major contributor to the greenhouse problem.

We export large quantities of minerals, which are high in embodied energy and therefore are significant greenhouse gas contributors. Our main agricultural exports, wool, wheat, beef and forest products, are produced in ways that are seriously damaging and depleting fragile ecosystems. We are degrading and selling off our ecological capital in order to achieve annual export income via these commodities. How much wool, wheat, beef and timber would we produce if we operated in ways that were perfectly sustainable…let alone if we were to take previously damaged land out of production in order to repair it?

Note also that at present we are accumulating a disturbing debt on our negative balance of trade; i.e., we are not exporting enough to pay for what we import. In other words if we were paying fully for what we consume we would have to export even more. In other words the real ecological cost of the living standards we have been enjoying is higher than it seems, because we have been accumulating costs without paying them.

Again these considerations reveal the very worrying nature of our situation with respect to the ecological significance of our exports and the Report does not arouse appropriate concern about this.

A global view must be taken

It is misleading to analyse Australia’s situation and prospects primarily in terms of Australia’s resources and internal trends. Australia’s fate will depend on what happens in the increasingly integrated global economy. The most disturbing prospect in the global economy is the possibility that petroleum supply is within a decade of peaking. Campbell (1997) is one of a number of petroleum geologists whose estimates indicate that by 2025 world supply will in effect be only around 1/15 of the volume that would be required to provide the world’s population then with the present Australian per capita petroleum consumption. If the predictions of this group are borne out the world is in for literally catastrophic consequences, given the extreme dependence on liquid fuels. For instance the pumping of fossil ground water, largely using liquid fuels, enables agriculture to produce far more than would be possible using the rainfall budget; in fact without this source of water the world could feed 480 million fewer people than it feeds today.

A petroleum supply crisis would greatly accelerate the use of gas, which is also being turned to for power generation, leading some to fear that an electricity crisis will actually precede a liquid fuel crisis. In a very competitive global market dominated by a few Arabian nations not politically well disposed to Australia it would not be at all certain that Australia could secure adequate petroleum imports, nor that we could simply boost gas use to replace petroleum as the Report assumes. Yet the Report's model assumed that…"When domestic oil and gas stocks started to become constrained in Australia, the additional requirements were sources from international trade…" (Chapter 5, p. 6.) Pressure to export gas to an eager global market is likely to increase greatly, especially if greenhouse considerations and restoration of damaged land reduces export earning capacity from coal and agricultural produce.

Thus the Report does not portray well the probable seriousness of our situation when the global resource context and especially the petroleum outlook is attended to. It notes the possibility that there will be problems, but in an understated way. For example "Tensions between domestic requirements and domestic production of oil may be evident from 2015 and natural gas production from 2030…" (Chapter 4, p. 1.)

The Report makes the important point that attention must be given to the rising energy cost of producing oil. Figure 5.4 shows that this will mean a net energy return for Australian oil production will be approaching zero after 2020, and for gas after 2030. Note that well before this point in time it will probably have become uneconomic to produce these items because many other costs of production other than energy also have to be paid for out of the positive net energy return.

Globalisation is forcing all counties to become highly dependent on the one world economy. Any country will only be able to produce the few items it can market more cheaply than anyone else, and will have to earn from this the income needed to import all the items it no longer produces for itself. We are therefore very likely to become much more dependent on our commodity exports, almost all of which are ecologically problematic. In addition, as the Report notes, energy intensive items are likely to come under international pressure, such as carbon sanctions. It also stresses the high and under-priced water content of our agricultural commodity exports and this problem is likely to increase as pressure to export increases.

The Report can be accused of naivity at those points where it suggests that regulatory action should be taken, for example to redress the low return for water embodied in exports or to divert gas from exports to domestic use. Globalisation is essentially about eliminating the capacity of governments to "interfere with the freedom of trade", meaning that "market forces" are increasingly able to determine who gets access to what resources and markets on what terms. This means that the access and terms will be settled by what will maximise the profits of the most powerful global corporations, not by what governments might think is in the best interests of their people, social cohesion or the environment. (In any case the priority of governments now is not the welfare of their people, e.g., via reducing unemployment. It is to facilitate and maximise business turnover and create the conditions that will attract foreign corporations.) At present the labour content of Third World factory and plantation products is extremely undervalued, and this is a direct consequence of allowing market forces to determine access and terms, so there is little point in suggesting that something should be done about reducing the underpricing of water content of our exports while at the same time acquiescing in globalisation (or eagerly facilitating it as virtually all governments have done).

The Report’s tendency to give an unduely complacent impression is also due to the fact that it is discussing the situation of perhaps the most fortunate country in the world in so far as resource and ecological conditions are concerned. Australia has almost twice the agricultural and forest land per capita that America has, and large mineral and energy resources. Europe is far less well endowed, Japan is quite resource-poor and much of the Third World is in a desperate situation. In this context an analysis focused on Australia’s stocks and flows gives a misleading impression of our situation because that will be greatly dependent on what happens in the rest of the world which is far less fortunate and much more likely to experience turmoil due to shortages of water, petroleum, food etc. We should be considering the prospects, not of Australia, but of the rich countries as a whole For example although at present Australia has considerable quantities of oil plus gas, if a petroleum crisis occurs on the scale Campbell et al anticipate then rich world economies will be hit hard within two decades and there will be major effects on the suppliers of the many imports we depend on and the buyers of our exports, not to mention the effects on the global financial house of cards to which we are heavily indebted.

The greenhouse gas clincher.

For advocates of the limits to growth perspective the greenhouse problem on its own seems to constitute a sufficient demonstration of the extreme degree of unsustainability of consumer-capitalist society. The Report’s figures make this conclusion alarmingly clear, but its summary statements do not emphasise the significance of the point.

For a decade the Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change has been stressing that if we were to reduce fossil fuel use to the levels that would keep global carbon emissions to no more than twice the pre-industrial level, then for a world of 9 billion people in 2050 average per capita fossil fuel use would have to be reduced to about 1/15 of the current level in Australia (or about 1/40 of the amount we would be using in 2050 if the recent rate of increase were to continue until then.) Note that this target of twice the pre-industrial level is alarmingly high and will probably be associated with very serious ecological disruption. To achieve a sustainable situation far greater reduction in CO2 emissions would have to be achieved.

The magnitude of multiples such as this, and the consequent implications for the extreme technical, social, economic and cultural changes that are therefore called for, has not begun to sink into mainstream thinking about the predicament we are in. For example achieving the Kyoto targets will make no significant contribution to solving the problem (although they are important as a symbolic first step .)

The Report is valuable in making clear that in all three scenarios Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions increase dramatically, ending in 2050 at 2.3 times the Kyoto targets by 67%, 90% and 130% respectively. (Chapter 5, p. 13.) Note that this conclusion assumes very advanced technological innovations (Chapter 7, p. 16.), without which the multiple for the base case would be not 1.9 but 3. (Chapter 5, p. 1.) The Report has failed to stress the immense significance of these greenhouse gas consequences in disqualifying the commitment to the business as usual of growth and affluence society.

The conclusion that for greenhouse reasons alone consumer-capitalist society is grossly and irremediably unsustainable can only be avoided if it can be shown that renewable energy sources plus technical advance in resource conservation, energy efficiency etc can enable enormous reductions in the resource and ecological consequences of the present Australian way of life. The Report should therefore have discussed whether this is likely. The reasons for thinking that it is not are indicated below.

There is a very strong tendency to assume that technical advance can sufficiently reduce resource requirements and ecological impacts to enable high living standards to continue. Hawken, Lovins and Lovins (1999) argue that a Factor Four and possibly a Factor Ten reduction in resource and ecological impacts per dollar of output is possible. Thus they reassure us that we can all enjoy increasing "living standards" and continued economic growth, while saving the environment. There is no need to threaten affluence, or business turnover. It is not surprising that Lovins is so popular.

It takes little space to show that technical fix is most unlikely to enable a sustainable and just society that continues to pursue affluence and growth. Let us assume that the present environmental impact must be halved (the greenhouse goal should be much lower than that and a rich world footprint is probably already 6 times the presently available productive land per capita.) If the Australian 3.7% pa growth rate continues to 2050 and by then all 9 billion people have risen to the "living standards" we would then have, total world economic output would be about 50 times as great as it is now.

So if technical advance is to make possible 50 times as much producing and consuming as at present with only half the ecological impact, a factor 100 reduction must be achieved, not factor 4, and that twenty years after that it must be factor 200. In other words it is most implausible that technical advance could make it possible for all people to have the "living standards" we are taking for granted for ourselves in 2050. (For a detailed critique of Natural Capitalism, see Trainer, in press - b.)

The Report does not discuss the difference that renewable energy resources might make to our situation over the coming 50 years. However its comments reinforce the dominant and largely unquestioned assumption that these could replace fossil fuels. At a number of points reference is made to the need for technical progress or technical possibilities without giving any sense that the answers might not be forthcoming. The possibility that renewable energy cannot sustain consumer-capitalist society, and the extremely radical implications of this possibility are not seriously considered (although the issue is noted. Chapter 5, p. 19.)

A number of statements give reassurance regarding renewables. For example,

More importantly reference is made to a discussion by Foran and Mardon (1999) of various ways in which 17-31 million ha could "…power an economy which uses methanol and ethanol from biomass for transport fuels, and distributed electricity plants fuelled by gasified wood." However, if 31 million ha yield 4 t of biomass per ha, the approximate Australian fodder production rate, and one third of the energy in this input material ends up in the liquid fuel, then it will yield 654 PJ,( from which must be subtracted the energy used in the process.) However the Report says transport alone is using 1202PJ. (Chapter. 5, p. 4.)

If we take the very optimistic assumption that technical advance will enable 10 t/ha yields and that half the input energy will end up in the liquid fuel, then 2480PJ would be produced, again ignoring the energy costs of production..

The energy return on investment for biomass production is uncertain. In some cases is it is less than 1. Pimentel says it is 1.7 for ethanol produced from corn. Lynd indicates that with technical advance it could be 4 or 5. If it is 2, meaning that to produce one unit of energy half a unit must be used in the process, then 31 million ha yielding 10 t/ha, 56% of which is converted to liquid fuel would supply 1240 PJ

Australian forest plantations yield 8+t/ha, but it is estimated that the limits set by land enabling such high yields will not permit more than about 10 million ha to be put into forest plantations. It is not plausible that far greater areas, which would involve poorer land and conditions, would produce biomass at comparable yields.

To yield the approximately 1600PJ going into electricity production per year from biomass at 16GJ/t would require 100 million tonnes of biomass per year, not counting the energy required to produce the biomass and process it.. At a 3t/ha yield (the approximate world forest growth rate is c 2 t/ha/y), 33 million ha of forest would have to be continually harvested for electricity alone.

In other words realistic land area, yield, and conversion assumptions, and subtraction of the energy costs of production, indicate that 31 million ha might at best provide 1000 PJ, when present demand for liquid fuels plus input to electricity generation is 2800PJ, and there are reasons for thinking that by 2050 the quantities required under the base case would be 5 times as great as the Report estimates.

These estimates indicate the grounds for the conclusion that renewables cannot sustain the present "living standards" of rich countries. (For detailed argument also dealing with solar sources, see Trainer, 1995a, 1995b, 2002 , Hayden, 2001.) Whether or not this conclusion is valid will be determined before 2050, again within the terms of reference of the Report. It should therefore have explored the field, given that if the negative case is indicated enormously problematic implications follow for business as usual. The Report fails to convey the significance of the issue or the precariousness of our situation, or to prompt an appropriate discussion of this crucial issue.

Chapter 7 of the Report deals with some issues to do with interactionsbetween the problems but does not adequately detail the magnitude of thetask that is set by the fact that each and all of the specific problems it discusses have to be solved at the same time. While it might be plausible that when any one of the problems is considered it is evident that there are sufficient resources to deal with it, it is another issue as to whether there are sufficient resources to solve them all together.

It is not just that the resources taken by one problem are not available for application to the next problem. Often solving one problem generates additional problems and difficulties for solving the next. For instance the Report says that we can increase agricultural output by developing the North, but that, as it notes, would inevitably tend to generate the same kinds of land and water problems already plaguing the South, as well as further damaging the Great Barrier Reef. It would also feed into resource, energy, greenhouse, and ecological implications associated with the necessary infrastructure development, the additional towns, roads, communications and travel systems etc. The Report points out that the base case population growth would involve building 90 more Canberras (Introduction, p. 8.) The materials, energy, water and ecological costs of doing that has not been taken Into account by the Report in its discussion of developing the North.

Further the Report does not seem to deal with the important point Troy makes against increasing urban density. If more people are to live within the existing city space then it will be necessary to enlarge infrastructures built into and under elaborate city structures, which will be quite costly.

Fish seems to be the resource in which Australia is most deficient and the Report says acquaculture could be a "feasible" solution, rising from 30,000 tonnes production to 460,000 tonnes in 2050. (Chapter 4. p. 30.)What is not explained is where the approximately 644,000 tonnes of food for the fish is to come from, equal to three times our present fish catch, and what the knock-on effects on agriculture might be.

The Report might also have made more effort to at least indicate possible consequences of global warming for Australia’s future. There is reference to possible pressure to reduce our contribution to the greenhouse problem, and to the possibility that the problem might increase water demand 30% (!) (Some sources estimate that the greenhouse problem wil,l reduce Auystralian rainfall by 30%.)(Chapter 6, p. 8.) In addition there are many other probable effects such as greater salinity, energy demand (e.g., for air conditioning), storm damage and therefore import demand, and on the need for more resources to be devoted to environmental protection.

Attempts to estimate national aggregate resource implications have typically not included "emergy" costs, and their possible magnitude is easily underestimated. Consider the energy and resource costs of producing all the machinery, sheds, pipes, vehicles and other infrastructures presently involved in farming Australia’s cropland. If another 31 million ha are going to be farmed for biomass we will have to produce another batch of infrastructure more or less equivalent to 1.5 times that now required to farm our 20 million ha of cropland. Again what might be the knock on effects on all other areas of the economy, including the need to export more to pay for the importation of some of this equipment?

The extreme injustice of the global economic system is also directly relevant to a satisfactory discussion of Australia’s real economic situation. Space prohibits more than the briefest reference here to the core characteristics of the present system. (For a detailed critical account see http://www.arts.unsw.edu.au/tsw/08b-Third-World-Lng.html#Trickle down)

Because the global economy is a market system most resources flow automatically to the rich few. Poor people and nations cannot offer to pay much for oil, so most of it is taken by the 1 billion who live in the rich countries. How much oil would we be importing if it was allocated according to principles of justice or need as distinct from the principles of the market?

Even worse is the fact that much of the Third World’s productive capacity, its land, forests and labour have been drawn into producing for the benefit of the rich when they should be applied directly to meeting the needs of local people. Compare what can be bought with the 15c a day wage that trickles down to workers in Bangladesh producing shirts for our supermarkets, with the food and other goods those workers could be producing for themselves if their work day was spent in local cooperative farms and firms producing basic necessities for local people. Consider who benefits most when Third World land grows coffee to import to our supermarkets while the plantation workers are malnourished. Who benefits when Australian superfine wool is exported; is it made into cheap jackets for impoverished peasants or expensive suits for rich people?

The present systems of trade and foreign investment, driven by market forces and profit maximisation, are the main mechanisms whereby the rich get access to and can take most of the world’s wealth. Australia’s "prosperity" is due in large part to its success in this trading system. Our living standards would be very low without the large volume of goods imported from the plantations and the sweatshops. What would we pay for all the goods now entering our shops bearing the label "Made in China" if those who produced them were paid decent wages?

This problem of the massive injustice built into the foundations of the global economy is directly connected to a number of other very disturbing phenomena, including the military and other implications of maintaining the empire from which rich countries draw more than their fair share, the impossibility of achieving a peaceful world unless justice is established, and the support rich countries give to brutally repressive regimes willing to keep their economies to the policies that suit us. (For a more detailed account see Trainer, 2002.)

The resource and environmental implications of this situation are not likely to be quantifiable but clearly Australia's imports represent problematic flows of large volumes of labour, material and ecological wealth, which would at least be greatly reduced in a more morally acceptable global economy.

Advocates of the limits to growth analysis emphasise that there are several distinct lines of argument (e.g., re greenhouse, footprint, petroleum…) which lead to the conclusion that present Australian "living standards" are far beyond those that are sustainable or that all people could rise to. The literature supporting this conclusion has been accumulating for decades and now constitutes a very persuasive case, but it has been almost completely ignored by the mainstream, especially by the political, corporate and bureaucratic ranks. It is of the utmost importance that this issue of over-consumption and limits to growth should become focal in thinking about our situation and future at official, academic and popular levels. The Report’s main failing is that it has not portrayed the significance of the limits to growth case, it has therefore significantly underestimated the seriousness of our situation, and as a result it has reinforced complacency regarding the viability of business as usual.

Many authors contributing to the limits literature recognize consumer-capitalist society as a fundamentally mistaken project, increasingly delivering grotesque wealth to a super-rich few and to rich world supermarket shoppers while depriving most people of a satisfactory share, and while destroying the ecosystems of the planet. Globalisation is freeing the rich to accelerate these processes. The major global problems facing us are all patently due in large part to the over-consumption of the richest few. We have an ecological problem because we are taking so much from nature and dumping so much waste back into nature, at rates that technical advance is not likely to remedy. We have billions of people living in poverty because it is not possible for people in rich countries to have so many resources unless they take far more than their fair share and draw the productive capacity of the Third World into producing for the benefit of rich world shoppers and corporate elites. And what are the chances of peace in a world where the rich few cannot go on taking more than their fair share unless grotesquely unjust economic systems are kept in place, with military force, support of brutal regimes and state terrorism as the ultimate tools. If we insist on remaining affluent in a world where affluence for all is not possible, we had best remain heavily armed. (The case is detailed in Trainer, 2002.)

What then is the way out?

The implications of the limits perspective for social change are radical in the extreme. Many now conclude that consumer-capitalist society is the basic cause of the dire and multifaceted global situation and the problems cannot be solved within such a society. If this is so then radical change to "The Simpler Way" must be accepted as the only path out of the global sustainability predicament.

If the limits analysis is valid then the principles of the alternative, sustainable and just society are not difficult to work out. They are, a) much more materially simple, non-affluent living standards, which does not mean hardship or deprivation. b) High levels of self-sufficiency, especially via local economies, with relative little trade, foreign investment, international travel and transport, and few if any transnational corporations. c) High levels of cooperation and participation via local institutions such as working bees, committees, and community commons. d) An almost completely new economic system, one not driven by market forces or profit and without growth. It must be geared to meeting needs, be based primarily on giving as distinct from getting, must involve a large cashless sector, and must enable non monetary factors to be the primary determinants. (There could still be a major role for private firms and for market forces, but only if subject to firm social control.) e) Therefore there must be transition to a very different culture, in which little value is put on competition, individualism and acquisitiveness.

It goes without saying that our chances of making such vast, unprecedented and radical change are very poor. In Toynbee’s terms, our culture gives little evidence that it has the wit or the will to respond to the challenges we face.

Nevertheless there is now a Global Alternative Society Movement in which many small groups are working to build examples of The Simpler Way This is most evident in the more than 2000 eco-villages now estimated to be functioning throughout the world. The best hope for transition would seem to lie mostly in the possibility that in coming years this Movement will generate sufficiently impressive examples to show people in the mainstream that there are workable and satisfying alternatives to the increasingly problematic consumer-capitalist way.

Few institutions have a greater opportunity and responsibility to focus public attention on these themes than the CSIRO. It is to be hoped that in future its work will entail greater effort to get these core theme to do with over-consumption, limits and The Simpler Way onto the public agenda.

_____________________

Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics, (2000), Australian Energy Outlook, Energy 2001; Exploring Australia's Energy Future, National Conference, Nov. 2001, Sydney. A. Dickson et al. http://www.aie.org.au/natcon01/dickson.htm

Campbell, J., (1997), The Coming Oil Crisis, Brentwood, England, Multiscience and Petroconsultants.

Douthwaite, R., (1996), Short Circuit, Dublin, Lilliput.

Federation of Intentional Communities, (1995), Communities Directory; A Guide to Cooperative Living, Langley.

Foran, B., and C. Mardon, (1999), Beyond 2025: Transitions to the biomass-alcohol economy using ethanol and methanol, CSIRO Resource Futures Program, Canberra.

Foran, B., and F. Poldy, (2002), Future Dilemmas: Options to 2050 for Australia's population, Technology, Resources and Environment, CSIRO Resource Futures, Canberra.

Hagmaier, S., J., Kommerall, M. Stengil, M. Wurfel, (2000), Eurotopia; Directory of Intentional Communities and Eco-villages in Europe, 2000/2001, Poppau, Okodorf Seiben Linden.

Hamilton, C., H. Turton, H. J. Ma, H. Sadler, (2002), Long-Term Greenhouse Gas Scenarios, Australia Institute, Discussion Paper 48.

Hawken, P., A. B. Lovins, and H. Lovins, (1999), Natural Capital, London, Little Brown.

Hayden, H. C., (2001), The Solar Fraud, Pueblo West, Co, Vales Lake Publishing.

OECD, (2002), Road Travel Demand; Meeting the Challenge, May.

Schwarz, W., and Schwarz, D., (1998), Living Lightly, London, Jon Carpenter.

Trainer, F. E. (T.), (2001), "The dematerialisation myth", Technology in Society, 23, 505-514.

Trainer, F. E. (T)., (In press, a), " Can solar sources meet Australia's electricity and liquid fuel demand?", The International Journal of Global Energy Issues.

Trainer, F. E. (T), (In press, b), "Natural capitalism cannot overcome resource limits", Environment, Development, Sustainability.