The Spin on GDP Could Not Be More Wrong
On Thursday, July 28, 2022 (also Earth Overshoot Day), news headlines shouting the latest (Q2) GDP growth estimate for the U.S. will be misleading, uninformed and downright dangerous.
If the economy contracted as expected, journalists, financiers and pundits will mourn. Nature, on the other hand, will celebrate. Also applauding will be the Ghosts of Earth Overshoot Days Yet to Come. Nature has it right. Most financiers and financial journalists don’t know, and therefore can’t report, the truth.
It’s somewhat ironic that the day so many conversations will be about the goodness of economic growth is also Earth Overshoot Day. Sadly, there will be infinitely more reporting and discussion of GDP. If there is some growth it will be presented as good news; contraction will be reported as “dismal.” You’ll have to search, or be seriously plugged into the environmental community, to see anything about Earth Overshoot Day. It’s very likely this is the first you’ve heard of it. I took to the streets four years ago to find out what everyday citizens know about overshoot. I had to explain it to every person I interviewed:
What is Earth Overshoot Day, and Why Does It Matter?
If you don’t have time to read this, you can listen to the overshoot primer I produced for the Conversation Earth syndicated radio series. You may also want to listen to our 2019 GrowthBusters podcast interview with ecological footprint originator Mathis Wackernagel.
Global Footprint Network has been collecting and analyzing data around the world for nearly 20 years, to determine how much nature we have and how much nature we use:
A) What is the renewable biocapacity of the Earth
B) What is humanity’s total ecological footprint
The concepts are simple: Earth’s biocapacity is the amount of ecological resources Earth is able to generate in a year. Humankind’s ecological footprint is the total demand we all make on those resources. If our footprint exceeds the capacity of the planet to regenerate the resources we use, then we are in “overshoot,” running an ecological deficit, a condition that’s ultimately fatal.
Earth Overshoot Day marks the date when humanity has used all the biological resources that Earth regenerates during the entire year. It’s symbolic, but offers a dramatic illustration of our condition. Earth Overshoot Day is computed by dividing the planet’s biocapacity (the amount of ecological resources Earth is able to generate that year), by humanity’s Ecological Footprint (humanity’s demand for that year), and multiplying by 365, the number of days in a year.
Earth Overshoot Day being roughly halfway into the year means we’re demanding almost twice what the planet can bear. We’ve been in a state of overshoot for about 50 years. During that time, Earth Overshoot Day has slowly crept up from December to July. We have stretched that biocapacity rubber band about as far as she will go before she snaps. The evidence? We get bad news daily about eco-catastrophes, including climate disruption, species extinction, drought, wildfires, and depletion of fertile soil.
“What is becoming clear is that living within nature’s budget is vital for each and every nation’s economic strength and the well-being of its citizens.”
— Mathis Wackernagel, Co-Founder, Global Footprint Network
Many of us step up to save the tigers, protect forests or coral reefs, and preserve habitat for monarch butterflies (newly added to the endangered species list). We recycle, eat less meat, and use less plastic. Not quite so many are trading cars for bicycles or public transportation. These are all noble pursuits, but they aren’t making a dent in our overshoot dilemma.
The sheer scale of the human enterprise is too great for incremental nibbles at the margins to make a difference. We’re losing ground, year after year. We’ve not found technology (renewable energy, efficiency gains, etc.) that can render this growth in scale benign.
We need to be working on the big things that overwhelm and negate conservation efforts every year. Our scale — our big-picture impact on our life-supporting ecosystems — is the product of human behavior (our global economy) and the number of humans doing the behaving (global population). And yet we insist on continuing to grow both of these. The growth has got to stop. We’re so deep into overshoot now, that we don’t have the luxury of choosing to address just one of these multipliers in the impact equation. We can’t avoid one because it makes us uncomfortable. We cannot ignore one or both in order to be elected or remain in office.
“GDP, whatever else it may measure, is also the best statistical index we have of the aggregate of pollution, depletion, congestion, and loss of biodiversity.”
— Former World Bank Senior Economist Herman Daly
We have outgrown the planet.
Understanding this fact can better inform all of our smaller decisions — what we eat, how much we drive and fly, the number and sizes of our houses, how we pursue and measure success, the size of our families, the leaders we elect and follow. Yes, overconsumption grows the economy, so it has to stop. And yes, choosing to have one fewer child shrinks your footprint more than all the “green” actions you can adopt.
We have a profound moral responsibility to the children of the world, to future generations, and to all of nature, to stop tap-dancing around the inconvenient truth that we need to downsize our civilization.
We have to end our obsession with economic growth. We must stop pursuing population growth in an effort to boost GDP. And we have to end the “population taboo” — avoiding the overpopulation topic, pretending it’s not a crisis, and sending the wrong signals to young people planning their families.
“Beyond a certain threshold, further increases in GDP really do not increase self-evaluated happiness. They do, of course, continue to increase environmental costs. That gives us some idea of what’s enough.”
— Herman Daly
Recommended Reading:
This Pioneering Economist Says Our Obsession with Growth Must End
Scientists Warning on Population
Yet, too few of us are aware of overshoot, and too few understand what is needed. We’ve long avoided acknowledging we’re in overshoot. We’ve avoided accepting that the global economy has outgrown the planet. And we’ve avoided acknowledging that the global population has outgrown the planet. Journalists avoid it. Elected officials run from the subjects.
One final point: let’s not get bogged down, distracted or sidetracked by efforts to pin some blame on one segment of the population or another. Let’s focus on the fact that every human being on the planet has a role to play. Some have more work to do than others, but that does not mean there isn’t a problem to be solved. Let’s move Earth Overshoot Day back to December 31.
Dave Gardner co-hosts the GrowthBusters podcast about coming to terms with limits to growth. He directed the 2011 documentary, GrowthBusters: Hooked on Growth.
