Hervé Kempf: the dictatorship of GDP and limits to growth

Current Economy and Sustainable Development-compatible? GDP growth (at all costs), economic development, inflation ... How concillier the current economy with the environment and sustainable development.
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Hervé Kempf: the dictatorship of GDP and limits to growth




by Christophe » 02/02/09, 00:36

After the excellent article by Gegard Mermet, the world is still publishing one that kicks the anthill !! So the World, the first masstream media (r) to raise awareness ... to save the world? : Mrgreen:

Beyond the dictatorship of GDP THE WORLD | 31.01.09/14/49 | XNUMX:XNUMX p.m.

Say the word "degrowth" in front of an economist, and you will see him roll his eyes, accuse you of wanting Third World misery and, presumably, turn on his heels and rant against backward environmentalists. But it turns out that ... we are already shrinking. By the crisis, who is for the first time in a long time to decline the level of gross domestic product (GDP)? No. Due to the continuous damage that humanity inflicts on the natural capital of the planet, that is to say on all the biological resources which serve as a support for its activities.

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But, if this damage is documented by thousands of studies on climate change, the biodiversity crisis, the multiplication of pollution, it suffered from not being able to be synthesized by a significant indicator. Nothing to oppose the reign of GDP - which has come to become the fetish of enrichment and well-being. GDP increase, good. Lower GDP, bad. And when the GDP goes up, and yet the society exhibits more and more manifestly its discomforts and tensions, it is ... that it does not go up enough! As for the ecological crisis, well, this is another matter, which the GDP cannot measure, and which is therefore secondary ...

NEW INDICATORS

In the same way that it was necessary to move from the medicine of doctors mocked by Molière to infectious medicine inspired by Pasteur, so we must move from an "economic science" to a vision of human society in the twenty-first century that thinks general prosperity in relation to its environment. To start with, new indicators are needed. The good news is that, over the last ten years or so, such an index has gradually developed and strengthened: "the ecological footprint" is arousing growing interest in academic circles.

Aurélien Boutaud and Natacha Gondran's book is therefore timely: explaining in clear and rigorous terms the method developed by Mathis Wackernagel and William Rees for ten years, it is to our knowledge the first presentation in French of this essential tool. . The presentation begins with the first question: "How is the capacity of the environment to meet our current and future needs limited?" To understand this, a reminder of the general functioning of the biosphere emphasizes the interplay of interrelations that are established there and that the energy is supplied by the Sun, through different forms including the essential one of photosynthesis.

The economy is reduced to modesty: "The sphere of human activities (" the econosphere ") is intimately dependent on the biosphere from which it draws its energy and its raw materials." Therefore, "human activity cannot continue to develop in the long term if the biosphere were to be too seriously damaged". But "does the econosphere mobilize today more services from the biosphere than the latter can regenerate?"

To answer, we must compare the quantity consumed and the quantity supplied. This is what the ecological footprint method will do, by reducing the types of ecosystems (forests, cultivated land, pastures, etc.) to a common unit, the "global hectare". This is both a producer of biomass and assimilator of carbon dioxide, the main greenhouse gas. The method thus succeeds in defining the ecological footprint of different countries or of the entire Earth.

Of course, the ecological footprint has gaps, which the work does not fail to point out: it leaves aside mineral materials, water, toxic elements and radioactive waste and gives little room for the erosion of biodiversity. But it is nonetheless a tool that allows us to understand that ... the limits are exceeded. Since 1987, according to this index, humanity has consumed more natural services than the biosphere can regenerate, that is to say, consumes its natural capital. The next logical question, which the ecological footprint does not answer, is that of the dimension of natural capital. In other words: how long can it last without a general disaster? Green economists, at work!

The Ecological Footprint, by Aurélien Boutaud and Natacha Gondran, La Découverte "Repères", 128 p., € 9,50. Unpublished.

Hervé Kempf


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by minguinhirigue » 02/02/09, 00:53

There are discussions on how to expand the ecological footprint to other areas of the biosphere (pollution, water, mineral resources ...) but nothing that makes consensus today.

A funny reflection nonetheless with this tool: the Japanese megalopolis has 200 inhabitants / ha on average, with an average ecological footprint of 9 ha / inhabitants in 2003 (WWF if I remember correctly ... but it is late then I will check .. .): each hectare of the average Japanese megalopolis borrows the capital of 1799 virgin hectares!
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Re: Hervé Kempf: the dictatorship of GDP and limits of growth




by Christophe » 17/05/17, 21:02

Well, it looks like they are waking up across the Atlantic: https://www.lesechos.fr/monde/etats-uni ... 087180.php (good less related to ecology than to the economy version UBER or 2.0 but hey it's already that ...)

GDP: what if the measuring instruments were outdated?

Several former and current officials of American economic statistics question the efficiency of their calculation system.


What if the economic thermometer was broken? This is what several former and current officials responsible for US statistics suggest about GDP and inflation. According to them, the methods of calculating the main indicators are obsolete, for lack of having succeeded in integrating the specificities of the new economy.

In statements to the press and a joint article in the scientific journal of the American Association for Economic Prospects, the five statisticians explain that there are biases in the calculation of the price index, i.e. inflation, and American growth.

These errors lead in particular to an underestimation of the "real growth" of the world's largest economy, which slowed slightly in the first quarter.

(...)
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Re: Hervé Kempf: the dictatorship of GDP and limits of growth




by Exnihiloest » 17/05/17, 21:20

Even if its method is more or less scientific, economics is not a science: complexity of multifactorial causes, not all quantifiable elements, human factors far too numerous, preponderant and with the effects of unpredictable thresholds because of the evolution of companies, no wonder that its calculating system is questionable, the models can only be very crude.
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Re: Hervé Kempf: the dictatorship of GDP and limits of growth




by Flytox » 17/05/17, 23:20

Maybe the Ricans need to change this tool if he is no longer able to say that they are the first economy in the world .... It is only the first place that matters to them. Going after China is offensive! : Mrgreen:
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Re: Hervé Kempf: the dictatorship of GDP and limits of growth




by Christophe » 18/05/17, 17:19

Flytox wrote:Maybe the Ricans need to change this tool if he is no longer able to say that they are the first economy in the world .... It is only the first place that matters to them. Going after China is offensive! : Mrgreen:


Cpacon :)

I had not seen the thing from this point of view there :)
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