Effects of the growths demographic and economic on the environment

The effects of the economic growth and the human population growth , which results from this, have effects importants' on the environnement' .

Following the demographic Explosion, developed Countries as from the 19th century, then especially of the Developing country in the second half of the 20th century, and strong the Economic growth which occurred starting from the Industrial revolution, the “Environnement” was deeply modified. The man adapted the landscape to his use (plantations, channels, infrastructures); he consumes nonrenewable natural resources; he also generates pollution, which has local impacts and which has a probable influence on the general climate (see Climate warming).

To limit these effects passes by the use of cleaner modes of production, in particular thanks to the Technological advance, and by the control of the human Démographie.

History

Historically, the “traditional” companies, resulting from the Neolithic revolution knew only very slow economic growths, even non-existent in many cases. The phenomenon of fort “Economic development” began only starting from the Industrial revolution, in a particular geographical space : the Europe and European colonies of settlement (the United States, Canada, Australia…) (18th century, 19th century).

Temporal scales

It results from them two elements with always keeping in mind.

On the scale of the human history, we discuss two centuries an old phenomenon and thus we miss retreat in any discussion on the “durability” of the growth or its simple to become. In addition our historical vision of the growth is very related to the history of Europe and carts of this fact all kinds of preconceptions of the bonds between economic growth and: share richnesses and division of the company in classes, effects of the growth on the life expectancy, education, the culture, the place of the women in the company, the political systems, etc the accession more and more of non-European companies to this mode of development through universalization should result in important of the bonds between economic growth and dynamic historical rehandlings social and political, and this also includes the relationship between economic growth and environment.

the traditional companies mobilized especially renewable natural resources (air and water for the driving force, the ground and of the vegetable and animal living resources for the food, the heating, clothing or the dwellings). The economies resulting from the Industrial revolution are characterized by a massive mobilization of natural resources épuisables (coal, iron, oil). It is thus particularly trying to assimilate “contemporary economic growth” with “exploitation of resources épuisables” to show for intrinsically harmful purposes of the growth on the environment and more generally a report of nondurability of this mode of economic development. But there still prudence is essential and it is not very certain that this dependence of the growth with respect to the availability of mineral resources épuisables is other thing that a stage of a historical process much vaster, less and less related to the natural resources.

These difficulties are also of a methodological nature. The economic thinking nourishes various and sometimes contradictory designs of the “economic growth”. Therefore, any discussion seeking to determine the environmental stakes of the growth will be able to arrive at conclusions different according to the vision from the “growth” which it adopts. The following section proposes a recall of these designs useful to tally the problem.

Economic analysis of the growth

The term of “growth” recovers two meanings in the economic speech. The first returns to the movements of the economic situation of the economic activity: phases of growth or recession. The second indicates the long-term development of the economic activity, one speaks then sometimes about “trend of growth” or “trend growth in the long run”. Acting to reflect on the bonds between growth and environment, and thus to be interested in the long run, it is the second meaning which it is advisable to define and to specify.

For the economic analysis, the long-term economic growth is the resultant of the combined play of four main categories of factors:

A limit with the economic growth?

The range of the Law of the decreasing outputs like intrinsic limit with the economic growth and its bonds with the availability limited of the natural resources to the surface of planet, even with beyond to the invocation of the principles of thermodynamics like ultimate limit to economic development.

It results a matrix from it from standpoint which goes from those which grant a role first to the institutions and see in the decreasing outputs a kind of “bronze law” which limits in manner indépassable the horizon of growth of an economy (certain Marxists or representatives of the English School traditional of the 19th century) to those which grant little attention to the institutional factors and think that human inventiveness inexhaustible and thus is not subjected to the decreasing outputs (certain liberal economists “optimistic”). One finds as well heard intermediate positions, like that of Shumpeter, for which the growth corresponds to the “adventurous” phase of capitalism, intended to be replaced in the long term by an overall stagnant state socialism providence, following the extinction of the company spirit.

Two great polar visions of the growth (with all kinds of more moderated intermediaries, of course) exist.

Catastrophic vision

A vision of the growth like a process of nature “catastrophic”, within the meaning of the theory of the catastrophes. That the speech is centered on “crises” or that it evokes historical “stages” of growth, the process is seen like basically run up.

For Marx, contradictions between “modes of production” (preceding “institutions”) and “forces productive” (technological advance, the dynamics of the classes and their socio-policies power struggles) cause at the same time development and crisis per “going beyond” of contradictions. For Hicks, the growth proceeds by “great crossings” dominated by the search for loopholes to the decreasing outputs (a personal development in this author of ideas allotted to Marshall). Here the growth results from systematic research by the industrial firms of zones of increasing outputs (where the profits increase proportionally more quickly than the costs when the production increases). The industrial textile, mining, the iron and steel industry, the railroad will have its characteristics at the beginning of the Industrial revolution, but their margins of progress will be limited soon by the law of the decreasing outputs and it is the electricity, the chemistry or the car which will take over at the beginning of the 20th century, inaugurating a new phase of growth which will become exhausted at the end of this century, data processing, the nano ones or biotechnologies constituting the leavens of the future “great crossing” of the 21e century.

At Rostow, the logic of crisis is very attenuated and a concept “of stages” of the economic growth replaces. It should be seen that Rostow nourishes a vision of the development like a process of progressive installation of the socio-economic conditions necessary to the passing to the following stage. But it is far from eloquent on the reasons (or “mechanisms”) which make that the economy passes at the following predetermined stage since the “favorable” conditions are met.

Endogenous theories of growth

A vision of the growth like a progression, where the crises (or “stages”) are “accidents”, to some extent secondaries, implied by open” of any social system or economic character historically the “.

It is the currently dominant vision in the economists within the current Néoclassique dominating, vision incarnated by the “new theories of growth”, also said “endogenous theories of growth”. Without returning in the details, let us give in a summary outline.

A “convenient” presentation, as the professors of economy like it, would be to tell the construction of this vision like the harmonious development of an operative research program by successive generalizations starting from a “seed” consisted the general model of activity of Von Neuman (1932). Of course, it of it is nothing and of many doubts and oppositions agitated, and still agitate, the specialists in this current of research. Acting to speak about environment, one can nevertheless be satisfied with this convenient “digest”.

What it is agreed to call the “neo-classic theory of the optimal growth” is centered at the origin on the second category of growth factors: the accumulation of productive capital. Its principal results of interest are the following.

In the absence of technological advance and of demographic trends, the economy tends in the long run towards a zero growth. It is a consequence of the law of the decreasing outputs: if the marginal productivity of an additional unit of capital decrease with the number of units of capital installed, then to accumulate capital unceasingly does not make it possible to support a positive growth in the long run.

If the population increases, and thus if labor available increases permanently, a positive growth in the long run is possible and its optimal rate is demographic growth rate (it is what the economists call the “simple rule of gold”). If the productivity of the factors then increases under the effect of a “spontaneous” technological advance (resulting from the activity of not involved inventors) a positive optimal growth at the rate of technological advance will found in the long run.

If technological advance stops, the growth is a phenomenon dedicated to disappear, the tendency “natural” of the system being to tend towards the stagnation. Historically, the economic growth tends to accelerate, it was much weaker in the industrialized countries at the XIXe century than today: technological advance is not stopping.

On the long run

To leave itself there, the economists call upon two types of arguments. The first is an argument known as of “transition”. Admittedly in the long run, i.e. in very a long time, the growth will disappear, but we are today in a phase of transition, and a transitory acceleration of the growth is perfectly conceivable in this theory. In addition, the growth observed is probably due to technological advance and this pleads for a revalorization of technological advance (the third category of factors) compared to the accumulation of the capital (the second category) in the explanations of the growth.

Second argument: there exists can be dynamic processes of accumulation which the law from the decreasing outputs and of which would have to be held account escapes. Among those, two “drinkable” candidates can be considered: the level of education (or “Human capital”) and the level of the scientific knowledge and techniques. In addition, the technology of east production can be itself with nondecreasing outputs, or more exactly, it would be possible to conceive a combination of technological advance and of improvement of the labor productivity such as the economy could remain indefinitely “near” or “not too far” from a zone of increasing outputs, thus creating a permanent growth. One finds here certain conjectures of John Hicks.

It is what justifies the current orientation of research towards explanations of the growth (a macroeconomic phenomenon) like an emergent dynamic process starting from the behaviors of the individual economic agents (firms and households). In the economic jargon one speaks about “microphone-founded models of the economic growth”.

Among these two great visions of the growth, the neo-classic analyzes are more validated empirical: within sight of the imposing corpus of data and factual references accumulated by the economic history, importance of the regularities and the stability of the evolutions of long run of many key economic variables at the XXe century, and that in spite of two world wars and of the episodes of economic crises, financial and monetary severe, is striking.

Growth and natural resources

Availability of the natural resources

The natural resources are heard within the meaning of Raw materials) before being interested in the bonds between state of natural environment (the ecosystem S in the broad sense) and growth.

A paramount distinction is made by the economists between renewable” and “nonrenewable” natural resources “:

the renewable Ressources are natural resources likely to provide an infinite availability of services, suitably managed. They include/understand the ground (cultivable in particular), water, the air, the whole of the living, vegetable and animal resources. Solar energy, although nonrenewable on a cosmological scale, is regarded as renewable with the weak term of the history of humanity.
the nonrenewable Ressources are likely to provide only finished availabilities of services. They include/understand the whole of the mineral resources: coal, oil, natural gas, lic ores Metal, etc

Like any definition, this one described a network of references in the terms like “availabilities”, “services”, “finished”, “infinite”, that it is advisable to specify so much is little. It is also about an “economic” definition, i.e. chemists, geologists or biologists would probably give a very different definition of it.

Briefly let us comment on these terms of reference. By “availability”, the economist understands a certain level of capacity of access, physically, historically, technically and culturally given. It is to say if the term is “charged” and of a delicate handling. The system of calculation of oil reserves in is a good illustration. One distinguishes the proven, probable and possible reserves there. The first are identified, accessible oil fields with the techniques current and economically profitable to exploit, the seconds are located reserves, whose access terms are imperfectly known or not profitable economically, the third are imperfectly identified, generally not exploitable reserves in a profitable way with the existing techniques and the levels of current courses of oil. It results from it that when the oil price increases, a certain amount of “probable” reserves pass in the category “proven”, their exploitation becoming profitable on a higher level of price, without that corresponding to unspecified “oil news” discovered. It is also clear that according to whether one reasons on one or the other category of reserves one leads to very different projections of exhaustion of the resource (from 1 to 3 according to the cases).

Adaptation of the economic activity

The term of “services” is even more ambiguous. It indicates a flow, measured in theory in “value”, a flow of “richnesses” thus, generally makes some measured in real terms, i.e. in “physical” equivalent of products manufactured and consumed starting from natural resources. The difficulty here comes owing to the fact that the prices intervene as far as this flow of “services”. To identify this measurement of “value” of the abundant services by the natural resources with the “value” of this resource supposes that the prices are “correct”, which is true only in pure and perfect competition on all the markets (and not only those of the natural resources). Considering the irrealism of such a situation, one leads to debates confused (and by construction without end) on “the right” price of the natural resources starting from “the right” price of the services which they provide to the companies which use them.

While keeping in mind ambiguities of this classification of the natural resources, one guesses easily that a long-term growth can be obtained in an economy based on renewable resources but that it will be generally very difficult when this economy mobilizes nonrenewable resources, since those are “essential”, i.e. it is impossible to produce anything without using them.

It is easily seen it if one introduces a resource épuisable like additional factor of production into the model of basic macroeconomic growth, where the production comes from the combination of capital to work, if the resource épuisable is essential, that there is no technological advance and that the law of the decreasing outputs applies, economy will tend towards a zero growth. In other words an infinitely positive growth is impossible on the long run.

Of course, a sufficient technological advance can “save” the growth in particular in substituent the nonrenewable resources (for example oil) by renewable resources (the solar one).

Another manner of avoiding this problem of finitude of the resources, is to introduce the Recyclage raw materials. Recycling has known a very important acceleration for the thirty last years. For certain resources, like mercury, lead or iron, the rates reached today is so high that the primary reserves are regarded as sufficient for thousands of years. Mercury and lead are estimated today besides like “inexhaustible”. For copper, metal which made run much ink at the time of the report/ratio of the Club of Rome (which predicted in 1972 its exhaustion in about thirty years), the combination of recycling, improvement of the techniques of ore processing and replacement of the copper wires by fiberoptics pushed back at 600 years its horizon of exhaustion even with a projection of world growth with 3% per annum for the next centuries.

In the middle of this mineral landscape, oil and the gas make spot because they are nonwhich can be recycled and naturally concentrate the whole of the fears of the company vis-a-vis the exhaustion of the natural resources.

Growth and environment

Situation

More still than the problem of the exhaustion of the nonrenewable resources, that of the relations variously conflict between economic growth and state of the environment is the subject of nourished debates and sometimes confused. One can under discussion distinguish two main categories of problems in this context:

the overexploitation of the renewable resources (deforestation, overgrazing and turning into a desert, erosion of the biodiversity, exhaustion of the fishing resources). These problems are them same of a double nature: the durable management of the renewable resources (what returns to the qualifier of “suitably managed” of the definition of these resources) and the fact that the ecosystems can survive only under certain conditions of protection of their resources and functionalities, which raises the more general question of the resource sharing between the Man and Nature.
the fact that the economic activity produces waste, gathered génériquement under the term of “pollution”, waste which modifies, deteriorates or destroys the functionalities of the ecosystems, as well with the local scales as planetary.

The first category of problems would suppose significant preliminary developments on the principles of the Bioéconomie which one will not approach here. The problem of pollution provides a rather good illustration of the question of the relations between state of the environment and economic growth and it is what one will try to develop now.

One of the important characteristics of pollution is to be very often cumulative: accumulation of CO2 or SO2 in the atmosphere, nitrates or pesticides in the tablecloths and the rivers, progressive contamination of the grounds, water and the air by heavy metals like mercury, poisons. Admittedly, there exist natural processes of elimination or recycling of these products, but as soon as the emissions are too important they do not manage to prevent accumulation in the medium of pollutants. In this direction, the economic growth can be described like a process of progressive accumulation of richnesses involving a progressive accumulation of dangerous substances for the natural environments and the human health. Also let us note, and it is important, which these phenomena very often result from the exploitation of nonrenewable resources, through the mining extraction or of the fossile fuel consumption. Thus not only the economic growth accelerates the exhaustion of the nonrenewable resources of planet but it makes this exhaustion a vector of propagation of pollution to small as to large scales.

However, if the evolution of principal pollution is examined, force is to note that the situation improves overall in the majority of the developed countries whereas it worsens quickly in many developing countries, in particular in the countries known as “emergent” of the south is Asian and China. It is thus necessary to give up the idea of a simple relation between growth and environment, the first involving a degradation of the second automatically.

If one seeks the reason of it, one is confronted with a complex beam of factors:

the progressive installation of environmental policies in the developed, political countries resulting as well in efforts of prevention as of elimination and control of pollution. These policies result from a more and more marked concern of the companies industrialized with respect to the quality of their natural environment, strongly degraded during the history of their development.
the technological advance and the development of the lines of business in the rich countries relative with the industrial activities. The lines of business which form the heart of growth of these countries are in general less polluting, the current delocalizations of the industrial activity towards the emergent countries doing nothing but accentuate this phenomenon.
poverty and/or the bad governorship in the DEVELOPING COUNTRIES which, on the one hand, modify the priorities (environmental protection is a “luxury” that these countries cannot be offered in many cases) and, on the other hand, prevent that the protective regulations, even when they exist, are actually applied by their governments.

Visions with a future

It results from them two possible visions for the future: one rather “optimistic”, it second, definitely more “pessimistic”.

According to an “optimistic” mink, the positive correlation between growth and pollution tend to be demolished when enriched companies have at the same time the means and the concern of protecting the environment. If it is thought that the currently poor companies they also will reach the level of richness of the industrialized countries during this century, they should manage significantly to improve the situation of the environment on planet.

For the “pessimists”, the preceding message defends only one escape ahead. The majority of the world population living today in DEVELOPING COUNTRIES, their accession with the modes of consumption of the rich countries can only involve one massive degradation of the environment, degradation so important and irreversible that even if they decided tomorrow to protect their environment, there would be no more great a deal to protect, and it would be completely impossible for them “to recreate” an natural environment of quality.

Discusses on the need for this growth?

Humanity returned during a new time of its history in the current of the 19th century; one industrial period, which led to two industrial revolutions successive.

However, the need for these industries to see their production being consumed, always more, in order to enter a logic of economic growth, that being added to the advent of the Vaccination and medical progress (and thus of significant drops of the Death rate), and, after the second world war, the end of wars having an impact on the importance of the world population (in proportion), are factors which led to a purpose seen by the majority of the people like natural: a growth of the exceptional world population.

Never in the history of the world a species had not dominated all the others, at the point to make depend the future on these other species to its will; it is not any more the case, with the apogee of the mankind. But is the ground able to support this species, unceasingly growing, increasingly more piled up and not ceasing therefore extending on each space which can accommodate it?

One speaks about a nature well done , but the fact of preventing this nature from acting, for example by limiting the epidemics which, even if public morals is moved some and sees in their limitation only the human community property, are natural, these epidemics stopping of overpopulations which nature cannot undoubtedly support (it is enough to imagine what would be a place without structural organization having the density of a medium-sized city; there would not be quite simply enough food for everyone, a hygiene of deplorable life due to the proximity of people, which would be added to impossibility of getting rid of its deaths: wouldn't such a situation of insalubrity would support the development of grave diseases, which would exterminate the majority of people), this simple restriction of the action of nature be an obstacle with the natural biological laws?

As, it is noticed as the development of the expansionist attitude of the men coincided with the disappearance of animal species or vegetable. One often reduced these disappearances to pollution, action human not being able to be minimized and/or hidden, but one can as think as the simple human presence represents also a threat for the biodiversity; thus, well before the man does not start to develop polluting activities (activities rejecting of waste proving to be a direct threat), it was seen that the increase in the human presence proved to be a threat for the biodiversity, with for example in France, the destruction of the quasi-integrality of the forests to the Moyen-âge, wood being a need for the men at that time.

Thus, the growth continues population is not called into question in spite of its harmful aspects which them are minimized mainly because of its economic interest, but one can really wonder, taking into account the forecasts from of number of the world population in the years to come (one provides that in 2050, the world population will approach or will have exceeded the 10 human Billion being), which will be the consequences that such an event, which will undoubtedly be celebrated by the majority of the men, on planet and the other species, spectators unable to act, they, and thus to defend their lives and their right to life…

See too

External bond

a course on line of Jean-Pierre Amigues on the natural resources with Toulouse economic scenes

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