Essay on The Ecological Consequences of Global Economic Growth

“The primary concern is that a world of over six billion people striving materialistic satisfaction is drawing ever more heavily from finite supplies of natural resources to fuel an economic growth model destined to lead to an ecological disaster and global poverty without precedence” (Harder and Harder 1). As Harder and Harder explain, we must find an economic way of life that is economically stable. There are many different perspectives that view economic growth in different aspects. Advocates of economic growth have a very optimistic viewpoint about the future of economic growth. “Their operational logic reflects their sense of duty to develop latent resources into their actualized state for the benefit of a global

Wine production involves two parts of economic activity – viticulture and wine making in the winery. In the global context, wine production is dynamic due to the influence of globalization, technological advancements and extensive research. These have essentially influenced the nature, spatial patterns and the ecological dimensions of the wine industry.

Humans have constantly struggled to manage resources for 50,000 years, ever since they developed inventiveness, hunting skills, and efficiency. When they fail to manage and they destroy the environment around them. Diamond discusses eight types of environmental damage: deforestation/habitat destruction, soil problems, water management problems, overhunting, overfishing, harmful introduced species, human population growth, and increased per-capita impact of people. In Diamond’s best seller, Guns Germs and Steel, he explains how human population growth and food demand are directly correlated. When the population becomes unmanageable, humans strip their land of resources. The major theme of environmental damage is simply overexploitation of

In the past, the economic school of thought regarded the resources as unlimited and focused on more production under the light of the unlimited growth assumption. Every economic action was suggested to only consider about making more profit. While the economy and the human population are growing; more natural resources are used and more pollution is observed. Human become to deal with the results of its production such as environmental problems and resource scarcity. A debate has emerged in economics and the mainstream economics is brought into question since its unlimited growth assumption is collapsed. Ecological economists argue the neoclassical welfare economics for ignoring the environmental and ethic values by only focusing on the cost-benefit analysis. It also claims that the neoclassical economics fails to calculate the value of the environmental capital and the loss of the economic activities on the environment. This paper is going to explain the problems with the neoclassical welfare economics and the alternatives offered by the ecological economics in terms of economic growth and environment.

Capitalist industrialisation appears as a key catalyst for the drastic increase of emissions, deeming global warming “rooted in historical patterns of capitalist development” (Vlachou & Konstantinidis, 2013 pp.33). Scientists claim that today’s environment has been influenced by humanity to the extent that a new epoch in geological time has been reached (Bierman, 2014). This

As the world population continues to grow, the world that humans live in will continue to get harder because eventually almost everything in the world will run out. Many of the most important things that humans need in life are the things that are going to run out. If humans continue their ways, life will go from being hard to being almost impossible. There are places around the world that have already took that next step into changing the way they live to help the future. A great example of this is in China where the country of China is overpopulated. Chinas step into helping the future is by limiting family’s to only have one child to keep population down and in turn keep future population. This whole population idea leads into natural resources because the more humans that live on earth, the more natural resources are need to be used. Someone may ask what is a natural resource? The answer to this question is, a natural resource is industrial materials and capacities (as mineral deposits and waterpower) supplied by nature. In other words, natural resources are resources that are not human made and that occur naturally such as fresh water, trees, oil and rocks. Natural resources are very important for humans because anyone most humans can use them and you do not need to pay to create them. The catch about natural resources is that they are not unlimited and Earth will run out of them eventually if humans continue to abuse them. The Earth has gotten to a point that in the

Sustainability issues go hand in hand with increases in population, “urban sprawl”. Phoenix continues to see an increase in population growth and thus a sustainability issue that has arisen from such growth is traffic congestion. Having too many cars on the road, cars traveling at lower speeds, and having longer trip times then in previous years causes traffic congestion (Frias, 2007). Traffic congestion in Phoenix is observed from a local spatial scale as Phoenix is composed of many suburbs. It is important to look at the history of this problem, as it seems to go hand in hand with urban sprawl. The more spread out Phoenix has become; the more traffic congestion seems to prevail (Frias, 2007). From 1982 to 1999 traffic congestion

Since 1940, the world population has nearly tripled. With this nearly exponential growth in population came a major growth in economic and financial activity that is increasingly more global and complex (Ayres et al., 2013). To compensate for this growth in population and economic and financial activity, the use of natural resources has risen at a similar rate. Although continuous economic growth is the primary goal of an economy, the finite amount of resources constrained by the capabilities of the ecosphere makes continuous exponential economic and population growth impossible. Currently, resources are being extracted and used at an unsustainable rate. This overuse of resources has led to problems such as deforestation, loss of biodiversity, and the depletion of the richest reserves of nonrenewable energy resources (Brown et al., 2014). This problem, if left undiscussed by global economic and environmental policymakers, will lead to immense consequences for current and future generations. The key issue hindering this discussion is the debate on the best strategy to retain a viable level of economic growth while managing environmental sustainability. In other words, what development can be executed to solve the current economic and environmental problems without threatening the capabilities of future generations? Although the specifics of this question are disputed, the general consensus is that in order to maintain sustainable economic growth and a supportive environment,

In our current capitalistic society nothing is more closely followed than economic growth. When economies are growing they are praised, but when they are not they are perceived as a failure. Growth has brought us many great technologies that have helped form the global culture that we now live in. However, there is a misapprehension among society that economic growth is limitless. In fact, it is impossible to have unlimited growth in a finite world. This has lead society to expect more from the economy and the earth than what they are actually able to provide for us. As a result, we are now overproducing and over consuming at record rates, which is having extremely detrimental effects on the environment. If we

One thing people have learnt from learning history is the fact human interactions influence the environment. And these effects can have varying magnitude bearings on the economy and the timeline of humans on earth. The main driving force behind human interaction with the environment is greed: The need for more. Understanding environmental history has made it clear that people do not necessarily know when to stop. Some even believe the earth is a beast that has to be tamed; all its bounties extracted and left empty and barren. Although, there is much on earth that is yet to be discovered, and the soil, sun, plants and animals are meant for consumption, the method of consumption and exploitation of others is where the issue lies.

In the past, economic school of thought regarded the resources as unlimited and focused on more production under the light of the unlimited growth assumption. Every economic action was suggested to only consider about making more profit. While the economy and the human population are growing; more natural resources are used and more pollution is observed. Human become to deal with the results of its production such as enviromental problems and resource scarcity. A debate has emerged in economics and the mainstream economics is brought into question since its unlimited growth assumption is collapsed. Ecological economists argues the neoclassical welfare economics for ignoring the enviromental and ethic values by only focusing on the cost-benefit analysis. It also claims that the neoclassical economics fails to calculate the value of the enviromental capital and the loss of the economic activities on the environment. This paper is going to explain the problems with the neoclassical welfare economics and the alternatives offered by the ecological economics in terms of economic growth and environment.

The risk society thesis by Ulrich Beck has been one of the most extensively discussed frameworks in environmental management (Matten, 2004). Ulrich Beck who is a German sociologist is the up-to-date theorist of modernity being driven by industrialization and technological advancement producing hazards and that, we have to adopt a new lens of viewing the world in which we live. Beck maintains that the risk which is intrinsic in modern society characterized by technological industrialization produces new forms of global risk society. Beck’s theory is based on the premise that the post-modernist world that we live considers safety and collective decision making on risk as more crucial than amassing wealth. With Beck’s theory and Giddens who did a lot of work on risk society emphasized that, we cannot no longer negotiate the risk that is surrounding us considering certain happenings such as; the spread of Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) first appeared in Britain, the E-coli virus, the 2009 N1H1 pandemic, global warming are beyond our control. Risk society as a result of modernity was thought to be only the problem of the so called ‘First World’ or western world due to their fast growing industrialization/technology but there are pockets of fast

Currently, people are living in a time of great crisis, that are faced by the gravest challenge that human beings have ever faced; the ecological consequences of our own

The Earth is a closed system with finite resources which can be utilized; However polarized views of the limit in the functional availability of non-renewable resources exist between the Cornucopians and Neo-Malthusians. Regardless of the disparity between the views of the Cornucopians and Neo-Malthusians, both ideologies are valid in their rationalization and their arguments are augmented with strong supporting arguments drawn from historical facts. Despite arguments being drawn from a shared history the Cornucopians and Neo-Malthusians have developed conflicting views that share no commonalities. In essence the Cornucopians may be described as optimist or idealists whereas the Neo-Malthusians would be considered pessimists or realists.

It would seem quite apparent that an increase in population has a causal relationship with the status of the environment. Some