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A Poverty of Reason: Sustainable Development and Economic Growth

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Though it is unorthodox to do so, I believe I need to respond to Mr. Balfour's review because he appears to misunderstand the purpose of Prof. Beckerman's book as well as the substance of the environmental idea that Beckerman is challenging.

Beckerman is criticizing the notion of "sustainability" -- that the planet's development rate cannot be sustained in the future because resources will not be extractable at a rate that would keep up with future demand. Hence, sustainability isn't an aesthetic argument, but an economic one. Balfour's criticism that Beckerman does not consider the aesthetic arguments for environmentalism is misplaced because that is not Beckerman's project. Balfour's comments thus are akin to criticizing a military history book on Napoleonic tactics for not discussing the romance between Napoleon and Josephine.

For people intrigued with the arguments concerning sustainability, Beckerman's book is a must-read. It offers short but very thoughtful examinations of several apparently problematic assumptions that lie at the heart of the sustainability philosophy. The sustainability notion emerged about two decades ago when environmentalists were forced to retreat from their "finite resources" argument (i.e., the world will run out of resource X) because, as highlighted by the famous Julian Simon-Paul Weyrich bet, the idea that the planet would simply "run out" became too untenable for all but the most radical environmentalists to hold. The more thoughtful environmentalists shifted to the Malthusian/Ricardoian notion that extraction rates will one day be unable to keep pace with consumption -- in part because resource extractors in the future will constrict supply to further drive up prices.

Unlike the finite resources argument, the sustainability has good thought behind it. But does that theory hold up? Beckerman offers some pretty good arguments that it does not, and he also points out some very worrisome side-effects of the sustainability philosophy -- side-effects that could produce serious near-future ecological and human disasters.

Balfour is correct that we must give serious thought to future generations when we set current resource policies. Unfortunately, he does not appear to realize that his philosophy puts those children at risk, nor does he seem to appreciate that the environmental catastrophes that he laments -- overpopulation, subsistence farming -- occur in the Third World whose ecological ethic he cherishes instead of the First World whose ethic he derides. Fortunately, Beckerman -- as well as his future challengers and their respondents -- will promote a better world for the generations to come.

Will economic growth deplete the natural resources on which it depends? Are we in danger of running out of energy sources? Will global warming bring widespread devastation on the planet? Does unbridled economic growth threaten the balance of nature?

Looking at the evidence on these questions, Oxford University economist Wildred Beckerman finds that many of these fears are unfounded. While billions of people around the world suffer under appalling environmental conditions, such as a lack of clean water and sanitation, these problems are primarily caused by poverty, not unsustainable development.

Despite the fact that so many are touting the wisdom of "sustainable development" as though its meaning and desirability were an established fact, there is no widespread agreement over its meaning, and its desirability is too often not subjected to scientific, economic, and philosophical scrutiny.

The author points out in his introduction to the book that support for sustainable development is based on a confusion about its ethical implications and on a flagrant disregard of the relevant factual evidence.

The popularity of sustainable development is founded on two indefensible propositions, according to the author:

Economic growth will soon come up against the limits of resource availability.
Sustainable development represents the moral high ground.
It is argued that action is required in order to reduce to "sustainable" levels the rate at which resources are used, which, Beckerman argues, is an impossible task unless we were to stop using some resources completely. Also, he asserts, the risk to the human race from climate change is greatly exaggerated.

Sustainable development's place in the moral high ground is questioned, as there are few coherent reasons to believe that sustainable development is an ethically superior goal.

Chapter one focuses on two questions:

What exactly does sustainable development mean?
What is so good about it?
The World Commission on Environment and Development defines the term as "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." Beckerman contends that this criterios is not very helpful, and for a number of reasons.

First, since not every need of the current generation is being met, why should future generations be any different? Furthermore, he reasons that people at different points in time or at different income levels or with different cultural or national backgrounds differ about the importance they attach to different needs.

Also, this injunction leaves no room for trade-offs. If it is true that future generations will face serious environmental problems, how many of the needs and wants of the current generation are to be sacrificed in order to help future generations meet their needs? Do we eve know what these needs might be?

Another concept of sustainable development relates to the conservation of plant and animal species. What price must we pay to conserve all plant and animal species for posterity? Is this even the natural order of things? Given that approximately 98% of all the species that have ever existed are believed to have become extinct already, how many of us can truly say that we have suffered as a result?

As for the moral high ground, the idea that we have a responsibility to maintain the environment exactly as it is today is morally repugnant. Given the large numbers of people who are living in poverty and environmental degradation, we cannot ignore these real human needs in order to save every single one of the several million species of beetle that exist.

Chapter two concentrates on finite resources and the prospects for economic growth. Resources are either finite or they are not. If they are, then the only way to ensure that they last forever is to stop using them. But of course, even the most fanatical proponents of sustainability don't go that far, and would reasonably have to admit that the human race will eventually find ways of coping with the changes that take place in he balance between demand and supply of resources.

In other words, you can't have it both ways. Either resources are finite in some relevant sense, in which case even zero growth will fail to save us in the long run, or resources are not really finite in any relevant sense, in which case the argument for slowing growth collapses.

Actually, the author contends, not only are resources not finite in any relevant sense, but the evidence of all past history, including even the recent past, shows that there have been no trends toward the exhaustion of any resources that matter. History is littered with predictions of imminent resources scarcity that have subsequently been proven false.

In 1929, a study concluded that the world's resources of lead cannot meet the anticipated demand. Yet for the rest of the twentieth century, no one worried about a lead shortage. In fact, people have been more worried that there is too much of it around.

The same 1929 study concluded that the known resources of tin do not satisfy the increasing demand of the industrial nations, predicting that the supply of tin would be exhausted within ten years. More than forty years later, a 1972 report stated that tin reserves would last us for only another fifteen years. Yet here we are in 2004, still using up that ten year supply that we were believed to have back in 1929.

There are two chief reasons why predictions of imminent exhaustion of resources have proven false. First, they are invariably based on comparisons between existing known reserves and the rate at which they are being used up. Second, they ignore the economic mechanisms that are set in motion when any resource becomes scarce.

Even in the postwar world, with unprecedented rates of economic growth, resources have more than increased to meet demand. In 1945, estimated known copper reserves were 100 million metric tons. During the following twenty-five years of economic growth, 93 million metric tons were mined, yet the reserves were estimated at more than 300 million metric tons - three times what they were at the outset.

Whenever demand for any particular resource begins to run up against supply limitations, a wide variety of forces are set in motion to remedy the situation. These forces begin with a rise in price, which in turn leads to all sorts of secondary favorable feedbacks, including a shift to substitutes, an increase in exploration, and technical progress that brings down the cost of exploration, refining, and processing, as well as the costs of the substitutes.

Sustainable development schemes do not account for the probability that, without unnecessary economic intervention, future generations may be much wealthier than is the current generation. That is the trend. Before asking the present generation, including its poorest members, to make sacrifices in the interests of future generations, shouldn't we take account of the strong likelihood that the latter will be far richer than the former? Where is the high ground in taking from the poor to give to the rich?

Chapter 3 further explores the fallacy of basing predictions on current demands. Will future generations have the same reliance on oil and fossil fuels that we have today?

In addition to the constraints on materials such as food and energy, it is argued that economic growth is leading to mass destruction of biodiversity. This destruction, the proponents of sustainable development allege, has two types of harmful effects:

It deprives the human race of an essential input into our welfare, notably a source of future medicinal remedies;
We are depriving future generations of the environmental inheritance that is their due.
Most of the world's biodiversity is found in tropical or semitropical regions, which happen to be mainly in developing countries. In the past, any loss of biodiversity caused by humans was the result of hunting, but today it is caused almost entirely by the damage done to the habitat of millions of species that live in forests, particularly in tropical and semitropical regions.

These are difficult to measure because we don't know how many species are becoming extinct each year, or even how many there are to begin with. The recorded fact that 641 species have been certified as having become extinct since the year 1600 does not exclude the possibility that many others have become extinct without anyone knowing it, particularly given that the vast majority of all species, including plants and animals, are insects, and about 40% of these are beetles.

Beckerman argues that the most alarming features of the whole debate is the unscientific attitude of some distinguished biologists. There is no empirical basis for the fear that continued economic growth is unsustainable, he says. Even with respect to food or energy supplies, two types of resources that have been most frequently the subject of pessimistic predictions, there is no cause for alarm. The destruction of biodiversity also appears to be exaggerated, although the author concedes that there are some real problems in some countries.

Yet, he argues, slower growth is more likely to perpetuate market failures than to promote their elimination, as faster economic growth makes it easier to compensate those who may lose out from an elimination of market imperfections.

In Chapter 4, Beckerman takes on climate change. While environmental groups claim that unchecked climate change will lead to catastrophic declines in world income, requiring drastic international action to reduce carbon emissions, particularly by the advanced nations, who are regarded as morally responsible for the high carbon concentrations in the atmosphere.

However, the author contends, three key points need to be established in order to justify international action to reduce carbon emissions on the grounds of overall benefit to the global community:

Predictions of significant climate change are reasonably reliable;
The damage climate change might impose on the world as a whole will exceed the costs of limiting or preventing it; and
The distribution of the costs and benefits among countries of actions to drastically cut carbon emissions is accepted as reasonably equitable.
Only the first link in the chain of argument gets any attention in the media, perhaps because it is the only link that has any strength at all.

Even the predictions of significant climate change are probably exaggerated by the vast scientific and bureaucratic establishment that is heavily invested in advancing the threat of global warming.

Even assuming that the global consensus is correct and that man-made emissions of carbon dioxide will result in an rise in average global temperatures over the course of this century, Beckerman asserts that there is no foundation for the second and third points concerning the likely impact of climate change and the way it is distributed between countries and generations.

For the world as a whole, the author argues, the beneficial effects of moderate global warming in the range predicted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) will outweigh its harmful effects chiefly because global warming will increase food production in what are now temperate or cold regions of the world.

With moderate global warming, some regions will be opened up for agriculture, while growing seasons will be extended in large areas, such as the northern portions of the United States, Canada, Russia, and China. Higher carbon concentrations in the atmosphere will raise crop yields.

For the world as a whole, global warming will mean more rain (or snow), and increasing cloud cover means that many parts of the world will be cooler during the day and warmer at night, leading to increased soil moisture.

Given that climate change can have favorable as well as unfavorable effects, particularly in light of the enormous obstacles to accurate predictions of climate change for individual regions, it isn't surprising that most experts cannot foresee the likely net damage for the world as a whole that might result from climate change.

It is true, Beckerman admits, that the impact of climate change on developing countries, where average temperatures are higher, soils are poorer, and technology and infrastructures are less developed, is likely to be harmful, yet he argues that faster economic development in these countries will help them to adapt to the change.

A major flaw in the more gloomy predictions is that they assume that farmers are stupid and incapable of any adaptation to climate variations.

Chapter 5 discusses the precautionary principle established as one of the basic principles of sustainable development.

The idea that there can be full scientific certainty about the consequences of any change in the environment is absurd, and if it had ever been taken seriously, we'd still be living in the Stone Age. Even changes that the environmentalists favor, such as replacement of fossil fuels with other sources of energy, will have environmental effects, and it is impossible to prove that they would not have undesirable consequences of their own.

It cannot be proven that there can never be harmful consequences to greater exploitation of solar energy, a longtime goal of the green movement.

Only about forty years ago, there was a widespread alarm that the world was entering a new ice age. Had policies been put into place to prevent this, the results may have been, as we now know, catastrophic.

Had we taken seriously past predictions of the imminent exhaustion of fossil fuels, not only would many developments that rely on inexpensive energy have been stifled in the interests of energy conservation, but many technological developments that permitted a vastly expanded disovery, exploitation, and use of sources of energy would have not have occurred. The world would be a poorer place, without many of the innovations we now depend upon, such as vaccines and antibiotics.

The author suggests, as an alternative to the precautionary principles of sustainable development, waiting until we have a better idea of what we may be dealing with. Large scale action, as suggested by the proponents of sustainable development, could be catastrophic.

In Chapter 6, Beckerman discusses the plan for bureaucratic regulation and protectionism.

At the 1992 UNCED, the United Nations adopted a document of several hundred pages, known as Agenda 21, which set out, among other things, the agreed intentions of the countries to take account of environmental objectives in their domestic policies, to monitor their own developments from the point of view of their sustainability, and to report on these developments to the newly established Commission on Sustainable Development.

In addition to the UN commission, countless other institutes, government departments, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), all for the purpose of promoting sustainable development, have been established all over the world. In the United States, even while our Legislature has refused to ratify Agenda 21, its policies have been adopted by our governmental agencies and departments.

One of the worst consequences of excessive bureaucratic intervention in daily life is the bureaucratic preference for regulation over market mechanisms to deal with social and economic problems. Clearly this is the case in environmental protection.

The author argues that it is immoral to use public funds for the purpose of helping plants rather than people, while reducing the future income growth prospects of the poorest nations by promoting the growth-reducing program of sustainable development.

Also, there is no reason why the taxpayers of wealthier nations should contribute to an action that is in the interests of a minority who happen to attach a high existence value to certain environmental assets. Taxpayers in rich countries may have higher priorities. Nothing prevents people who have a strong private preference for preserving rain forests or their indigenous species from organizing voluntary contributions to help such preservation in the same way that many charitable organizations exist so that people can make donations to help starving children overseas. Coercion to impose the environmental values of some groups of people in the developed world on the people of other nations is morally indefensible.

If other countries are to be punished in some way for failing to respect universal basic values, Beckerman asserts that we should take into consideration that many of them indulge in far worse crimes against humanity than cutting down their trees. Yet these violations of basic and universally accepted human rights do not seem to arouse the same indignation among the environmental protectionists that they feel toward the failure of governments to attach an overriding importance to the protection of the environment.

In the same way that for some people an excessive love of animals is the counterpart of hatred of human beings, in some people an excessive concern with future generations is the counterpart of indifference to the suffering of people alive today.

Chapter 7, the last of the book, discusses the ethics of sustainable development.

Beckerman points out that sustainable development is an excuse for a new form of imperialism. Regardless of the accuracy of the claims that are made, sustainable development is used as a means of controlling markets for the benefit of the few at the expense of the many. Sustainable development has practical implications that would be morally unacceptable even if its ethical foundations were valid in theory, which they are not.

Even accepting the arguments of the proponents of sustainable development, which the author does not, he suggests that the projected wants and needs of future generations do not ethically trump those of the current generation. The interests that they will have must take their place in the balance together with the interests of people alive today, many of whom live in dire poverty.

Still, he agrees that the interests of future generations shouldn't be ignored. He surmises that future generations are on a whole likely to enjoy much higher living standards than those prevailing today, unless growth is successfully curtailed. A rise in living standards will not ensure that all environmental problems will disappear, nor that poverty will be eradicated everywhere.

The moral policy suggested by Beckerman is to weigh the interests of different generations. The safest predication that can be made is that people will always want life, security, self-respect, and freedom from tyranny, oppression, and humiliation. Unfortunately, one can also safely predict that there will always be forces in society that will threaten these basic human wants.

In contrast with the problems of widespread poverty or acute environmental problems, one concern will never be eradicated: the ever-present threat to basic human rights.

Sustainable development represents one such threat.

"A Poverty of Reason" should rightly be called "An Attack on the Concept of Sustainable Development". Beckerman's title implies that opinions other than his own are impoverished, regardless of their qualifications. The central tenant of the book, that sustainable development is inherently confusing, undesirable, and possibly immoral reminds me of a petulant conversation between an adolescent and a parent. On observing the teenager leaving the house the parent might say "Be safe!" to which Beckerman, if he were the teenager would reply "How safe?", "What does safe mean?", "What things are considered safe?", "How do I know when I've achieved safeness?". The frustrated parent knows that his child understands what he means by "safe" and although there are instances in which they might disagree on safe behavior, there are more cases in which they would agree.

It is much the same with the term "Sustainable Development." Beckerman understands full well what it means despite his lawyerly attacks on other writer's attempts to define it. God help us if Beckerman had been participating when the countries founders declared "Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" to be rights of man. Had he been alive, he would have attributed all of the ills of society in his day to ambiguity of the word "Happiness".

The fact there is disagreement about a concept's meaning does not make the concept any less valuable. Beckerman should choose the join the debate rather than attacking the debate itself. I found his ideas on climate change to be one of the more reasonable chapters, not because I agree with his conclusion, but because he actually offered an opinion of his own and suggested a policy to fit it.

I would recommend that Beckerman read "Fooled by Randomness" by Nassim Taleb particularly as it relates to predicting "Black Swan" events. Beckerman claims that predictions of long-term shortages of resources are wrong because some predictions have been wrong in the past. It is like saying "All swans are white" because you've never seen a black one. Observing only white swans, no matter how many you see, does not mean they are all white, while observing a single black swan does prove they are not all white. Historically, we have had numerous "black swan" events relating to resource shortage. We know they exist and that more will occur over time regardless of the accuracy of predicting them.

Beckerman attempts the same philosophical drubbing of the "Precautionary Principal" that he gave "Sustainable Development." He wants more clear definitions of the words "serious", "damage", and "threat" as if these are mystical phrases. He uses as an example of the destructive power of the Precautionary Principal the regulation of the bio-tech industry. This is an industry that has yet to articulate it safety to my father, a PhD in biology, let alone the public as a whole. His claim that developing nations are suffering as a result of the slowdown in bio-tech is a contradiction of earlier claims that there are no real food shortages, only political upheaval that distort food distribution (I happen to agree with him in this case). Clearly more rapid advances in biotech would not solve issues of political inequity.

Although Beckerman has little patience with the moral aspect of environmentalism, he has little problem moralizing in general. His particular platform is the responsibility of developed nations to the developing world. To Beckerman, someone dumping toxic waste into a river is not immoral (simply violating property rights), but insisting that imported goods be held to the same environmental standards as domestic products is not only immoral, but imperialist. What rubbish! Using a tariff to raise the price of an imported good manufactured using a less-costly and more polluting method than we allow domestically is simply placing an economic value on that aspect of the environment, something that Beckerman should understand and appreciate.

Beckerman seems to claim that pollution is an inevitable part of development and that is should be allowed to take its course. He believes that developed countries are less polluted today (true for some resources, not true for others) so we can expect developing countries to see improvements in their environments as they grow. But there is no reason to believe that pollution and the wholesale destruction of natural areas is a requirement for development and it should not be our standard.

I do like some of Beckerman's notions (not original) of placing a market value and assigning property rights to all resources. I should have rights to the air over my home and in public areas and those that dump in it should have to pay a fee that creates a real incentive for them for reduction. The same is true of the pollution caused by mining, waste management and energy exploration to name a few. How this is accomplished without the central planning and tariffs that Beckerman abhors is a mystery to me. Surely he does not believe that these industries will offer up a pollution bounty on their own?

A noted Stanford professor, speaking on global warming, said that perhaps the greatest enemy of environmentalism is the far left of the Green movement, not because their goals aren't worthy, but because their alarmist rhetoric lacks reason causing the entire movement lose credibility. Had Beckerman's book dealt with only the fringes of environmentalism I might have had some sympathy for his arguments. Attacking the goals of "Sustainable Development" as inherently immoral and imperialist is, at best, unreasonable and, at worst, silly.

A popular idea lately with government and the media has been "sustainable development," which is that we are rapidly depleting essential natural resources and are thus short-changing future generations. Beckerman contends that the whole notion is false and, in spite of regular predictions throughout history of shortages, we haven't run out of such resources, but even if we did there are free market mechanisms to counter such conditions. Also, since future generations are likely to be more prosperous than we are now, we have no such obligations to sacrifice for benefits of dubious value. He goes on to argue that projections of climate change are likewise not worrysome, because technology will allow us to adapt, and any precautions taken now should be cost-effective or should not be attempted (the "Precautionary Principle"). Overall, he advocates more for the poor of the world and improving their conditions as the best way to ensure future improvements in the environment. He argues that they need access to sufficient energy supplies (regardless of carbon emissions) to improve their lot and to deny it to them is a form of imperialism, and points out that developed nations take much better care of the environment than developing nations.

Much of his logic is persuasive, especially as he explains how market mechanisms will deal with possible fuel shortages in the future. For example, if known reserves of oil become depleted (and known reserves are ample for a long time yet) prices will increase which will encourage the discovery of more sources, and technology will find a way to obtain the oil from sources that were previously too expensive to mine (such as the tar sands in Canada). Technology is an important part of the equation, because future advances will also improve renewable sources of energy such as solar and wind which are currently not economically viable. He also points out that numerous and repeated past predictions of shortages of essential materials (such as lead, tin, and oil among many others) have never come true.

The weakest point of the book (and maybe I just failed to properly understand his reasoning) was that he looks at everything from an economic perspective. He acknowledges that there are asthetic or spiritual values associated with wilderness and natural environments that are difficult to quantify with simple monetary values, but he dismisses such things as simple failures in allocating property rights (such as placing a value on clean air or water, and charging polluters for fouling such public resources). I found his arguments that species biodiversity has value to us only for the potential of future medicines to be unconvincing, and his argument that caution in proceeding with genetically-modified foods only harms the poor of the world to be reckless (although I'll agree that current policies are overly cautious). Also, he limits his critique of sustainable development mostly to mineral and energy resources where the extent of reserves is poorly known, and fails to address how it might be applied in situations such as fishing, where numbers can be more easily estimated and depletion more readily observed.

Overall, the book brings up many interesting points that are seldom thought through properly in the current debates over our responsibilities regarding climate change and preserving the environment - and our responsibilities for meeting the needs of the poor of the world. Good reading for anyone who is seriously concerned about such important issues and willing to keep an open mind.

This book is written by the type who speaks from the head - an intellectual rather than a humanist. The central theme to the book is that restraining industrial and corporate predation in the name of planetary stewardship is causing and/or excaberating social inequalities which the author would like us to see as single issue problems. This is, of course, a naive and dis-ingenuous way to present highly complex issues such as over-population and the decline of subsistence agriculture in marginal lands. I have only two conclusions from reading this book, and they are both founded on the motive of it's author. These conclusions are: either Wilfred Beckerman is a hopelessly indoctrinated special interests lobbyist, or he is too academically rational to see the spiritual side of the arguements against unrestrained capitalist expansion. And I'm a fully paid-up member of the Capitalist Pigs, so I'm not unsympathetic to the stance he tries to promote. I have, however, a firm belief, not shared by Mr Beckerman, that some of the most important aspects of humans and their psycological needs are not dollar-quantifiable so cannot be factored into a system of economics.
By the end of this book, I was impressed only by the selective and incredibly mechanistic supporting arguments. I was sadly unable to either on-lend my copy or recommend anyone else to read this because it says only what we have already heard from pro-development apeasers - the assumption that the spread of Western values and attitudes is 'religiously' correct in all cultures, and that to refute the proposed development potential of third world cultures is a selfish and patronising vision of 'unqualified idealists'. There is much to dislike in the attitude of the author, not least his contention that critics of development are either 'unqualified' or 'uninformed' (how's that for patronising?) but my main review point here is that he has not addressed the crucial pivot-point of the debate - we are knowingly gambling with huge risk to our ecosystems and our diversity of cultures and all for the real benefit of profit-hungry corporations and political power bases. The real losers in the fight to preserve diversity and beauty (two concepts that the author places no dollar value on) should be these mindless and remorseless entities.
The alternative scenario, boosted by the author using selective and disturbingly simple 'facts' will see the powerless of the third world move into a different and more unpleasant bondage, to a system that is even less interested in self-monitoring or spiritual values than the one they are being 'saved' from. Read this book only to see the dry and brittle hand of the older generation, still sure that it's money and military cancers are helping people live a better life. One wonders what the author does when confronted by wilderness, or wet earth after rain, or any one of a huge number of reminders to most of us that we hold a precious and vital responsibility to act at all times as if we were borrowing this planet from our grandchildren, not inheriting it from our parents.