Introduction: Beyond climate change
I’ve recently spent considerable time and energy trying to get climate-change NGOs—and wider
society, for that matter—to look beyond global heating to it’s cause, the much greater problem of
ecological overshoot. Why? Because society’s focus on climate change per se (wind and solar
power, EVs, non-existent carbon capture and storage) misses the point entirely. As a result, we are
not fixing the climate, are causing considerable additional environmental damage and are
worsening overshoot.
How stupid is that?
Overshoot means there are too many people—rich and poor—consuming and polluting too much.
The world community is living out of a mainly capitalist neoliberal economic narrative that assumes
the economy is essentially freed of natural constraints; human ingenuity is the greatest resource;
and technology will find substitutes for any good or service provided by nature. Thus spellbound,
contemporary governments cannot conceive of limits to growth even on a finite planet. So it is that
economic activity is overwhelming the regenerative and assimilative capacities of the ecosphere.
We ‘modern’ humans are eroding the biophysical basis of our own existence
Overshoot is a meta-problem, the overriding cause of climate change (a pollution problem) and its
co-symptoms—biodiversity loss, ocean acidification, tropical deforestation, land/soil erosion, etc.,
etc.—virtually all so-called ‘environmental problems’. But here’s the thing: We cannot cure any
major co-symptom of overshoot in isolation of the others; conversely, confronting overshoot
directly would tackle all co-symptoms simultaneously. And, because overshoot is, by definition a
terminal condition, that’s precisely what we must do.
Easily said, but not so simple in execution. Any effective cure to overshoot will involve significantly
reduced energy/material consumption and waste production and this means a smaller economy
and fewer people—not exactly planks in any party or government platform.
Can we get there from here?
Those who follow my argument this far usually ask the obvious next question: "What can a person
do to tackle overshoot?" There are many ways of answering the obvious that are not so obvious. I
usually initially respond that individuals, as individuals, cannot really do much that will make
a significant difference. At this point, I’ll likely be told that I am too pessimistic, that there are
many things ordinary people can do—and, in fact, there are hundreds of books and
academic papers arguing the case for individual action. However, at the risk of seeming dismissive,
perhaps a majority of these calls to action can be tossed into a box I call speculative pixie dust. "All
we have to do is adopt much less material-intensive lifestyles"; “Why not encourage voluntary
simplicity?” "If everyone in the world shifted to a vegan diet then..."; "Just stop fossil fuels"; "Adopt
a circular economy"; "The world should accept Kate Raworth's doughnut economics"; “implement a
temporary global one-child policy?” and similar admonitions capture the essence of the hopelessly-
more-hopeful collection of possible actions.
Of course, if everyone did these things then we'd be closer to our goal! Hey, if everyone were
sustainable then we'd be sustainable!
There are many problems with this kind of thinking. On the material side, much of it is energy blind,
biophysically ignorant and ecologically naive. For example, were we to "stop fossil fuels" in the
absence of a detailed 'Plan B' to engineer an orderly economic contraction, then the economy
would collapse—there would be social chaos, major famines, mass migrations, etc., and, globally,
hundreds of millions would likely perish. (Keep in mind there are, as yet, no suitable substitutes for
most uses of fossil fuels.)
But what about recycling and circularity? While recycling is theoretically a good idea, keep in mind
that energy is the pulsing heart of every economic activity and energy is 0% recyclable—it invariably
travels a one-way irreversible path through the economy. Even material recycling is limited by
second law and material inefficiencies so, in addition to significant additional energy, it usually
requires more raw materials as well as specialized capital equipment. There is another problem—
perpetual growth neuters recycling. Even with 100% recycling (impossible), doubling the material
economy—which the MTI world certainly hopes to do—would mean doubling energy and material
throughput on a planet already in overshoot. In short, while recycling of some metals and other
substances is economically worthwhile and even necessary, a literal circular economy is mostly a
mythic concept with limited potential. Ditto many other ideas wafted aloft in pixie dust.
Perhaps an even more important barrier to change is the reality of individual and social behavior.
Relatively few prescriptions of what we can do take basic human behavior into account. The simple
fact is, not everyone is going to do the things they could do to ‘save the world,’ certainly not
voluntarily. It doesn’t help that it is harder to give something up that one already has than to be
denied something one has merely aspired to. The world’s wealthy 'haves', which includes everyone
reading this magazine, are not about to transition en masse to the hair-shirt lifestyles that would be
required to sustain even half the present global population. Sharing cumulative wealth and income
is not a defining characteristic of modern societies. In fact, the income gap is steadily widening.
In summary, while there is copious information on WHAT must be done to achieve a just
sustainability, there has been much less attention to the ‘HOW-do-we-get-it-done’ question.
And this is where things get tricky. In theory, governments hold a major key on HOW we might
move forward: (un)sustainability is a collective problem that requires collective solutions imposed by
governments for the common good. It follows that the role of government becomes more
important the deeper the crisis. We can therefore only regret that this truth sounds radically
‘socialist’—or worse—to contemporary ears ringing with the right-wing call for smaller
governments and the off-loading of responsibility onto individuals.
So be it. Just remember that individuals cannot implement better urban transportation systems;
individuals cannot ban toxic chemicals; individuals cannot set quotas on fish catches and forest
harvest rates; individuals cannot cap fossil fuel extraction. Only governments can. Similarly, if they
were actually true to sound economic principles, it would be governments’ responsibility to impose
gradual but effectively escalating carbon taxes—indeed, generalized ecological tax reform—to
ensure that the prices of goods and services rise to reflect their true social costs.
The latter would actually be an enormous leap forward. Full social cost pricing is not only more
economically efficient, but would also reduce resource consumption and pollution (economic
throughput) by threatening to price many goods and services out of reach of the majority. This, in
turn, would force the corporate sector to adapt, i.e., to seek ways of lowering input costs. To
maintain affordable consumer prices and stay in business, manufacturers would have to develop
much more energy- and material-efficient technologies and manufacturing processes.
Regrettably, decisive government action is not in the cards—we are still stuck with the ‘HOW to
make it happen’ question. Ecological tax reform has no political legs; people have been trained to
recoil at any suggestion of higher taxes and prices, no matter how economically logical and
ecologically necessary. More importantly, government agencies, at least in western democracies,
are increasingly the subject of 'regulatory capture' and the revolving door syndrome. Personnel
from government agencies, with all their insider knowledge, take up positions in the private sector;
executives from private corporations infiltrate regulatory agencies that are supposed to oversee
those same corporations’ activities. Such agencies are then basically controlled by private actors
who are disinclined to act against short-term corporate interests. Recent events in the US
accelerate this trend beyond previous imagining. Symbolised by billionaires Elon Musk and Vivek
Ramaswamy being designated to head President Elect Trump’s new Department of Government
Efficiency, we see the corporate sector becoming the government. If Trump and his minions follow
through, the entire enviro-climate etc., regulatory system may well wither to nothingness.
Corporate governments are even waking up to the ‘population problem’ but on the ecologically
wrong side of the bed. In countries where populations are peaking or falling (as needed to
overcome overshoot), governments are adopting pronatalist policies to ensure the supply of labor
and tax-payers needed for business-as-usual under the growthist mantra. On 12 November 2024,
Russia even passed legislation making it a punishable offence to discuss or promote the advantages
of childlessness or child free lifestyles.
In all, it seems that MTI societies have created an inverted Panglossian ‘worst of all possible worlds’:
our natural biological predisposition to expand and acquire (nature) is being reinforced by a cultural
social construct of perpetual material and population growth (nurture).
Looking back to see ahead
A philosopher friend and I recently summarized our contemporary civilizational predicament as follows:
Modern techo-industrial (MTI) culture is sleepwalking into an unprecedented existential crisis. The
core cognitive issue is that the future most MTI leaders and ordinary people assume lies ahead is
mainly a technology-enhanced extension of the recent past. This popularly imagined future has no
future. A vastly more complex future ‘context’ is emerging seemingly by stealth, a context that is so
far unrecognized and, to which, the global community has therefore been wholly unresponsive. In
other words, MTI culture is acting out of a vision of its past and present that is inadequate,
inaccurate and irrelevant to the future that is actually taking shape. This crucial dissonance is self-
evident to those who choose to see but seems not to be understood by any MTI nation or institution
of influence. As a result, current actions and stated intentions are making a terrible situation worse.
How can this be? There is an obvious historical root. We MTI sleepwalkers are operating from a
cultural narrative and economic paradigm derived from a post-enlightenment affliction known
as human exceptionalism. Being exceptional, humans are not part of nature and are therefore
exempt from natural laws. This is why, from a biophysical perspective, mainstream economic
theories and models are little more than imaginative balloons untethered from reality. They contain
no reference to anything outside themselves and ignore the systemic properties of the complex
ecosystems and social systems within which the economy actually operates. Combined with the
notion that human ingenuity is the greatest resource (and therefore more people is invariably a
good thing) such ‘thinking’ frees the human enterprise for perpetual growth; overshoot and the rest
of our contemporary eco-social predicament all but inevitable.
Things are actually worse than that for two major reasons. First, we know that cultural
narratives/paradigms are mere products of the human mind that take shape through continuous
discourse and repetition until—realistic or not—they rise to the status of received wisdom. But
by that time, they may well have acquired a physical presence in adherents’ brains. Neural science
reveals that the constant repetition of concepts creates dedicated synaptic circuitry in the brain
that is stimulated, and further reinforced by supportive ideas and which produces discomfort and
denial when the individual is confronted by opposing ideas. Such embedded neural circuitry enables
'thoughtless thinking', thinking that is mostly automatic and extremely difficult to abandon or
discard, e.g., the notion of perpetual economic growth abetted by continuous technological
advances.
Second, all constructed paradigms or narratives are self-referencing. If something goes awry, true
believers fall back for solutions on the same beliefs, values, assumptions and behaviours that
shaped the paradigm—and created any problems—in the first place. This supports the argument
that no solution to our contemporary predicament can be found within the MTI worldview. Almost
the entire response to the climate crisis and other co-symptoms of overshoot (e.g., so called green
renewable energy -- wind turbines, solar panels, EVs, etc.) are cast from the growth-oriented
paradigmatic mold, are worsening the situation, and are thus doomed to fail. By and large, even our
best universities are complicit in perpetuating the problem. They are the repositories and
replicators of the MTI worldview within which no solution can be found.
So where does this leave us? To achieve a just and sustainable material steady-state on Earth we
need a personal to civilizational transition away from MTI sensibilities to a wholly new way
of thinking and being on Earth (a new set of beliefs, values, assumptions and behavioural norms) in
which humans can live spiritually satisfying lives more equitably within the biophysical means of
nature.
Next steps—trigger events or a local ‘Plan B’?
But again, HOW to get there? It may take a dramatic failure—systemic collapse and millions of deaths—
to shake a culture from its customary narrative. Chronic energy shortages or global famine could do
the trick. Mass demonstrations or revolution might also work—if enough people are truly disadvantaged or
disenchanted they may revolt, overthrowing corrupt governments, for example.
We may actually be close to such citizens’ uprisings even in rich countries. The 4 December 2024
assassination in New York of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, possibly out of frustration with
corporate greed, has generated a groundswell of sympathy and support for the alleged shooter, Luigi
Mangione. This disturbing response to events at least reveals the pent-up frustration of US citizenry re:
their expensive, often inaccessible and rather ineffective private health-care system. People see
private health care as emblematic of corporate self-interest, the growing income gap and the
massive accumulation of wealth among the privileged few. The Thompson assassination called to
mind a prescient decade-old article by billionaire, Nick Hanauer: The Pitchforks Are Coming… For Us Plutocrats.
In this piece Hanauer essentially warned his “…fellow filthy rich, …all of us who live in our
gated bubble worlds: Wake up, people. It won’t last.” [1]
If the one per-centers continue to do nothing
to address inequality and the growing income gap in the US they are setting the stage for a modern
peasant revolt. But would anything coherent emerge from the ruins since the survivors will
themselves still mostly be products of MTI thinking?
All of which underscores the fact that the MTI world is in a genuine predicament. Predicaments are
not the same as problems. Problems have solutions; predicaments are beyond solving—they merely
have outcomes. So, in the final analysis given the momentum of MTI culture and systemic
resistance to change, I'm not sure there is anything truly transformative ordinary people can do on
their own to 'tackle' overshoot. Ironically, at a time when community cohesion has never been
more important, society seems ever more fractured and mutually distrustful. This is not helpful.
Overshoot will end, and in present circumstances any 'outcome' will probably be tragic at some
level for millions. It’s not even certain that major governments and international institutions can
positively influence the nature of the outcome. (The 1992 United Nations Framework Convention
on Climate Change and its 29 international COP conferences to reduce fossil fuel use and emissions
have failed repeatedly—both consumption and emissions are at record levels and rising).
Perhaps the wisest strategy for individuals and communities is a combination of self-education,
community re-building for mutual understanding/support, and active political engagement. The
initial goals should be to raise eco-social-reality to popular consciousness and to organize discussion
of key elements of a ‘Plan B’ for orderly degrowth tuned to your community. And remember, focus
on the HOW question. Do you have a social-change theory and operational strategy? Develop
one—HOW, by what (preferably non-violent) means, do we convince both our local political leaders
and ordinary citizens to take the necessary steps to reduce their personal and community eco-
footprints?
Looking ahead, and perhaps most importantly, Plan B will invariably involve determined action to
re-localize; work with allies on a strategy to bring home crucial economic activities, particularly food
production/processing, cloth and clothes-making, and essential small-scale manufacturing. As
globalization erodes and related supply chains fray to breaking, it will be necessary to insulate
yourselves, loved ones and friends against the worst effects of the transition, whatever final form it
takes.
Above all, think of this as an opportunity; let the creative juices flow as if your life depended on it—
because it does!
Note
[1] The Pitchforks Are Coming… For Us Plutocrats, by Nick Hanauer, Politico, July/August 2014.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
William E. Rees is a population ecologist and ecological economist. He is Professor Emeritus and former Director of the University of British Columbia's School of Community and Regional Planning; a founding member and former President of the Canadian Society for Ecological Economics; a founding Director of the One Earth Initiative; and a Fellow of the Post-Carbon Institute. Professor Rees' research focuses on the biophysical requirements for sustainability and the policy implications of global ecological trends. He is perhaps best known as the originator, and co-developer with his graduate students, of Ecological Footprint Analysis (EFA). EFA shows that the human enterprise is already in ecological 'overshoot' and that we would need 4.4 Earth-like planets to support just the present world population at Canadian material standards. Such findings led to a special focus on cities as particularly vulnerable components of the human ecosystem and on psycho-cognitive barriers to ecologically rational behaviour and policy. Professor Rees has authored hundreds of peer-reviewed and popular articles on these and related topics.
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