The Growth Delusion: why we don’t want to believe in Peak Oil and Climate Change

Concern for the environment and a move towards “sustainable development” has assisted progress in a wide range of renewable energy technologies in recent years. The science suggests that a transition from fossil fuels to sustainable sources of energy in a time frame commensurate with the demise of the fossil fuels and prevention of runaway climate change is needed. However, while the movement towards sustainable energy technologies is underway the world does not want to give up the idea of continuing economic growth. The transition will be difficult to achieve as nowhere within existing economic and political frameworks are the limits to when growth will be curtailed being set. It is possible that the irrational insistence on endless growth as a non negotiable axiom, by a large proportion of the world’s population, may in fact be akin to the similarly irrational belief, by a similarly large proportion of the world’s population, that a supernatural being controls our existence and destiny. The irrationality of religion has recently been examined by Richard Dawkins (2006) in “The God Delusion”. Dawkins’ book is used as a starting point to investigate similarities between a belief in God and a belief in continuous growth. The contention The contention of this paper is that: • The twin problems of peak oil and climate change are underpinned by our belief that economic growth can be supported indefinitely by a finite earth. • This irrational belief is consistent with the evolutionary history of the brain and in particular its modular structure which can allow two or more contradictory views to be held and believed concurrently. • That the above situation occurs can be illustrated with the widespread example of religious beliefs. Here similarly irrational beliefs are found to be held concurrently with modern scientific ones with little overlap. The similarity between a belief in an all powerful entity and a belief in never ending economic growth is striking and may lead to insights into our present situation with regards to peak oil and climate change. • Our recent history of extreme free market economics, fostered by corporate and financial interests over the last two or three decades, has reduced the ability of most governments to control, or even think about controlling, economic growth. (This conclusion was reached in Lloyd 2007).