The Earth is full Paul Gilding

let me begin with four words that will

provide the context for this week four

words that will come to define this

century here they are the earth is full

full of us full of our stuff full of our

waste full of our demands yes we are a

brilliant and creative species but we’ve

created a little too much stuff so much

that our economy is now bigger than its

host our planet this is not a

philosophical statement this is just

science both in physics chemistry and

biology

there are many science-based analyses of

this but they all draw the same

conclusion that we’re living beyond our

means the eminent scientists of the

global footprint Network for example

calculate that we need about 1.5 earth

to sustain this economy in other words

to keep operating at our current level

we need for 2% more earth than we’ve got

in financial terms this would be like

always spending 50% more than you earn

going further into debt every year but

of course she can’t borrow natural

resources so we’re burning through our

capital or stealing from the future

so when I say full I mean really full

well past any margin for error well past

any dispute about methodology what this

means is our economy is unsustainable

I’m not saying it’s not nice or Pleasant

or that are spared for polar bears or

forests though it certainly is what I’m

saying is our approach is simply

unsustainable

in other words thanks for those pesky

laws of physics when things aren’t

sustainable they stop but that’s not

possible you might think we can’t stop

economic growth because that’s what will

stop economic growth it will stop

because of the end of cheap resources it

will stop because of the growing de

and of us on on all the resources all

the capacity all the systems of the

earth which is now having economic

damage when we think about economic

growth stopping we go that’s not

possible because economic growth is so

central to our society that it is really

questioned although growth has certainly

differed many benefits it is an idea so

central that we tend not to understand

the possibility but not being around

even though it has delivered many

benefits it is based on a crazy idea the

crazy idea being that we can have

infinite growth on a finite planet and

I’m here to tell you the emperor has no

clothes that the crazy idea is just that

it is crazy and with the earth full it’s

game over come on you’re thinking that’s

not possible technology is amazing

people are in innovative there are so

many ways we can improve the way we do

things we can surely sort this out

that’s all true well it’s mostly true we

are certainly amazing and we regularly

solve complex problems with amazing

creativity so if our problem was to get

the human economy down from 150 percent

to a hundred percent of the Earth’s

capacity we could do that the problem is

we’re just warming up this growth engine

we plan to take this highly stressed

economy and make it twice as big and

then make it four times as big not in

some distant future but in less than 40

years in the lifetime of most of you

china plans to be there in just 20 years

the only problem with this plan is that

it’s not possible in response some

people argue but we need growth we

needed to solve poverty we needed to

develop technology we needed to keep

social stability

I find this argument fascinating as

though we can kind of bend the rules of

physics to suit our needs

it’s like the earth doesn’t care what we

need mother Nature doesn’t negotiate she

just sets rules and describes

consequences and these are not as a

tarik limits this is about food and

water soil and climate the basic

practical and economic foundations of

our lives so the idea that we can

smoothly transition to a highly

efficient solar powered knowledge-based

economy transformed by science and

technology so that nine billion people

can live in 2015 a life of abundance and

digital downloads is a delusion it’s not

that it’s not possible to feed clothe

and house us all and heavily live decent

lives it certainly is but the idea that

we can gently grow there with a few

minor hiccups is just wrong and it’s

dangerously wrong because it means we’re

not getting ready for what’s really

going to happen see what happens when

you operate a system passes limits and

then keep on going at an

ever-accelerating rate is that the

system stops working and breaks down and

that’s what will happen to us many of

you will be thinking but surely we can

still stop this if it’s that bad we’ll

react

let’s just think through that idea now

we’ve had 50 years of warnings we’ve had

science proving the urgency of change

we’ve had Economic Analysis pointing out

that not only can we afford it it’s

cheaper to act early and yet the reality

is we’ve done pretty much nothing to

change course we’re not even slowing

down last year on climate for example we

had the highest global emissions ever

the story on food on water on soil and

climate is all much the same

they don’t say this in despair I’ve done

my grieving about the loss I accept

where we are it is sad but it is what it

is but it is also time that we ended our

denial

and recognized that we’re not acting

we’re not close to acting and we’re not

going to act until this crisis hits the

economy and that’s why the end of growth

is the central issue and the event that

we need to get ready for so when does

this transition begin when does this

breakdown begin in my view it is well

underway I know most people don’t see it

that way we tend to look at the world

not as the integrated system that it is

but as a series of individual issues we

see the Occupy protests we see spiraling

debt crises we see growing inequality we

see money’s influence on politics we see

resource constraint food and oil prices

but we see mistakenly each of these

issues as individual problems to be

solved in fact it’s a system in the

painful process of breaking down our

system of debt fueled economic growth of

ineffective democracy either overloading

planet Earth is eating itself alive I

could give you countless studies and

evidence to prove this but I won’t

because if you want to see it that

evidence is all around you I want to

talk to you about fear I want to do so

because in my view the most important

issue we face right is how we respond to

this question the crisis is now

inevitable the issue is how will we

react of course we can’t know what will

happen the future is inherently

uncertain but let’s just think through

what the science is telling us is likely

to happen imagine our economy when the

carbon bubble bursts when the financial

markets recognize that they have any

hope of preventing that climate

spiraling out of control the oil and

coal industries are finished imagine

China India and Pakistan going to war as

climate impacts generate conflict over

food and water

imagine the middle-east without oil

income but with collapsing governments

imagine our highly tuned just-in-time

food industry and our highly stressed

agricultural system failing and

supermarket shelves empty imagine 30%

unemployment in America as the global

economy is gripped by fear and

uncertainty now imagine what that means

for you your family your friends your

personal financial security imagine what

it means for your personal security as a

heavily armed civilian population gets

angrier and angrier about why this was

allowed to happen imagine what you’ll

tell your children when they ask you so

in 2012 mom and dad what was it like

when you’d had the hottest decade on

record for the third decade in a row

when every scientific body in the world

was saying you’ve got a major problem

when the oceans are acidifying when oil

and food prices were spiking when they

were rioting in the streets of London

and Occupy Wall Street when the system

was so clearly breaking down mum and dad

what did you do what were you thinking

so how do you feel when the lights go

out on the global economy in your mind

when your assumptions about the future

fade away and something very different

emerges just take a moment and take a

breath and think what do you feel at

this point

perhaps denial perhaps anger maybe fear

of course we can’t know what’s going to

happen we have to live with uncertainty

well when we think about the kind of

possibilities I paint we should feel a

bit of fear we are in danger all of us

and we’ve evolved to respond to danger

with fear to motivate a powerful

response to help us bravely face a

threat but this time is not a tiger at

the cave mouth you can’t see the danger

at your door but if you look you can see

it at the door of your civilization

that’s what we need to fill our response

now while the lights are still on

because if we wait until the crisis

takes hold we may panic and hide if we

feel it now and think it true we will

realize we have nothing to fear but fear

itself yes things will get ugly and it

will happen soon certainly in our

lifetime but we are more than capable of

getting true everything that’s coming

you see those people that have faith

that humans can solve any problem that

technology is limitless the markets can

be a force for good are in fact right

the only thing they’re missing is that

it takes a good crisis to get us going

when we feel fear and we fear loss we

are capable of quite extraordinary

things think about war after the bombing

of Pearl Harbor it just took four days

for the government to ban the production

of civilian cars and to redirect the

auto industry and from there to

rationing of food and energy

think about how a company responds to

bankruptcy threats and how change that

seemed impossible just gets done think

about how an individual responds to a

diagnosis of a life-threatening illness

and how lifestyle changes that

previously were just too difficult

suddenly become relatively easy

we are smart in fact we really are quite

amazing but we do love a good crisis and

the good news this one’s a monster sure

if we get it wrong we could face the end

of this civilization but if we get it

right it could be the beginning of

civilization instead and how cool would

it be to tell your grandchildren that

you were part of that there’s certainly

no technical or economic barrier in the

way scientists like James Hansen tell us

we may need to eliminate net co2

emissions from the economy in just a few

decades I wanted to know what that would

take so I work with Professor Jurgen

Randers from Norway to find the answer

we developed a plane called the one

degree ball plane so named because of

the level of mobilization and focus

required to my surprise eliminating net

co2 emissions from the economy in just

20 years is actually pretty easy and

pretty cheap not very cheap but

certainly less than the cost of a

collapsing civilization we didn’t

calculate that precisely but we

understand it’s very expensive you can

read the details but in summary we can

transform our economy we can do it with

proven technology we can do it at an

affordable cost we can do it with

existing political structures the only

thing we need to change is how we think

and how we feel and this is where you

come in when we think about the future I

paint of course we should feel a bit of

fear but fear can be paralyzing or

motivating we need to accept the fear

and then we need to act

we need to act like the future depends

on it

we need to act like we only have one

planet we can do this I know the free

market fundamentalists will tell you

that more growth more stuff and nine

billion people going shopping is the

best we can do they’re wrong we can be

more we can be much more we have

achieved remarkable things since working

out how to grow food some 10,000 years

ago we’ve built a powerful foundation of

science knowledge and technology more

enough to build a society where nine

billion people can lead decent

meaningful and satisfying lives the US

can support that if we choose the right

path we can choose this moment of crisis

to ask an answer the big questions of

society’s evolution like what do we want

to be when we grow up when we move past

this bumbling adolescence where we think

there are no limits and suffer delusions

of immortality well it’s time to grow up

to do wiser to become a to be more

considered like generations before us

we’ll be growing up in war not a war

between civilizations but a war for

civilization for the extraordinary

opportunity to build a society which is

stronger and happier and plans on

staying around into middle-age we can

choose life over fear we can do what we

need to do but it will take every

entrepreneur every artist every

scientist every communicator every

mother every father every child every

one of us this could be our finest hour

thank you