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