Responses to Comments from William Rees

In October of 2023, I gave a Zoom talk to the Canadian Association for the Club of Rome (CACOR).  The requested topic was an overview of my sequel to "The Value Crisis", that being "Our Second Chance - Changing Course and Solving the Value Crisis".  Months later, the CACOR site curator sent me a copy of the Zoom Chat conversation from that talk.  It turns out that the most frequent contributor to the chat was Dr. William E. Rees, FRSC.  Bill Rees is Professor Emeritus at the University of British Columbia, and well-known as the originator of the "ecological footprint" concept.

Following the CACOR Zoom talk tradition, many of the chat room questions and comments will have been raised after the presentation, and some will be heard on the actual video.  Still, knowing that I have a huge amount to learn from this leader in ecological economics (and one of my heroes), I decided to devote a post to his comments and my more-considered reflections on them.

(It would obviously help a great deal if you watch the presentation first, but I'll try to craft this post in such a way that it's not entirely necessary.)

William Rees Oct 18, 2023, 1:42 PM
What if the More is Better strategy is an innate adaptive strategy that worked in paleolithic times but is catastrophic today, when technology makes it possible?

Firstly, there is a very important distinction to be made here.  The value system that I claim to be flawed and unnatural is "More is ALWAYS Better".  Generally speaking, there are many times in nature when More is Better.  But more is never always better - everything in nature has sufficiency.  That's why, when more does happen to be better, it could indeed be seen as an innate adaptive strategy that worked in paleolithic times.  It is only when you have values measured by number (such as monetary wealth) that More is Always Better.  Having a limitless value, with no definition of sufficiency is where the trouble begins.  Add in technology that gives exponential growth, and that trouble does indeed become catastrophic.  This is not a value that has changed over time, because More is Always Better did not exist in paleolithic times.

William Rees Oct 18, 2023, 1:50 PM
We have to be careful about 'first nations' values.  The paleoecological evidence suggests that the spread of humanity over the Earth was followed by the depletion and often extinction of megafauna of all kinds.  Only after massive destruction, or at least alteration of their ecosystems, did indigenous peoples culturally evolve a stable relationship with their much diminished habitats.  That is what we see today.  

When you consider "the spread of humanity", you are really talking about a species of primate that was successful enough to produce a thriving population - one that did really well at adapting to other environments as well.  So whenever humans spread into an area where they had not existed before, they were essentially an invasive species.  We all know that any successful invasive species will invariably redefine the ecological balance of its new territory - sometimes wiping out previously existing species.  (This is easier to do when you are at or near the top of the food chain.)

I think another thing we obviously have to be careful about is generalizing "first nations".  There were/are hundreds of First Nations.  Some evolved into empires who adopted and applied a More is Always Better value system to territory, riches, slaves, and temple heights.  (Perhaps their demise was correspondingly predictable.)  Others are still living in relative isolation and in harmony with their original environment.

Still, I think your general heuristic applies.  When some First Nations people first came upon plains teeming with bison, they did not worry about the wastefulness of driving hundreds of them over a cliff, just to butcher a few for their needs.  And they did indeed alter their ecosystems - it would have been almost impossible not to.  However, for the First Nations that did not adopt a More is Always Better philosophy, they noticed the changes to their ecosystems and made various conscious choices to alter their behaviours.  The values that we associate today with indigenous wisdom are distinctly different and decidedly superior in terms of ecological economics.

BtW, modern techno industrial society is going the same way.  We will destroy our habitat to the point that it pushes back and forces an adaptive strategy onto the survivors of the great contraction.

This is my conclusion as well.  I believe climate change is one of the negative feedbacks that our habitat is going to push back on us.  The question of whether or not we will recognize our essential problem as a value crisis is still to be answered.

William Rees Oct 18, 2023, 1:56 PM
Overshoot is a function of population at any material standard.  Three billion over-consumers can be in overshoot: Ten billion people in poverty can be in overshoot.

This is very true.  Since ecological overshoot is based on available planetary resources, that quantity available doesn't change with population or lifestyle, but the amount lost to consumption does.  Right now, we have simultaneous examples of both kinds of overshoot (from overconsumption and overpopulation).

William Rees Oct 18, 2023, 2:36 PM
Where does the wealth or money come from to fund the basic income?  Doesn't this require a complete reorganization of the income/tax/economic value system.  And what if the basic income destroys any incentive to fend for oneself?

These are three common concerns with a Guaranteed Basic Income.  The simplest answer to the first question is that the money is already there - it is simply redirected.  For a full explanation of this, see a previous blog post.  Money is not like material resources - this is simply a math issue, not a show-stopper.

The introduction of a Basic Income does not require a complete reorganization of the income/tax/economic value system - we saw that when we implemented the CERB program almost overnight during the pandemic. However, it could eventually lead to such a reorganization - and that's the whole point.  We need a complete reorganization of the income/tax/economic value system as part of our rebalancing of qualitative and quantitative values.  A Guaranteed Basic Income program is perhaps the best and most powerful tool for easing society into that paradigm shift.

Finally, Basic Income pilot programs have consistently demonstrated that such schemes do not destroy any incentive to fend for oneself - although current social safety nets often do just that.  Humans want to be productive, to contribute to society, and to better their lot.  Basic Income facilitates and encourages those activities.  See my explanation in an earlier post.

William Rees Oct 18, 2023, 2:41 PM
I don't see much new in the notion that natural systems tend toward more complexity.  In any case, this assumes a continuous supply of energy.  Reduce the energy flow and the system simplifies. Remove available energy and the systems ceases to function and moves toward maximum entropy or disorder.

I agree entirely.

William Rees Oct 18, 2023, 2:50 PM
The value of human life changes with the availability of vital resources.  Lots of resources, we share; land and resources get scarce with overcrowding and overshoot, then we devalue live, particularly other peoples' lives.

This is also fairly obvious.  However, I believe that there is a more important factor in how we value human life, which is defined by our relationship to that human.  Yes, we all know that we care more about the life of a friend or family member than we do about some stranger on the other side of the planet, but sometimes we just need a connecting narrative for our perception to change.  Think of how a simple photo of a drowned toddler washed up on a beach completely altered the way millions of people thought about the Syrian refugee crisis.

This introduction of compassion works both for and against us.  You might think me awful for saying this (which would in fact prove my point), but when we start to think of every child as our own, then we start to believe that every life is worth saving, regardless of the cost or quality of life being saved.  That may be all very well, but few people who aggressively pursue disease eradication and lifespan extension consider what the ultimate effect on our planet might be if we were wildly successful in those endeavours.  (Imagine what would happen if all mosquitoes born survived to adulthood.)  If you are going to cure everything and have people living decades longer, there will HAVE to be other changes.  Single lives are valuable because they become qualitative.  At the same time, we can kill thousands in war, because those people are simply numbers.

William Rees Oct 18, 2023, 2:53 PM
Stasis implies a steady-state economy, an idea that has been around for 50 years or more and rejected by mainstream economists and techno-optimists. (Steady-state implies a constant level of economic throughput compatible with nature's productivity and waste assimilation capacity.)

A steady-state economy also includes minimal fluctuations in population.  It is not the only possibility for a sustainable economy - which could also be achieved by an economy the fluctuates up and down in relatively bounded cycles.  I'm not sure why mainstream economists and techno-optimists reject the idea of a steady-state economy, unless it's because they feel it is impossible to achieve.  I would think it's a lot easier to prove the impossibility of an ever-growing economy on the finite resources of a single planet.  It may also be a case of them being NIMPLEs - leaving the consequences of continuous growth to future generations.

William Rees Oct 18, 2023, 2:56 PM
There are lots of studies on how many people -- even a book called "How Many People can Earth Support?"

Determining the number of people that the planet can support is based on many variables.  The whole exercise seems more academic than policy-based.  I think it safe to say that, in terms of environmental impact, there are too many humans, regardless of our adopted lifestyle.  Yes, the planet could possibly support more, but at what cost?

I believe our focus would be better directed towards more sustainable and qualitative lifestyles.  The population decline will likely follow.  If it does not, then nature will address our numbers in her own way, as she inevitably does for all species that get out of control.

William Rees Oct 18, 2023, 2:58 PM
Ray's financial insecurity is the modern expression of our innate need to acquire the means to live.

[This was in reference to an earlier comment from Raymond Leury: "When I was much younger, being poor, my anxiety about the need to have money to survive was so big that it blinded me to just about anything else.  It also drove my strong desire to build up wealth so that I would have financial security."]

Actually, I don't entirely agree with the implications of this one.  All animals have an innate drive to survive.  For that they need the basics of life: oxygen, water, shelter (or appropriate environment), food, etc.  However, "financial security" is not focused on our immediate needs - rather, it is intended to address our future needs.  I theorize that conscious concern for future needs is a higher stage of evolution - perhaps even in a grey area between instinct and learned behaviour.

What strikes me as the most important takeaway from this is how financial wealth takes over our lives when we must struggle to have enough to survive.  Imagine how much collective anxiety there is in society right now, arising from this singular stress, and how a Basic Income would change their lives - and yours!

William Rees Oct 18, 2023, 3:16 PM
Great discussion. Thanks Andrew for providing the catalyst.

I hope my content will eventually prove to be more than just a catalyst.  Anyway, I think this made for a good blog post exploration.  Thanks Bill for providing the catalyst!