Like many environmental writers, I dash off the occasional rant against excessive materialism. That’s because part of my job is to track the numbers that show how our apparently insatiable desire for more and more stuff is degrading the environment.

The numbers are depressing. By every measure — deforestation, species lost, soil degradation, rare metal depletion, fishery collapse — human consumption is outstripping the planet’s capacity to sustain itself and support us. But while most people are at least marginally aware of these facts, consumerism, which should be held in check as a matter of human self-preservation, is on the rise in most countries.

Why?

In a phrase: the growth paradigm. That is, the belief that incessant economic growth (driven by consumption) is the only path to general prosperity and well-being.

The growth paradigm is so deeply entrenched in our increasingly global culture that almost everyone accepts the idea that “growth is good” without question. Listen to any newscast: “…there was good news for the economy today, as growth in the output of…” Or, any politician: “…we must grow our economy by…” Or, almost any economist: “…the economic growth engine…” But in the near future we’ll see that growth will not make us richer if we deplete the resources upon which growth depends — if we kill the goose that lays the golden egg. If we want long-term general prosperity, we must redefine prosperity, and discover another path to achieving it.

Gross National Happiness

A possible path has been illuminated by the concept of Gross National Happiness (GNH) used by the government of the Himalayan country Bhutan to inform its economic and social policies. Coined when Bhutan’s government opened the country to modernization in 1972, the term “gross national happiness” has been intentionally contrasted with Gross Domestic Product (GDP), a standard measure of economic activity.

GDP is defined as “the total value of goods produced and services provided in a country in one year.” The rate of GDP growth, or contraction, is presumed by economists (and journalists, politicians, educators and the business community) to measure the overall health of a country’s economy and, by extension, the well-being of its people.

However, by indiscriminately including “negative,” or non-productive economic activity in their totals, GDP assessments fail to account for important factors that influence human and environmental health. For example, the cost of incarcerating criminals and cleaning up toxic spills is added to GDP as “growth,” but the human cost of crime and the environmental damage of spills are not subtracted. In fact, the impact of economic activity on the environment is simply not measured.

By contrast, GNH is intended to overcome these shortcomings of GDP while also redefining the purpose of an economy — a human creation — as serving the best interests of people. Underlying GNH is the assumption that a growth in well-being does not necessarily correlate with growth in “product.” GNH economic and social policies designed to promote well-being — providing adequate and satisfactory employment for everyone who wants to work; a clean, safe environment; educational opportunity and so on — take precedence over policies designed to increase or concentrate the accumulation of capital.

Measuring Gross National Happiness

How is happiness measured? Whereas GDP can be measured by tallying cash flows, GNH must be measured by surveying people’s self-assessment of their physical and psychological health, level of security and satisfaction, interpersonal relationships and so on. Bhutan has taken two major surveys (2007 and 2010), asking hundreds of questions of thousands of its citizens.

The survey information is correlated with social and demographic statistics such as crime rates, mental health issues, and longevity. (For example, low rates of infant mortality correlate positively with subjective expressions of well-being.) Combining this information, the Bhutanese government crafts policies that preserve the country’s traditional Buddhist culture while selectively allowing modernization that improves the general welfare.

While the U.S. cannot directly export “happiness indexes” from small, rural Bhutan, we can learn from its experience and develop our own indexes. Like the Bhutanese, we are generally healthier and happier if we have strong social ties, satisfying employment, adequate leisure time and a nurturing environment. If you think about it, simply acquiring more stuff might not be the ticket to happiness at your ecological house.

~PSW

This post originally appeared as a syndicated column in the Your Ecological House series in several newspapers around the U.S.

Relevant Reading:

(Buy a book and help Ecotecture! If you liked this article and want to learn more, we invite you to buy a book from our affiliate through these links. A small portion of the book’s price will be returned to us as an “advertising” fee which we’ll use to expand our efforts to empower our readers to solve environmental problems.)

Gross National Happiness of Bhutan, Wangchuk and Muller
Gross National Hapiness: Why it Matters for America, Arthur Brooks
Bhutan Gross National Happiness, Frank Ra
Gross National Happiness versus Predatory Capitalism, Norbert Braun
Prosperity Without Growth, Tim Jackson
Mismeasuring Our Lives: Why GDP Doesn’t Add Up, Stiglitz, Sen and Fatoussi
Managing Without Growth: Slower by Design, Not Disaster, Peter Victor

Related Posts on Ecotecture:

Eco-nomics: Modeling a Sustainable Economy onEcosystems
Visualizing a Sustainable Economy: How Much is Enough?

Introduction: The Sustainable Economy Discussion Group (SEDG) 

Part of Ecotecture’s eco-nomics discussion will be reports on the ongoing meetings and activities of the Sustainable Economy Discussion Group (SEDG) of Corvallis, Oregon. The Group, which began its informal monthly meetings at a local coffee house in October, 2011, grew out of an earlier discussion group based on the study of the book “Prosperity Without Growth” by Tim Jackson. (That group was organized by the Corvallis branch of The Natural Step of Oregon.) 

 The purpose of SEDG is to explore issues in sustainable economics. SEDG’s members are not professional economists, but ordinary citizens who bring a variety of perspectives to economic issues: a farmer/agronomy student, a retired forester, a retired USDA rural infrastructure development specialist, a high school science teacher, a school psychologist, an ecologist, a Corvallis City Council member, Ecotecture’s editor and others. 

 SEDG is thus a “peer learning group” focused on macroeconomics and local economic vitality and sustainability. Since its discussions cover conditions and developments relevant to people and economies everywhere — globalization, the limits to growth, consumerism, steady-state economics, community economics — Ecotecture finds them relevant to its goal of empowering our readers to solve environmental problems. 

 We invite you  join SEDG’s conversations by posting comments or by sending us guest blogs about your own community’s economic discussions or initiatives — if your experiences inform our readers, we’ll publish them. 

~PSW

(Note: Corvallis, Oregon is a college town (Oregon State University) with a population of about 55,000 including 20,000 students. Corvallis’s economy, like that of most American towns, has declined since its peak in the pre-2008 era.

These notes are an edited version of the SEDG monthly meeting minutes sent to the membership. Some the SEDG members quoted or mentioned in these notes are given pseudonyms to protect their privacy. Pseudonyms will be noted: otherwise, assume the name is real.)

 SEDG Meeting Notes #1- December, 2011: — Main Topic: “What is Enough?”

The first event of the evening was the presentation by Maegan Prentice of a video she made of a talk given at the University of Oregon (Eugene) by Rob Dietz. The contents of the video are not summarized here, but Dietz is the Executive Director of the Center for the Advancement of a Steady State Economy (CASSE), and information about his work work may be found on CASSE’s web site.

Maegan would like to make a new video of several SEDG members having a group discussion about “What is Enough.” (I call it “sufficiency” in these notes.)  The three-point framework for that discussion is as follows:

1) We would discuss sufficiency in the context of psychologist Abraham Maslow’s “Hierarchy of Needs.” The Hierarchy, (from my notes) is as follows:

• physiological needs — breathing, food, water, sleep, etc.
• safety or security — employment, property, etc.
• love and belonging — family, friendship, romantic attachments, etc.
• self-esteem — confidence, self-respect, respect of others, etc.
• self-actualization — acceptance of reality, morality, creativity, etc.

2) Why do we give more value to power than compassion?

3) The Buddhist concept of the Hungry Ghost . From Wikipedia: “Hungry ghost” is a Western translation of the Chinese “èguǐ,” a concept in Chinese Buddhism and traditional Chinese religion representing beings who are driven by intense emotional needs in an animalistic way. … ƒƒ.)

Other Thoughts on a Sustainable Economy

Following the discussion of the “What is Enough” and the new video, a number of other topics were touched on. Here is a (mostly unannotated) list:

• The Global Footprint Network was mentioned.  It will be discussed more in subsequent meetings.

• Capital Limitations: The need to distinguish between natural capital (the capital provided by the earth and ecosystem services) and financial capital. Natural capital circumscribes and limits financial capital. Within the context of that topic we discussed:
- sustainable scale
- the limits to growth
- equitable distribution

• Someone suggested that we should abandon Gross National Product (GNP) as a measure of prosperity and substitute Gross National Happiness (GNH). GNP measures negatives as well as positives — virtually all recorded economic transactions. Therefore the cost of incarcerating a felon is part of the nation’s “product.” So is the cost of cleaning up the environment after a toxic spill. In other words, GNP confuses unproductive and productive, wasteful and regenerative economic activity, and gives the impression that the growth of GNP is always good, and the more growth the better, but doesn’t reflect how economic activity affects people’s well being.

Gross National Happiness measures the quality of life. From Wikipedia: The term “gross national happiness” was coined in 1972 by Bhutan’s then King Jigme Singye Wanchuck, who has opened Bhutan to the age of modernization… He used the phrase to signal his commitment to building an economy that would serve Bhutan’s unique culture based on Buddhist spiritual values…ƒƒ)

• It was also mentioned that there are two types of sustainable economic models: Steady State vs. Sustainable Development. Evolving toward a steady-state economy is an appropriate goal for developed economies, whereas sustainable development is appropriate for less developed countries.

-PSW

Related posts on Ecotecture:

Eco-nomics: Modeling a Sustainable Economy on Ecosystems 

Can Gross National Happiness Lead to An Economic Revival? 

Relevant Reading:

Prosperity Without Growth, Tim Jackson
The End of Growth, Richard Heinberg
Beyond Growth: The Economics of Sustainable Development, Herman Daly
Steady State Economics, Herman Daly
Limits to Growth: The 30-Year Update, Meadows, Randers and Meadows
Mismeasuring Our Lives: Why GDP Doesn’t Add Up, Stiglitz, Sen and Fatoussi
Managing Without Growth: Slower by Design, Not Disaster, Peter Victor 

What is “eco-nomics?” It is a term comprised of the prefix of “ecology” (and “economy”) and the suffix of “economics” — implying that the two fields are closely intertwined.

Environmental writers often note that “ecology” and “economics” have the same prefix, “eco,” derived from the Greek oikos, meaning “house.” The suffix of ecology, “-logy,” means “knowledge,” so ecology literally means “the knowledge of the house.” The suffix of economics, “-nomics,” means “management and measurement of,” so economics literally means the “management and measurement of the household.”

Of course “house” (eco), in both words carries the connotation of “earth” — the house we all dwell in. Both the knowledge and management of our earthly house is implied by eco-nomics.

Ecology is the study of ecosystems, and economics is the study of the production, distribution and consumption of commodities. The two subjects are generally studied separately.

Furthermore, the growth and health of  “the economy” is usually seen as unrelated to, or even in conflict with the health of the planetary ecosystem, or ecosphere. This is an artificial distinction, because the human economic system is entirely dependent upon the ecosphere to sustain it.

Designing an ecology-based economy requires a completely rethinking our current economic models. Ultimately, for the human economy to be sustainable, it must be functionally integrated with the ecosphere and obey the natural laws that govern ecosystems.

Eco-nomics is the art and science of modeling economies on the principles by which ecosystems function and sustain themselves. Although the specific organisms living on the earth during any given geological time period have changed, the basic principles by which ecosystems function and sustain all life have remained essentially the same since they evolved 3.6 billion years ago. (That’s roughly 3,600 times longer than humans have inhabited the earth.)

Ecosystems are sustainable because:

1) They use the virtually limitless renewable energy from the sun to photosynthesize molecules that function as both the basic building blocks and the energy sources for living tissue. (This “value-adding” — turning simple, non-living molecules into more complex molecules usable by living systems — is called “primary production.” )

2) Through myriad chemical reactions they cycle and recycle those basic building blocks throughout an ecosystem until all the usable energy is extracted from them and they are broken down into their original non-living molecular components; after which the remnant molecules are recycled back into the tissue of energy gathering sub systems (usually green plants) where, using more energy from the sun, they are again synthesized into biomass building blocks.

Ecosystems do not waste materials – the waste of one organism is the food of another in an endless cycle of regeneration. 

 3)  The biomass (total living tissue) of an ecosystem is limited by the resources – sunlight, water, minerals – available in its locale. Generally, resources are not concentrated in specific locales by the actions of living agents – certainly not on a scale remotely comparable to the concentration of resources by human agency. Ecosystems are sustained by maximizing the use of local resources.

4) Evolutionary mechanisms generate diverse subsystems (species) until all or most of the available niches within an ecosystem are filled. Diversity and functional overlap between species (many types of spiders eating the same insects, for example, and one type of spider eating many types of insects) assures that overall ecosystem function will continue – energy flows will not be catastrophically disrupted – in the event that a particular species is reduced in numbers or goes extinct.

These four mechanisms – reliance on renewable energy; reusing and recycling materials; limiting biomass production to locally available resources; and optimizing diversity to ensure continuity of energy flow – have underpinned ecosystems since they evolved as life’s supporting structure 3.6 billion years ago.

Modern human economies, by contrast, rely almost entirely on:

1) non-renewable energy sources

2) energy that flows in primarily linear, as opposed to circular pathways, leaving dissipated energy and degraded matter that has no possibility of timely regeneration at the end of the path

3) long-distance rather than local or bioregional resource bases

4) movement toward centralization and monopolization, as opposed to the diversification of the means of production and exchange.

Clearly our economic models are not sustainable. The planet-wide depletion of basic resources such as potable water and fertile topsoil, the inability of the ecosphere to absorb more of our atmospheric, terrestrial or aquatic waste and the rapid loss of life-supporting ecosystem services such as pollination and flood prevention have all reached critical thresholds. Those factors, combined with the incessant and accelerating growth in our demand for resources, sinks and services are clearly bringing us to the brink of an environmental catastrophe of unprecedented scale.

It is imperative that we rapidly restructure our economic activities so they begin to regenerate, rather than continue to debase the ecosphere. Rather than fostering the independence (and temporary dominance) of one species, homo sapiens, we must develop a sustainable economy that fosters the interdependence of all living beings and enhances rather than degrades the health of the ecosphere. We must study Eco-nomics, and create a sustainable economy modeled on the structure and function of ecosystems.

The creation of those new models will require the meeting of many minds, and open exchange of ideas from all over the planet and all walks of life. I invite you to share your thoughts in the comment section below.

~PSW