I am arguing that for an average person there is no difference between 3% growth and 15% growth, but for mother Earth there is and I don't care about corporate CEOs (less than 1% of the global population) and the Rokafela bros. Sorry for my ignorance but I think an average person and our planet is more important than few fat bankers and their CEO friends. I know, I am a bad person.
Economic growth does not necessarily imply destruction of the environment. The growth rate refers to the rate at which value of products and services in an economy grows. The aggregate environmental footprint may in fact shrink or grow slower than the GDP. I can think of three reasons why there could be a gap between GDP growth and environmental footprint growth:
Services. Most of the value in a modern economy lies in services whose footprint is a lot lower than manufacturing.
Software. Even in manufacturing increasing part of the value comes from non-material components like software and network services.
Recycling. Recycling and downcycling lower environmental footprint by reducing our need for raw materials.
That is just a theory. What do we have in practice:
- Some years ago, you could (yourself) exchange the battery of your mobile phone -- today, many mobile phones will be thrown away, when the battery is finished or any other part does not work any more. Todays "highest tech" industries are environmental nightmares. And now they even build tablet PCs that way, that should replace normal computers (see MS Surface).
- A lot more products are just build for fast consumption and recycling is still not in focus of most manufacturers. Instead, the waste from Europe is exported to Africa.
What I say: I am sure, that it would be possible, but with our todays ideology of growth for the sake of more and more profits and less and less regulation, that is just not "compatible".
It's actually more likely that your battery will be properly disposed of today than it was a decade ago. Its being integrated into the phone means it is handled in the entire "decommissioning" of the phone (when you recycle it, trade it in or even throw it away where it is fished out by garbage processing companies who make money by salvaging electronics out of garbage and preventing it from going to landfills.
The reality is, that very much (if not most) of our electronics garbage goes to Africa, where it goes to wild garbage dumps and young children are destroying their health by burning the valuable materials out of the garbage without any health or environmental measures.
Even when the phones are decomposed and parts are recycled, we are very far from recycling 100% of electronic gadgets. Maybe you could (with much effort, that is not cost effective) recycle 40% of the materials. The idiotic method of glueing all together makes things even more difficult!
What you tell here, is just science fiction, that is presented as facts from the media to give us better feelings.
I live in a country with very high standards for garbage recycling -- but even here, most of the stuff is either just dumped or burnt, since that is the most cost effective thing -- that is done, of course after the private households took much effort into waste separation -- it is just dumped/burnt together. I know that, because I brought my things separated to official recycling and was advised to dump it together into one big hole.
Don't believe, what media and press tells you, because governments want to shine a bright light on our industries! You are being just brain-washed.
