The Delusion of Decoupling Economic Growth from Environmental Impact
In this episode, we chat with Dr. James Hopeward, an environmental civil engineering professor at the University of South Australia. We explore the limitations of conventional economic growth models and their environmental impacts, emphasizing the need for more holistic and ecologically grounded engineering practices (and cultural beliefs).
Highlights include:
Why decoupling economic growth from energy and material use relies on temporary efficiency gains and ultimately fails in a growth-based system, rendering the concepts of absolute and relative decoupling meaningless;
How the IPCC treats economic and population growth as exogenous to its modelling scenarios, and has therefore both overestimated fossil fuel supplies and underestimated catastrophic social and ecological outcomes resulting from overshoot;
Why understanding exponential growth was a crucial lesson for James and is now a key part of his engineering curriculum;
Why future infrastructure projects must prioritize climate resiliency;
Why the significance of population issues within environmental and degrowth movements must be urgently elevated to minimize further overshoot-related harm and suffering.