Germans Asks Important Questions About Growth; Californians Should Do the Same

The dilemma growth creates – whether in economic activity, population or both – has become common to almost all nations of the world, and poses important questions about the future. Discussion of this dilemma is perhaps most intense in Germany, a leading country in environmental foresight. Recently though, a fundamental question has taken hold of Germany and especially the German Green Party: Can environmental protection be reconciled with the promotion of growth?

A debate has been sparked in the aftermath of the final report by the German Parliamentary Commission on “Growth, Well-Being, and Quality of Life.” This report emphasizes the need for resource consumption to be decoupled from economic growth to prevent further deterioration of the current nitrogen-cycle imbalance, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, stanch biodiversity loss, and limit worsening of other already overloaded systems. The real-world limitations of decoupling growth from environmental damage are discussed, suggesting the need to stop growth at some point.

In a personal interview during my recent stay in Berlin, I learned about the growth debate within the Green Party from Kai Bergmann. As lead assistant to the Sub-Committee Chair responsible for “Growth, Consumption of Resources, and Technical Progress,” Bergmann explained that the early years of modern environmentalism, the late 60s, were a time when growth and environmental degradation were seen as a trade-off.

During the 80s though, the German Green Party avoided the issue of continued growth. In the past decade, the Party, amazingly, pursued policies in favor of growth both in consumption and population. Voicing popular dissatisfaction with the contemporary Green Party, a long-time supporter admitted to feeling disillusioned by the Party’s straying from original environmental principles, to either unrelated or contradicting agendas.

Now there are two general camps forming within the party. The author of “Growing Intelligently: the Green Revolution,” Ralph Fücks, representing one faction, optimistically claims that technological advances in efficiency and other innovations can offset whatever environmental harms will result from continued economic and population growth.

The second group views growth in more “traditional” environmental terms. They argue that technological innovation has not and will not prevent an increasingly harmful environmental impact in Germany. For example, they point out that despite energy efficiency gains in heating systems and better insulation, the rising number of single-person households has offset the gains made by technology. Social-behavioral changes and higher standard of living expectations have often been observed to cancel out resource conservation from technological improvements.

Some politically aware Germans I spoke with agreed with the second group’s outlook, expressing to me that population growth, and the expected subsequent economic growth to maintain living standards, will set back widely accepted sustainability efforts. They argue that further growth will undermine the ambitious energy transition away from nuclear power as well. Yet others think that further growth is the only rational direction for Germany. And some believe economic growth is problematic, while population growth is not, despite their intimate connection.

This debate matters because the same issues with growth are true, and actually more immediately relevant, here in California. A similar shifting away from environmental roots has happened in the U.S., so starting a discussion on the logic behind encouraging population growth is much needed. The German leadership’s seriousness in confronting growth issues, as reflected by commissioning this report, is a healthy approach to problem solving. As Germans formulate their collective response to growth, wouldn’t it be smart for Californians to at least begin asking similar questions about our own future?