Growth is a common word, used repeatedly by governments of ‘developing countries’ to measure progress. By growth, one can imply economic growth or population growth or consumption growth. Growth is usually measured at national level by the GDP – Gross Domestic Product, which is the total values of the goods and services a country produces.
Usually in nature ‘growth’ goes through phases, affected by the study species and the conditions prevalent. When conditions for the growth of a species are good, which is, the availability of surplus food, few predators and the ability to reproduce effectively, there is exponential growth leading to the doubling of numbers at very quick succession.
Eventually, the organism will encounter certain checks. These checks may be in the form of depleted food availability or disease or predators. At such a point, the growth reduces. Eventually, after a series of fluctuations in the growth rate, the rate of birth and death of the organisms becomes almost equal and this is the dynamic equilibrium state. Stable ecosystems have dynamic equilibrium among all its species.
Unfortunately, for us and for all life on our planet, humans have found ways to bypass these natural checks. Most governments and MNCs have concluded that positive growth at the expense at nature is the only destiny for mankind. Let us understand further this phenomenon of growth. The following riddle has been quoted in the book ‘The Limits to Growth” which I have reviewed in the Useful leads page. It is a French riddle:
There is a pond in which there are many small fishes, insects and frogs. There are also small plants. A water lily bud appears in the pond. It grows twice its size everyday. In 30 days time, it would have grown to such a size that it will cover the entire pond and destroy all the other life forms in it. On which day will you realize that there is a problem in the pond and hence start taking action?
Alarms will sound when the lily covers half the pond. This will be on the 29th day. This will double on the 30th day to cover the entire pond. Till the 29th day we would not recognize this as a problem. There is always this delay in recognizing problems.
There is a possibility that we’re already late into the 29th day. But we still fail to accept this fact and continue to live by our old definition of growth and progress. To further understand this phenomenon, here is a quote from the same book, “The only result of this particular grow forever policy can only be the extinction of whales and whalers”. There was a time when whales thrived in good numbers in colder waters of the northern and southern oceans. Since the time that the hunting of whales began, their numbers began to decline. It eventually came to such a state that it became difficult to even spot whales. It would seem obvious that one would take a cue from this event and stop, or at least regulate the hunting of whales. What some countries like Japan did is testament to our approach to today’s problems. They made devices which would help them seek whales from their areas of refuge, devices using sound waves and infra-red, imaging devices etc. Therefore the sorry tale continued and whales were persecuted even in the sanctuaries.
Some people have gone on to say that Gross Domestic Product should be renamed Gross Domestic Cost. The loss of Natural capital will indeed be very difficult to recover.
