Let’s say you discover a magical gold coin that doubles every 25 years. 75 years later, you’d only have eight coins. But 1,000 years later, you’d have over a trillion. And in just 4,600 years, your gold coins would outweigh the observable universe.
假设你发现了一个魔法金币, 它每 25 年都会翻一番。 75 年后, 你只会有 8 枚金币。 但是一千年后, 你的财富会超过一万亿。 只需要 4600 年, 你的金币就会超过可观宇宙。
This periodic doubling is an example of exponential growth, and while we’re not in any danger of discovering a real-life golden goose-coin, something almost as consequential has been growing like this for the past 200 or so years: the global economy.
这种周期性翻倍 是指数增长的一个例子, 虽然我们现实中没有发现哪种模因币 有这种神奇而迷人的危险性, 但在过去的 200 年里, 有一样几乎同样重要的东西 在爆发式的增长:全球经济。
Many economists think that an eternally growing economy is necessary to keep improving people’s lives, and that if the global economy stops growing, people would fight more over the fixed amount of value that exists, rather than working to generate new value.
许多经济学家认为, 经济的持续增长 对于维护人类生活 的持续改善是必要的, 如果全球经济停止增长的话, 人们就会为现有的 价值固定价值争斗, 而不是去创造新的价值。
That raises the question: is infinite growth possible on a finite planet?
那么问题来了: 对于有限的星球资源来说, 无限的经济增长可能实现吗?
We measure economic growth by tracking the total financial value of everything a country (or the world) produces and sells on the market. These products can help us meet basic needs or improve our individual and collective quality of life. But they also, crucially, take resources to invent, build, or maintain.
我们通过追踪国家或世界生产 和销售的商品总额 来衡量经济增长。 这些产品可以满足 我们的基本需求, 也能提高我们 个人和集体的生活水平。 关键在于,发明、建造 甚至是维持现状,都消耗资源。
For example, this smartphone. It’s valuable in part because it contains aluminum, gallium, and silicon, all of which took energy and resources to mine, purify, and turn into a phone. It’s also valuable because of all the effort that went into designing the hardware and writing the software. And it’s also valuable because a guy in a black turtleneck got up on stage and told you it was.
例如,智能手机。 它的部分价值来源于 它所含的铝、镓和硅, 而这些则需要对能源和资源进行 开采和提纯,然后才能制成手机。 它还因所有投入 设计硬件和编写软件 的人力而有价值。 当然,它的价值还体现在一个穿着 黑色高领毛衣的人在舞台上对你说 它是多么有价值。
So how do we grow the total financial value of all things? One way is to make more things. Another way is to invent new things. However you do it, growing the economy requires resources and energy. And eventually, won’t we just run out?
那么,我们该如何 增加所有事物的总金融价值呢? 一种方式是制造更多的东西。 另一种方式是发明新的东西。 无论你怎么做,经济增长都需要 资源和能源的支持。 最终,我们会把它们消耗殆尽吗?
To answer this question, let's consider what goes into the economy and what comes out of it: its inputs are labor, capital— which you can think of as money— and natural resources, like water or energy. Its output is value. Over the past 200 years, economies have gotten exponentially more efficient at producing value.
为了回答这个问题,让我们考虑一 下经济所需的原料都有什么, 而经济又生产了什么: 它需要劳力、资本—— 或者说钱—— 以及自然资源,比如水或者能源。 然后它产生了价值。 在过去 200 年里, 经济体在创造价值方面的效率 呈指数级提高。
If we, as a species, are able to keep upgrading our economies so that they get ever-more efficient, we could theoretically pump out more and more value using the same— or, let’s be really ambitious here— fewer resources.
如果我们,作为一个物种, 能够不断的发展我们的经济 并使其产生更多的效益的话, 理论上来说,我们可以用同样的—— 或者再野心勃勃一点—— 用更少的资源创造更多的价值。
So, how do we do that? How do we increase efficiency? With new technologies.
那么,我们该怎么做呢? 我们应该怎样提高效率效率呢? 用新科技。
This is where we hit a snag.
这就是问题所在。
New tech, in addition to making things more efficient, can also generate new demand, which ends up using more resources.
新技术除了能提高效率外, 还会产生新的需求, 然后最终会消耗更多的资源。
We’re actually not in imminent danger of running out of most resources. But we have a much bigger and more immediate problem: the global economy, and in particular those of rich countries, is driving climate change and destroying valuable natural environments on which all of us depend— soil, forests, fisheries, and countless other resources that help keep our civilization running.
事实上,我们并没有面临耗尽 大部分资源的紧迫危险。 但我们有一个更大且更紧迫的问题: 全球经济,特别是富裕国家的经济, 正在推动气候变化, 破坏我们所有人赖以生存的 宝贵环境—— 土壤、森林、渔业和无数其它 帮助维持我们文明运转的资源。
So, what should we do?
我们该做些什么呢?
This is where economists disagree.
这就是经济学家们在争论的东西。
Most economists think that new ideas will be able to fix most of these problems. They argue that, in the same way that exponentially increasing resource and energy use have fueled exponential economic growth, human ingenuity has also increased exponentially, and will rise to meet these challenges in ways that we simply can't predict. For example, between 2000 and 2014, Germany grew their GDP by 16%, while cutting CO2 emissions by 12%.
大多数经济学家认为, 新思想将能够解决大部分的问题。 他们认为, 对于能源的成倍增长的使用 也极大程度上促进的增长, 人类的创造力也成倍增长, 并将以我们无法预测的方式 应对这些挑战。 举个例子, 2000 年至 2014 年, 德国的 GDP 增长了 16%,同时 也减少了 12% 的二氧化碳排放。
That’s impressive, but it’s not cutting emissions fast enough to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. For this reason and others, some economists think the solution is to reengineer our economies completely. They make the case that what we should really be doing is weaning ourselves from the addiction to growth and shifting to a post-growth economy.
这令人印象深刻, 但它的减排速度仍不足以 将气温上涨限定在 1.5 摄氏度以内。 出于这样那样的原因, 有些经济学家认为,应该彻底改变 我们现存的经济结构和能源消耗。 他们认为,我们真正应该做的是 摆脱对增长的依赖 并转向后增长经济。
What would that look like? A post-growth economy wouldn’t assume that the economy should grow; instead, it would require us to focus on improving what we really need— things like renewable energy, healthcare, and public transportation. To do that, post-growth economists suggest that rich countries should do things like guarantee living wages, reduce wealth and income inequality, and ensure universal access to public services, like healthcare. In such an economy, people would be theoretically less dependent on their jobs to earn their living or get healthcare, so it might be more feasible to scale down production of things deemed less necessary.
那会是怎样的呢? 后增长经济不会以 经济一定会增长为前提; 相反,它需要我们专注于 改善我们真正需要的东西—— 比如可再生能源、 医疗保健和公共交通。 为了做到这一点,后增长经济学家 建议富裕国家应该采取措施, 比如保障最低生活工资, 促进财富和收入平等, 并确保普及医疗等公共服务。 在这样的经济运转下,理论上来说 人们将不在那么依赖工作来谋生, 或来获得医疗服务,因此, 减少被认为不那么必要的产品的生产 会变得更加更可行。
But this raises other questions: who gets to define what’s necessary? How would we resolve the inevitable disagreements? Could we really do away with entire industries?
但这引发了其他问题: 谁来定义什么是必要的呢? 我们怎样才能解决 不可避免的分歧呢? 我们能够从所有的行业中 脱离出来吗?
The “we’ll come up with new ideas to solve these problems” approach can seem as realistic as, well, a magical gold coin. And the “we have to fundamentally change our economies” approach can seem politically daunting, particularly in rich countries. One way or another, we have to find a way to benefit everyone while also taking care of our planet.
“我们会有新的方针 来解决现有问题” 的法案 看起来就像那枚 魔法金币一样的不现实。 而 “我们必须从根本上 改变我们的经济” 的提议 在政治上似乎令人望而却步, 尤其是在富裕国家。 无论如何,我们必须找到一种 既能造福所有人 又能保护我们的地球的方法。