LIMITS
Pedro L. Lomas and Javier Zamora
Limit is a key concept in the current reflection on the sustainability of human societies and occupies a foremost position both in the scientific disciplines that study ecosystems (see Ecology) and in ecologist political thought (Kallis, 2021). However, the interdisciplinarity that characterises contemporary reflection on the ecosocial crisis causes the concurrence of two distinct uses for the concept ‘limit’ that may sometimes be confused. On the one hand, limits may be understood as the range values for biogeophysical variables in the stability domain of ecosystems (their nature, their characteristics, their calculation, etc.); on the other hand, limits may be understood as the restraints that must be drawn so that the social metabolism does not overstep these previous ranges.
In the first of these two meanings, the baseline premise is that the material possibility for the existence of each and every species, including human beings, lies in the relative stability of biogeophysical variables that establish the structure and functioning of the ecosystems they form part of, in other words, their environment. Each one of these biogeophysical variables tends to vary within a range of values, since environmental conditions are naturally changeable. Indeed, ecosystems possess self-regulation mechanisms that allow them to take natural disturbances in their stride (wildfire, floods, seasonal change, etc.) and remain within a given state (stability domain), in a kind of dynamic equilibrium established throughout their evolutional history (Gunderson & Holling, 2002).
When a (natural or anthropic) disturbance reaches levels that surpass the ecosystem’s natural capacity for self-regulation, a tipping point is reached, and the intensity of the ensuing destabilisation produces a shift to a new stability domain, causing changes in the structure and functioning of the ecosystem (Biggs et al., 2012). Thus, when referring to biogeophysical limits we mean the range of values (or thresholds) for the natural key values that allow a given ecosystem to exist in a given stability domain. All the living beings making up the biosphere, including humankind, are subject to these biogeophysical limits.
This view underpins concepts such as the safe minimum standard of conservation or what is currently known as planetary boundaries and their ‘safe operating space’, comprising the range of values for certain variables (ozone layer depletion, loss of biosphere integrity, chemical pollution and the advent of novel entities, climate change, ocean acidification, fresh water consumption and water cycle alteration, land use changes, alterations to the nitrogen and phosphorous cycles, and increasing aerosols in the atmosphere) that typically configure the biosphere in which human beings can live, according to the best scientific knowledge available (Röckstrom et al., 2009). Any other configuration of these variables may lead to a new stability domain in the biosphere in which the ecological niche occupied by human beings would more or less dramatically restricted (drastic population decrease, mass migratory movements, etc.) or, in an extreme scenario, would disappear altogether (the Earth becoming uninhabitable by humans).
The study of these biogeophysical limits is closely linked to the discussion of the potential consequences that may result from extralimitation by human societies. In the contemporary era, this reflection was initially inspired by a number of texts published during the 1960s and 1970s stating that the hegemonic development path could come into conflict with these boundaries (Carson, 1962; Georgescu-Roegen, 1971; Meadows et al. 1972). Apart from titles like Silent Sprint (1962) by Rachel Carson, The Entropy Law and the Economic Process (1971) by Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, it is worth mentioning The Limits to Growth (1972), a report for the Club of Rome directed by Donella Meadows, whose conclusions stated that if the current growth rate was maintained unaltered in some of its variables (degree of industrialisation, demographic growth, food production, exhaustion of renewable resources and environmental pollution), humankind would face collapse during the 21st century, evidenced by a sudden decrease in population and industrial capacity. This paper received considerable criticism (Dobson, 2016), despite which it also facilitated the appearance of further reports examining in greater depth the relationship between economic development (dominantly understood as growth) and ecological extralimitation. In addition, the report encouraged institutions such as the OECD, the World Bank or the United Nations to draft ‘road maps’ for the concepts supporting the integration of sustainability and growth in a seemingly virtuous synthesis, in coincidence with the hegemony of dominant ideas on the economic plane, as was the case with the notions of ‘sustainable development’ (WCED, 1987) or ‘green growth’ (Hickel and Kallis, 2019).
The dispute about the meaning of the relationship between biogeophysical limits and growth was due in part to the emergence of positions some authors have named ecomodernism, environmental pragmatism or Promethean environmentalism (Asafu-Adjaye et al., 2015). In sum, a series of stances taking the view that policies limiting metabolic flows are unnecessary, given that technological innovation and economic development will allow human societies to face the challenges linked to sustainability. Thus, and in line with these stances, it is believed that the relative scarcity of resources should be reflected in their market prices, which however continue to decrease over time. Scarcity, therefore, is a fact that occurs at certain moments in history, but this same phenomenon will eventually spark the human ingenuity leading to discover new resources and energy sources. This is coherent with the dominant trend in economic thinking, according to which nature is conceived as a natural capital that yields benefits in the form of ecosystem services. Given the replaceable nature of capital, the solution to the exhaustion of certain ecosystem services would involve scientific and technological progress, allowing their replacement with other services with little trouble (Solow, 1973). Moreover, and with regard to pollution, it is argued that while certain causes of pollution increase at certain historic moments, as in the case of carbon dioxide and the tropospheric ozone, technology permits us to develop new forms of energy production that eliminate those sources of pollution or palliate their most damaging effects (Lomborg, 2020). In this sense, ecomodernists consider technological innovation and economic development as their best allies for achieving a “good Anthropocene”. Lastly, ecomodernists consider that certain tendencies, such as agricultural intensification or the concentration of population in cities, favour decoupling and dematerialisation processes that may reduce the human impact on ecosystems thanks to more efficient forms of social metabolism (Asafu-Adjaye et al., 2015), thus dismissing forms of social consciousness that aspire to voluntary simplicity and self-restraint.
Unsatisfied with these approaches to the problem of limits, a number of stances have cropped up questioning the possibility of making biogeophysical limits compatible with unlimited economic growth. All of these depart from the premise that infinite growth is incompatible with a world that is finite, that is, biogeophysically limited.
Some relevant examples can be found in the Post-Growth Theories (Jackson, 2023), that aim to generate welfare through redistribution, cooperation, social justice, ecological custody and simplicity in diverse forms; Steady-State Economics (Daly, 1991), based on the idea of sustaining, with minimum resources, a constant and long-lasting stock of capital and persons that does not clash with biogeophysical limits, but without necessarily questioning capitalism; Ecosocialist Steady-State Economics (Bellamy Foster, 2023), a proposal that departs from a socialist model and targets the end of capital accumulation, global redistribution of social surplus and reduction of waste; or de-growth, committed to reducing production and consumption by means of policies based on self-limitation, with fundamentally social and political solutions, and with a clear focus on a self-restraint ethic (Kallis, 2021).
All in all, some authors call for caution with regard to a constructivist interpretation of biogeophysical limits, as if these were merely an individual or collective political option, that is, the result of a choice between growth or some desirable mode of self-restraint (Kallis, 2021). Faced with such an interpretation, the mentioned authors appeal to the existence of external and quantifiable biogeophysical limits, which should be taken into account with a view to determining those political choices (Gómez-Bagghetun, 2022).
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