Limits to growth, planetary boundaries, and planetary health

dc.contributor.authorButler, Colin
dc.date.accessioned2021-07-29T23:23:17Z
dc.date.issued2017
dc.date.updated2020-11-23T10:45:38Z
dc.description.abstractAn overview of the ‘Limits to Growth’ debate is provided, from Malthus to Planetary Boundaries and the Planetary Health Commission. I argue that a combination of vested interests, inequalities, and cognitive impediments disguise the seriousness of our collective proximity to limits. Cognitive factors include an increasingly urbanized population heavily in denial through declining exposure to nature, incompletely substituted by the rise of simulated, digital and filmed reality.Following prominence in the 1960s and early 1970s, fears of Limits to Growth diminished as the oil price declined and as the Green Revolution expanded agricultural productivity. While public health catastrophes have occurred which can be conceptualised as arising from the exceedance of local boundaries, including that of tolerance (e.g. the 1994 Rwandan genocide), these have mostly been considered temporary aberrations, of limited significance.Another example is the devastating Syrian civil war. However, rather than an outlier, this conflict can be analysed as an example of interacting eco-social causes, related to aspects of limits to growth, including climate change and aquifer depletion. To view the ‘root causes’ of the Syrian tragedy as overwhelmingly or even exclusively social, leaves civilization vulnerable to many additional disasters, including in the Sahel, elsewhere in the Middle East, and perhaps, within decades, globally.An aspect of the Limits to Growth debate that was briefly prominent was ‘peak oil’. Fear of this has fallen with the oil price. But this does not mean that Limits to Growth are fanciful or will apply only in the far future, even if (which seems unlikely) the oil price remains low. The proximity of dangerous climate change is the starkest example of an imminent environmental limit; other examples include declining reserves of phosphorus and rare elements. Crucially, human responses have the capacity to accelerate or delay the consequences of these limits. Greater understanding of these issues is vital for enduring population health, globally.en_AU
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen_AU
dc.identifier.issn1877-3435en_AU
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/1885/241602
dc.language.isoen_AUen_AU
dc.publisherElsevieren_AU
dc.rights© 2017 Elsevier Ltden_AU
dc.sourceCurrent Opinion in Environmental Sustainabilityen_AU
dc.titleLimits to growth, planetary boundaries, and planetary healthen_AU
dc.typeJournal articleen_AU
local.bibliographicCitation.lastpage65en_AU
local.bibliographicCitation.startpage59en_AU
local.contributor.affiliationButler, Colin, College of Health and Medicine, ANUen_AU
local.contributor.authoremailu9805767@anu.edu.auen_AU
local.contributor.authoruidButler, Colin, u9805767en_AU
local.description.embargo2099-12-31
local.description.notesImported from ARIESen_AU
local.identifier.absfor111706 - Epidemiologyen_AU
local.identifier.absseo920204 - Evaluation of Health Outcomesen_AU
local.identifier.ariespublicationu4492120xPUB175en_AU
local.identifier.citationvolume25en_AU
local.identifier.doi10.1016/j.cosust.2017.08.002en_AU
local.identifier.scopusID2-s2.0-85029054484
local.identifier.uidSubmittedByu4492120en_AU
local.publisher.urlhttps://www.elsevier.com/en-auen_AU
local.type.statusPublished Versionen_AU

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