PhDs in physics (thermodynamics of ecosystems), moral philosophy (animal rights) and economics (altruistic motivation and incentives for blood donation), co-founder of EA Belgium, environmental footprint analyst at Ecolife
Stijn Bruers 🔸
Karma: 929
one difficult to avoid cause of farm animal suffering are diseases that are caused by burdens of extreme growth. Meat animals grow too rapidly, which is unhealthy. So let’s say those animals have 50% less suffering from mutilations, diseases,...
Animal welfare certified meat is not a stepping stone to meat reduction or abolition
yes, good point
Thanks for the comments. Some quick replies
You can consider total instead of per capita CO2 emissions, but then I could also consider total instead of per capita welfare (life-satisfaction or well-being). Perhaps per capita life satisfaction doesn’t grow with income (Easterlin’s paradox), but total life satisfaction increases with population size (just like total emissions increase with population size in a decoupled economy with constant per capita emissions).
The decrease in emissions is not quick enough, but the question is what is the most effective way to make it quicker. As we already see some decoupling, further and faster decoupling seems feasible. We could make it faster, with more technological innovation. I don’t see much evidence that degrowth would result in faster emission reductions, given the fact that it seems hard to even start degrowth. No country voluntarily started degrowth so far. And to meet climate policy targets with only degrowth, degrowth not only has to start, but it also has to be very fast.
One reason to grow now is to have more money available for more scientific research to have more technological solutions to many problems such as climate change. Spending money on campaigns to have an economy with less money (i.e. degrowth campaigns to reduce GDP), seems to me more like a waste of money, that could have been used to fund research. (And not just a waste of money, but also in a sense a bit stealing and burning money.)
Other types of environmental damage are also a concern just like climate change, but as with climate change, no sufficient reason for degrowth. Environmental costs of rare metals can be included in the price, as a tax, just like a carbon tax. And the human rights violations can more effectively be addressed with appropriate international policy than with degrowth.
The more autocratic countries seem to lie more about their GDP, but this does not refute the usefulness of GDP. And as GDP positively correlates with many important measures (life expectancy,…), I don’t think it is so bad to not attempting to decrease GDP.
Thanks for the study about GDP and life satisfaction. On Easterlin’s paradox, this is an interesting read: https://forum.effectivealtruism.org/posts/coryFCkmcMKdJb7Pz/does-economic-growth-meaningfully-improve-well-being-an
Tariffs on polluting goods and severance taxes are proposed by degrowthers, but also by most mainstream economists, so I don’t consider them to be characteristic degrowth policies.
Giving parents less child care subsidies seems a bad idea to me, given some studies I recently heard about that free child care is probably at least as good (cost-effective) as direct cash transfers. Child care subsidies are good for household incomes (mothers can work more and earn higher income) and child development.
Taxing people from working too much hours: I think that basically comes down to the usual labor taxation we already have, especially in a progressive income taxation system. People who work more hours have higher incomes and hence higher marginal tax rates in a progressive system. That is basically taxing extra working hours.
Working less may indeed result in higher life satisfaction, but people can freely choose to work less, if they want such higher life satisfaction. But that also means they earn less, so they face a trade-off between money and life satisfaction. It is possible that people prefer more money above more life satisfaction. If this is the case, then from a preferentialist utilitarian perspective, it is better if people earn more money (hence higher GDP) than if they get a higher life satisfaction. Looking back at Easterlin’s paradox: a higher GDP results in more preference satisfaction than a higher life satisfaction does. So if preference satisfaction (and not life satisfaction) is what ultimately matters, growing GDP is good.
A carbon tax is indeed regressive, and a climate income (carbon fee and dividend) system is more progressive, but I’m not sure that such a system is more progressive than a system where the carbon tax income is for example used to fund clean tech R&D. It could be that clean tech R&D can more effectively reduce emissions and reduce climate change than a fee and dividend system. And if climate change harms the poorest people more (marginal damages or costs to people in poorest countries are highest), then reducing more climate change might be more progressive. So if you include future generations and people in poor countries, I’m not sure whether the “carbon fee and dividend” system is more progressive than a “carbon fee and clean tech R&D subsidies” system.
You can have population ethical theories that entail having fewer people is good, but they also often face very counter-intuitive implications. Negative utilitarianism could entail a preference for total extinction (through sterilization). I don’t see how contractarianism, Kantian ethics and libertarian ethics really entail having a smaller population is good.
See also this study (of mine): Bruers, S. (2022). The animal welfare cost of meat: evidence from a survey of hypothetical scenarios among Belgian consumers. Journal of Environmental Economics and Policy, 1-18.
Neither DICE nor calculations by Nordhaus were used in that study. Here I was not talking about the impact on GDP, but on the expected deaths from undernourishment, fluvial flooding,… (supplementary material figure 3) (These deaths were then used to calculate loss of economic welfare in monetary terms using the value of a statistical life, but that contestable step is not important here.)
According to this study, the excess deaths from temperature are much larger than the deaths from climate change related famines, floods,… I’m not sure if deaths from wars have to be included, because I would say the aggressor who starts the war is responsible for those deaths.
Just read the article by Parncutt about the 1000 tonne rule. Apparently, it is 1 death per 1000 tonnes of carbon, i.e. 1 death per 3700 tonnes of CO2, close to Bressler’s estimate
Thanks for referring to that study. That 1 death per 1000 tons is in the same order of magnitude of the 1 death per 4000 tons that I used based on Daniel Bressler’s study. So I think the main takeaways are still valid. But yes, there is a possibility that deaths from climate induced famines, wars,… are some orders of magnitude larger than deaths from temperature change
Not much is known about the impact of climate change on wild animals, so therefore I excluded it. It is very complicated. First, it could still be the case that at the expected level of warming, the decrease in cold deaths of wild animals could be larger than the increase in heat deaths. Less freezing days, but more heat waves and forest fires… Second, it might be the case that most wild animals have a net negative welfare and that climate change decreases population sizes, which means fewer animals with net negative welfare will be born, and that is good in the long run. Third, animals have a shorter lifespan and higher reproduction levels than humans, which means the identities of future born animals may be much more dependent on what we (CO2 emitting beings) do, compared to the influence of our actions on the identities of future born humans. Compare the world where we take climate measures with a business as usual world. Already after a few years you will see that those two worlds will contain different animals. That brings us to the difficult non-identity problem in population ethics. So… it becomes very complicated.
Hi Neil,
my meat-to-animal conversions were not based on Saja, but simply on the weight of edible meat produced by an animal. For chickens, I used the slightly more conservative value of 1.5 kg edible meat per broiler chicken, instead of Saja’s 2 kg. That means 1⁄1.5=0.66 animals/kg. Perhaps broiler chickens in the US grow heavier and are closer to Saja’s 2 kg per chicken?
Haven’t thought about using those other sources like Faunalitics. Thanks for mentioning it.
The deathprint of replacing beef by chicken and insect meat
On the correspondence between AI-misalignment and cognitive dissonance using a behavioral economics model
1: But how do you know when there is an acute blood shortage, when it is time for you to donate with high impact? You only know it when a blood bank actively communicates about it in order to increase donations, but then other potential donors will also be informed and become motivated to donate blood. Cfr blood shortage in New York after 9/11, donors were recruited by mass advertisement, and quickly there was an oversupply of blood. It is like on the stock market: if you don’t buy a share, someone else will, and it is difficult to know the good time when to buy or sell.
4: blood donation is not an effective means to collect blood parts such as protein that are in plasma, because the rest of the blood (e.g. the red blood cells) is waste. You can donate plasma more frequently. Plasma has a longer shelf life, can be traded internationally,… That means in general there is a chronic (global and local) undersupply of plasma (and plasma derived products), but no chronic undersupply of blood in high-income countries.
one point of criticism if this cost-effectiveness estimate: in high-income countries there is no substantial shortage of blood. In case of acute shortage, blood banks can easily recruit donors. So if you don’t donate and that results in a blood shortage of one unit, another donor is likely to step in. If you donate blood, you simply replace the donation: the other donor who would have donated in your place, will not be recruited. Your donation will not be an extra donation. Or in other words: blood donation has low additivity and blood supply is inelastic. The case for plasma might be different, as there is a global plasma undersupply. A plasma donation will not simply be a replacement of someone else’s donation. But I don’t know how many QALY’s you save by donating plasma.
Hi David,
sure, I’ve published an easier version, with more concrete examples and without jargon at my website: https://stijnbruers.wordpress.com/2022/08/23/mild-welfarism-avoiding-the-demandingness-of-totalitarian-welfarism/
I called the theory mild welfarism, hopefully that is not too much jargon? ;-)
Avoiding the demandingness of total welfarism with rights-based discounted welfarism
Should we herbivorize predators?
“As you mention, increases in efficiency tend to be followed by equal increases in consumption in society absent other incentives and policies. So it’s understandable that some people might think we need some limits on resource extraction.”>I think it is better to have limits on environmental impact. Price mechanisms such as a carbon tax can be used to counter rebound effects on environmental impacts.
“The 40 hour work week was once unthinkable. So were child labor laws. So was a ban on CFCs.”> Economic growth made these policies much more politically feasible.
“What if people had just given up?”>Anti-degrowth environmentalists are not saying we should give up. They say we should invest more in technological innovation.
“Technology does not develop in a political vacuum, and we would not have seen over 90% cost reductions in technologies like solar during the past 10 years without major investments and support from the Obama administration.”>These are points primarily used by anti-degrowth environmentalists to argue for the importance (effectiveness) of more government funding of clean tech innovation. Degrowth environmentalists, on the other hand, are more skeptical about the importance of such clean tech innovations: they prefer a shrinking economy, where we have less money available for technological research. Looking at degrowth thinkers, organizations, panels and declarations, you don’t see a promotion of increased clean tech innovation funding. It is definitely not a top policy proposal. What you do see, is an explicit rejection (proposal to ban) of some technologies such as genetic modification, nuclear power and nanotechnology, a moratorium on techno-scientific research, an orientation research toward low-tech research and convivial tools, raising awareness about “technological addiction”, opposing digital technologies in education. These are not really helping the acceleration of clean tech innovation.
“Reducing carbon emissions is an example of “degrowth” in one sector of the economy.”> The energy sector can still grow, even when decarbonizing.“The wealthiest 10% of the world are responsible for over half of emissions in 2015.”> But they own 85% of the wealth. Hence, per unit of wealth, they emit less. Suppose you had a policy that annihilates 85% of global wealth, namely all the wealth owned by the richest 10%. The richest 10% can no longer consume anything. That would only reduce emissions with 50%. With clean tech innovation, we can reduce more than 50% of emissions, without such politically unfeasible policies as 85% wealth reduction.
“And we know that happiness barely increases above $75,000 a year,”>Environmental impact also shows such a diminishing marginal effect. Above a certain income, someone’s environmental footprint barely increases when income increases. Richer people have a higher propensity to save than to consume. In high income countries, we see that an increasing income over time even correlates with reduced CO2 emissions (absolute decoupling). Cfr environmental Kuznets curve.
“so is rising GDP really benefiting most people when it mainly goes to the top 10%?”> The rising CO2 emissions mainly go to the bottom 90%...
“For example, banning all new fossil fuel extraction and creating a carbon tax that is used to fund clean energy jobs”>This is not specifically a degrowth policy proposal. Anti-degrowth environmentalists also favor such proposals. Such proposals are compatible with economic growth.
“Most people would prefer to work less so that they can spend more time with friends, family, and passion projects.”>They can choose to do so, in a free market. At least when the labor market is competitive and flexible enough, such that it is easier to chose a job that has less working hours. Instead of degrowth regulations (e.g. maximum work hours per week), it is more effective to increase job flexibility.“and hoping for the best with technology investments.”>You can also say that degrowth environmentalists hope for the best with degrowth campaigns, with income and working hour regulations,…
“1. Why shouldn’t we set sustainable limits on resource extraction and continue to invest in technology?”> Sure, let’s do that. But only set limits on resource extraction when that resource extraction really correspond with environmental impact. What would be the sustainable limit for energy use? Suppose you set a limit on energy use per capita. e.g. 50 kWh per day per person. Now I invent a clean technology, namely feasible nuclear fusion, that can generate trillions of kWh per day. Is my invention not allowed, merely because you chose a limit of 50 kWh/day/person?“Why is ignoring the possibility of running out of resources and betting everything on innovating our way out of all of those limits within a few decades better than a more careful approach?”>If you prefer degrowth, then why do we not have a degrowth world? Why don’t you just make the global economy degrow? Perhaps it is difficult, but then you are betting on feasibility of changing the global economy. In the end, we are interested in cost-effectiveness. Which policy campaigns are most cost-effective: a campaign for degrowth with e.g. income and working hour regulations, or a campaign for increased government funding for clean tech R&D (funded by a carbon tax or an income tax)? Suppose the economy (GDP) grows, and only 1% of the extra income is taxed. This should be extremely feasible. If these tax revenues go to clean tech R&D, we double funding for R&D, which could almost double tech innovation, which could almost double the speed to implement these technologies. We saw a 25% reduction in consumption-based per capita CO2 emissions in dozens of high-income countries in 15 years. Imagine we have in 15 years a 50% reduction…
“There are plenty of people who chop down an entire forest today for a quick buck rather than harvest sustainably in perpetuity, even if the latter would generate more wealth in the long run.”>Why would they chop down the forest so quickly? Because the interest rate is high. But that basically means the marginal productivity of capital is high. Selling the wood and investing in capital, might be the most efficient (productive). Once marginal productivity of capital declines, a lower harvest rate would become optimal. In other words: there is not necessarily a market failure when chopping down a forest. But you may refer to the real underlying market failure: the decrease in a public good such as biodiversity. The most effective policy interventions to solve that problem of biodiversity loss due to clearcutting too much forests, is a taxation, and funding tech innovation to have better alternatives than wood (substitutes for wood).
“2. A lot of people would rather have more time and meaningful work than money. Why should we ignore their preferences”> Why would they not simply choose to work less, if that is what they prefer? Whatever the reason you come up with, I honestly don’t think that economic growth is the main obstacle or reason why they are not so able to choose fewer working hours and more leisure time. In contrast: we do see a negative correlation between economic growth and working hours: a higher GDP correlates with fewer working hours.
“3. It’s not clear to me that all increases in growth and consumption necessarily mean greater happiness, creativity, and innovation forever.”> And it is not clear to me that all decreases in growth and consumption necessarily mean lower CO2 emissions and environmental impacts.
“Why not reduce certain kinds of consumption and use those resources to increase investments in innovation?”> Sure, but that is not incompatible with economic growth.
fully agree, one of the many limitations of using a survey to test the stepping stone model.