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Is Decoupling GDP Growth from Environmental Impact Possible?

ABSTRACT: The argument that human society can decouple economic growth-defined as growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP)-from growth in environmental impacts is appealing. If such decoupling is possible, it means that GDP growth is a sustainable societal goal. Here we show that the decoupling concept can be interpreted using an easily understood model of economic growth and environmental impact. The simple model is compared to historical data and modelled projections to demonstrate that growth in GDP ultimately cannot be decoupled from growth in material and energy use. It is therefore misleading to develop growth-oriented policy around the expectation that decoupling is possible. We also note that GDP is increasingly seen as a poor proxy for societal wellbeing. GDP growth is therefore a questionable societal goal. Society can sustainably improve wellbeing, including the wellbeing of its natural assets, but only by discarding GDP growth as the goal in favor of more comprehensive measures of societal wellbeing.

SUBMITTER: Ward JD

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5065220 | biostudies-other | 2016

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-other

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Is Decoupling GDP Growth from Environmental Impact Possible?

Ward James D JD Sutton Paul C PC Sutton Paul C PC Werner Adrian D AD Costanza Robert R Mohr Steve H SH Simmons Craig T CT

PloS one 20161014 10

The argument that human society can decouple economic growth-defined as growth in Gross Domestic Product (GDP)-from growth in environmental impacts is appealing. If such decoupling is possible, it means that GDP growth is a sustainable societal goal. Here we show that the decoupling concept can be interpreted using an easily understood model of economic growth and environmental impact. The simple model is compared to historical data and modelled projections to demonstrate that growth in GDP ulti ...[more]

PMID: 27741300

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Project description:Pursuing a responsible and sustainable development, the United Nations urged to decouple economic growth from environmental impacts. Several European Union (EU) policies have been implemented towards such goal. Although multiple authors have evaluated the decoupling of the economic growth from the resource use or environmental concerns, the environmental assessment mostly focused on pressures rather than impacts, and used single indicators assumed to be a proxy of the overall effects on the environment. Furthermore, no studies were found using a process-based life cycle approach to quantify the environmental impacts of consumption. To solve such research gap, this paper assesses the decoupling in the EU focusing on potential environmental impacts, complementing a production-based approach with two options for accounting for the impacts of consumption. The aim of this paper is to evaluate the decoupling of the economic growth (in terms of Gross Domestic Product) from the environmental impacts due to EU-28 consumption, assessed by means of life cycle assessment (LCA). The decoupling is then assessed in impact terms rather than limited to pressures by using the Environmental Footprint (EF2017) indicators, which allows assessing 16 different impacts. The Consumption Footprint indicator quantified the environmental impacts of EU apparent consumption, including the territorial impacts (Domestic Footprint) and the embodied impacts in both imports and exports (Trade Footprint). The inventory of pressures for the trade component is compiled either with a bottom-up approach (process-based LCA of representative traded goods) or a top-down approach (input-output-based LCA). Methodological aspects influencing the decoupling assessment and the resulting outputs are presented and discussed. According to the results, the environmental impacts of EU-28 consumption showed decoupling during the last decades (2005-2014), between relative to absolute decoupling depending on the inventory modeling approach taken. Some countries showed higher decoupling levels than others displaying a heterogeneous map of EU-28 decoupling, which was led by acidification, particulate matter, land use and eutrophication impacts. Notwithstanding current limitations, the assessment of decoupling using consumption-based environmental indicators is very promising for supporting policy-making towards addressing the actual impacts driven by the EU production and consumption system.

Project description:Quantitative models describing environmentally-mediated disease transmission rarely focus on the independent contribution of recruitment and the environment on the force of infection driving outbreaks. In this study we attempt to investigate the interaction between external factors and host's population dynamics in determining the outbreaks of some indirectly transmitted diseases. We first built deterministic and stochastic compartmental models based on anthrax which were parameterized using information from literature and complemented with field observations. Our force of infection function was derived modeling the number of successful transmission encounters as a pure birth process that depends on the pathogen's dispersion effort. After accounting for individual heterogeneity in pathogen's dispersion effort, we allowed the force of infection to vary seasonally according to external factors recreating a scenario in which disease transmission increases in response to an environmental variable. Using simulations we demonstrate that anthrax disease dynamics in mid-latitude grasslands is decoupled from hosts population dynamics. When seasonal forcing was ignored, outbreaks matched hosts reproductive events, a scenario that is not realistic in nature. Instead, when allowing the force of infection to vary seasonally, outbreaks were only present in years were environmental variables were appropriate for the outbreaks to develop. We used the stochastic formulation of the force of infection to derive R0 under scenarios with different assumptions. The derivation of R0 allowed us to conclude that during epizootic years, pathogen contribution to disease persistence is nearly independent of dispersion. In endemic years, only pathogens with high dispersion significantly prevent disease extinction. Finally, we used our model in a maximum likelihood framework to estimate the parameters that determined a significant anthrax outbreak in Montana in 2008. Our study highlights the importance of the environment in determining anthrax outbreak intensity and could be useful to predict future events that could result in significant wildlife and domestic livestock losses.

Project description:Exposure to cigarette smoke is a leading cause of lung diseases including chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and cancer. Cigarette smoke is a complex aerosol containing over 6000 chemicals, and thus it is difficult to determine individual contributions to overall toxicity, and the molecular mechanisms by which smoke constituents exert their effects. We selected three well-known harmful and potentially harmful constituents (HPHCs) in tobacco smoke: acrolein, formaldehyde and catechol and established a High Content Screening (HCS) method using normal human bronchial epithelial cells, which are the first bronchial cells in contact with cigarette smoke. The impact of each HPHC was investigated using 13 multi-parametric indicators of cellular toxicity and complemented with a microarray-based whole transcriptome analysis followed by a computational approach leveraging mechanistic network models to identify and quantify perturbed molecular pathways. HPHCs were evaluated over a wide range of concentrations and at different exposure time points (4 h, 8 h, and 24 h). By High Content Screening, the toxic effects of the three HPHCs could only be observed at the highest doses. Whole genome transcriptomics unraveled toxicity mechanisms at lower doses and earlier time points. The most prevalent toxicity mechanisms observed were: DNA damage/growth arrest, oxidative stress, mitochondrial stress and apoptosis/necrosis. In summary, combination of multiple toxicological endpoints with a systems-based impact assessment allows for a more robust scientific basis for the toxicological assessment of HPHCs that allows insight into time- and dose-dependent molecular perturbations of specific biological pathways. This approach allowed us to establish an in vitro Systems Toxicology platform that can be applied to a broader selection of HPHCs and their mixtures and can serve more generally as the basis for testing the impact of other environmental toxicants on normal bronchial epithelial cells.

Dataset Information

Is Decoupling GDP Growth from Environmental Impact Possible?

Publications

Is Decoupling GDP Growth from Environmental Impact Possible?

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