Andrew Simms - Author, Cancel the Apocalypse HARDtalk

these figures being released, the price increased again.

Welcome to HARDtalk. Economic growth and how to get it dominates

the political agenda in countries across the globe, from China with a

few it is slowing, to Europe, where there seemed to have none at all.

Without growth, had to be climbed back out of the mess in which the

financial crash put us in? Harder those parts of the world where

basic needs for food, water and shorter have not been that has any

chance of a better future? -- shelter. Andrew Simms things we are

asking the wrong question. They advocate of economic growth fails

to explain how an ever-expanding economy can be sustained if we

carry on as we are, we are heading to the apocalypse. What is his

Andrew Simms, welcome. What is wrong with growth. One of the

problems is it measures the quantity and not quality. If you

have something like a crime wave or epidemic or riot, the money spent

on health services and cleaning up and security would look good in the

growth figures. But that would be no indication of whether Law

Society was succeeding or on a personal level, imagine we got on a

Sunday morning. I had a choice of going for a walk in the fresh

spring air, getting in a car, getting stuck in gridlock, going to

a DIY shop to buy some chemical drain cleaner. According to the

growth figures, I would be happier getting stuck in traffic then

walking in my part. That is how it measures whether an economy is

doing well. It does not make sense. It does not really be that all

growth is bad. No. There are many different types of growth.

Depending on the pattern of economic captivity. They can be

more or less jobs, pollution. It can come in circumstances of

suppression of human rights or to social freedom. These are the

important questions to ask. What are we trying to achieve with the

economy? How should we measure that success? You point out that the

quality of economic growth is important. Economic growth is about

adding up the goods and services in and out of an economy, coming up

with something better than it was yesterday, last week, last month,

last year. It can be positive development. In developing

countries, I can cope for it to you a former chief economist, countries

with higher GDP growth results in law mortality. Running water,

sewage systems, better schools and education for children. With wood

stoves, the air is clear of smoke. Although just come from economic

growth. We have to make two distinctions. Growth works

differently in countries like the UK and the US and developing

countries where basic needs are not met. If you are tackling poverty in

a developing country, but would almost certainly accompany economic

growth. In rich countries where we have passed thresholds already, for

the last few decades, economic growth has been delayed from rising

levels of human well-being and life satisfaction. Really? You are

saying everybody in a country like the US and UK already has so much

of the benefits of growth that they no longer get benefit from any

further growth? It is a consistent pattern across most advanced

industrialised economies that for the last few decades, as growth has

gone up, life satisfaction has flat land. In some places, it has gone

down. You might take a different situation in a country with --

where David Mead are not met. If you are getting people into work

and 50 people out of poverty, you are getting levels of increase of

GDP. What is the connection between the two. I do not people will

disagree with you that growth is not the only thing that matters

that the hummer other ways of pursuing satisfaction. Let me quote

From -- he is talking about the importance and lardy of life in

society. He says economic growth may be a necessary condition for

the relief of poverty. Big is enough on its own but it is a

necessary condition. Do you accept that? None of these good things can

be achieved without economic growth. How can everybody collectively in

the world survive and thrive? Working within the tolerance levels

of the biosphere and life-support systems we have. If we get to that

stage if we had economic growth? back to Adam Smith, John Stuart

Mill. They imagined, 150 years ago, the more advanced economies were

concerned, they were up to the level of material comfort they

needed. But society would develop in other ways. So they were wrong

about that? Things went on. Now we are against the buffers of our

ecological threshold. Look at the number of people being lifted out

of absolute poverty over the last few decades. Statistically, China

accounts for the entire number of people lifted out of poverty. But

even in China, depended on exploiting natural resources

outside its boundaries, because it does not have enough itself, even

there, a report that came... Lead before officials saw it, estimated

three-quarters of one million people per year die prematurely as

a consequence of pollution. How do we achieve in the development while

working within the biosphere's tolerance levels. If we undermined

those fundamental life-support systems, you are not being a front

of the poor in any country. On that basis, there are ways showing that

improvements can come about with economic growth. Because of the

consequence of economic growth, it actually reduces the strain. For

example, population growth. They are statistics that suggest

population growth has declined as countries have become wealthier.

Brazil, average size of the family, 6.2% in 1960. Now 1.8%. I quit the

former Chief economist. Girls receive more education. The riches

of economic growth. It is absolutely the case. People find

their livelihoods are more secure. Victualler to raid struck off the

cliff. There is something slightly misleading there. If you compare

for example a typical individual in North America or the UK and look at

the greenhouse gas emissions, and take one year, starting from the

stroke of midnight, if you live in view as from January 2nd, you will

have accounted for the same greenhouse gas emissions that

somebody in Tanzania would emit over the course of an entire year.

One measure. This is fundamental. This is one of the dominoes which

when it topples, knocks on to all the life-support systems. Food,

farming, Forest, Fisheries. The very basis on which our live with

the band. If you get past the point of no return, he gets hit first and

worst? People who are the poorest living in the most marginal land.

That is the argument for saying we need for economic growth in other

parts of the globe. The question is, how do we stay the right side of

going beyond the point of no return in some of these critical support

systems? Can that be achieved? Another environmental economist

once famously said that in terms of how we can improve by efficiency,

you can sure enough it further down the food chain but you cannot eat

menus. This is the problem. How do we share the available

environmental space upon which our economies depend in such a way that

we all stand a good chance of leading a decent quality of life?

Not so long ago, there was a leader. He spoke as if he should your

perspective. The rate, the pursuit of wealth is no longer as it was to

hit people's hopes and aspirations. Of the consumption of resources

cannot for this fight our in borders buyers. The quarter of life

means more than quantity of money. You could those words from David

Cameron. And then be speech he made three years later, when he had

indeed come to power. He said, it is a new year. The coalition

government has one resolution, to help drive growth. Where did he go

wrong? By getting elected, David Cameron said it had four in

opposition. In fact, he was echoing the words of another once head for

a politician, Robert Kennedy. Half a century ago, the thing about GDP,

it measures everything apart from that that makes life truly

worthwhile. David Cameron came from an idea of general well being, an

equal indicator that should direct our economics policies. You are

saying that is not compatible with being an elected politician in

power? It is not compatible with some of the choices are made all

been in a force. There is a great mistake. -- Office. There was a

moment around the time of the financial crisis in the 2007, 28

back. Many economies that had been Systems

Systems fell into great difficulty. The US and UK were two of the

leading examples. There was an opportunity to have a multiple

winner, to stabilise the economy, to get good quality economic

activity to create jobs. It would have been through green stem this

spending. Cut a cyclical investment to invest in green energy and green

transport. Increasing the energy efficiency of our building stock.

But could have achieved more carbon emissions, more jobs, greater

energy security. It would maintain the economy. That was an

opportunity in some countries missed. Other countries took it.

South Korea did it well. But not other places? Knocked Europe, not

the US. The best emerging economies in your opinion. Not withstanding

getting elected, it simply came up against reality. An economy that

Nick Bailey is not growing but has been shrinking. At the end of this

week, we will find out whether the British economy has struck again in

to seize what is described as a triple dip recession. British

politicians are nervous about it. Presumably, you would actually see

it as good news. It is an odd reality they are facing. You take

an organisation like the Labour Organisation, which sees 60 million

drugs in the Queen, sectors. -- I'm not asking about them. What

would you think. Would it be a good thing if we go back to recession?

Economic growth is similar to the IDs he would achieved. Recession is

neither here nor there. It is for many people. You have not got a job

and you cannot face prospect of having to pay -- let me make a

point. How do you deal for the practicality for people who are not

living in this degree of uncertainty his life prospects may

be negative. You are saying economic growth is a bad thing for

them and for what they are sitting, it is beefing it makes a difference

between a decent quality of life and a miserable existence. Growth

has failed many of those people. If you look at wage levels among the

income brackets, growth has failed globally. Tricking benefits killer

was income bracket. Even in richer Why have you not been able to

persuade people of how this was this is? It is a default position

to look at how growth has gone up by. It is nonsense to look at that.

We need to look at what it is but we want to achieve. If people want

nor energy bills and a jobs and not the few of going into another

resource driven conflict, the answer is to re-engineer euro

economies with something like a green deal to create jobs. Take a

Baker which a bank. If you invest in a renewable energy driven

economy rather than having a fossil fuel for nuclear power one that is

decentralised, pound-for-pound. For - what dollar for dollar, you will

create more jobs. If you would homes for pensions, look at the

renewal will energy sector. Developed infrastructure that pays

You have talked about alternative growth. What effect it will have on

our well-being. How are they determined? Who decide and how do

they decide if these things need your objective? You talk about a

wind farm. That could pass your first Test on impact on the

biosphere. It may not be detrimental to Bolton -- equality.

But it may be to my will be in if I live next to it. I might not like

the noise. I might find my quality of life deteriorates. Who weighs

that in the balance? Who decides if my view counts or doesn't? Straight

forward statistically, whether something goes up on -- or down

based on that, there are many ways of measuring it. Sometimes observed

in linear cause and effect is not straightforward. For example, if

you do not go down a safe energy -- track, you get high energy prices,

global instability. You don't have a job to go to. Those things

undermine your well-being. You are saying my well-being as I perceive

it, I should be ignored? You may say, you may not like it but tough.

Absolutely not! But if you are not saying that... Every society has to

make democratic choices. Well, they have been made! That is why David

Cameron is saying, Surrey. raise an interesting example about

windmills. If you go to an area where old forms of doing business

have started to fail the people, you take full farmers are amongst

Welsh farming communities, there is an awful lot made about what impact

they might have. But there are quite a few communities there where

farmers who could no longer make a living from their hill farms want

to see wind turbines put up. The people who object are the second

home owning incomers from another place. Perhaps we want to pop out

for a weekend from London. These require balancing. But we do have

ways of measuring alternative ways -- alternative ways to measure

success or failure. We could get into an interesting argument about

who dislikes windmills or not and who dislikes having them next to

them. You might have used on that, I am sure the audience would. But

it might be more productive to ask this. There are theories that are

quite entertaining renewed talk about them in a television studio

and they make quite a good reading a book but they are not practical

and will never actually happened. The problem with much of this

debate is, and probably very frustrating for you, is that it

won't happen. Renewed talk about practicality and whether things

will happen, I notice that in the most recent economic Outlook, they

are expecting to see something like a three. We global growth next year.

-- when you talk. That means in 20 years, the global economy would

have doubled. We are already using about 1.5 planets worth globally of

the ecosystem services on which we depend. I predict it is entirely

unrealistic and impractical to think that we can continue in the

way that we are. If we wish to preserve the climatic conditions in

which civilisation emerged. Those are the words used by the leading

climate scientists from a NASA mac. We are because -- cost of losing

the climatic conditions upon our livelihood depends. What is the

plan to get us to the right side of the danger zone? As you say in this

book, a simple historical fact, human beings have an amazing

ability to change and adapt. But you are worried about the kinds of

adaptations but to at least accept we have the capacity to do that. A

practical example. The extraction of shale gas. Fracking. Very

interesting. When the government encouraged it, you published an

article saying we can't afford to invest in fracking. Why not? One of

the reasons it is another fossil fuel, it locks us into a fossil

fuel based infrastructure. An example by Cambridge... It is but

in the absence of other fuels that we can go to in the big scale, at

least it has less impact. There is not an absence of other

technologies. A study by Cambridge made the point that if you invested

similarly in offshore... A combination of offshore and onshore

wind, it would generate potentially 100,000 jobs. I have seen that

article. I would say there are alternatives. What happens when the

wind doesn't blow? You have to have an alternative supplier. Therefore

you are into education. The good thing about renewable energy is

when you have a combination over -- spread over a large geographical

area and, something that works well in the day, wind that works well in

the night, a grid network that can pick up the slack across a large

area, in many ways renewables can be more reliable. There could be a

time when a network of nuclear power stations have gone down and

have had to be bailed out. We are talking about extraction of shale

gas. In for 2011 it was said that fracking has reduced the emission

of greenhouse gases. Do you accept that? Gas can definitely play apart

as a transition to a lower carbon future. What is the problem with

fracking? For one thing, it's a very energy intensive and

inefficient use of fossil fuels. Let me say what you wrote in his

article. In 2013, we will have a repeat in energy policy of the

folly of the reckless and rational approach to finance and banking.

How is this reckless? That is absolutely the case. It is reckless

because we have a very short window of time in which to lay the

foundations, rewire and economies, get the infrastructure in place.

How does that compare with banking and finance? Because there are

fundamental mistakes made about reading the signs of risk. There is

an interesting... A great statistician... I don't want to go

into him. I want to ask you this. Isn't the problem you face that in

the frustration to deal with the fact that politicians and political

leaders and the rest of us have not taken seriously the concerns

expressed, that you fall back on not argument but exaggeration?

There's no exaggeration in any of this. The his book is called

'Cancel the Apocalypse'. What Apocalypse? -- this book. If the

best signs we have available is right and we have no reason to

believe it is not, we have a terrifying we short window of a few

years to avoid the point after which the environment will dominoes

begin to fall. There's no sound signs that tells us the opposite is

the case. Let me put to you...I understand it is difficult and

there are reputation will risks in predicting the apocalypse. After

last year when we had various crazy readings of ancient calendars and

readings from the Bible, people were saying... People make jokes

about the Apocalypse like there's no tomorrow. But bad things do

happen. In the history of life of this earth, they have been a series

of mass extinction events. Are we heading for mass extinction now?

Are we are living through what scientists call an mass extinction

event. Climate change is progressing ten times at the rate

that it did previously. I fear time may be running out for his

programme. It is all about problem. Fair enough. It was observed in an

interview in 2010 that the facts environmentalists thought would

convince everybody to change their progress -- actions. The next was

the apocalypse. Society would fall apart. It is that use of fear that

is the main indicator of this. You are up -- is threatening the

Apocalypse the only way to convince us to abandon African economic

growth? You have misread my approach. The book is called

'Cancel the Apocalypse'. -- economic growth. And our ability to

dig ourselves out of this. If we ignore the signs, if we willfully

ignore the signs that threaten our ability to we joy and flourish and

prosper as a civilisation, we will only have ourselves to blame. But I

think we have the techniques, technology and human a ingenuity to