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The Great Disruption Paul Gilding, Professor, Cambridge University Program for Sustainability Leadership Richard Heinberg, Senior Fellow, Post Carbon Institute Growth as we\u2019ve known it is over, say Paul Gilding and Richard Heinberg. \u201cThe idea that we can keep on growing the economy up against the physical limits of the Earth\u201d \u2013 water, oil, and land \u2013 \u201cis not physically possible,\u201d says Gilding, author, The Great Disruption. \u201cWe\u2019re in a trap really. If we grow the economy, then we\u2019ll hit those limits again. Prices will go up. Oil prices will go up. Food prices will go up. And the economy will go down,\u201d he says. \u201cIf we don\u2019t grow the economy, we\u2019re going to drown in debt. We\u2019re going to take a while to find our way out of this morass that we\u2019ve dug ourselves into.\u201d Richard Heinberg, author, The End of Growth, has written that it took decades for nominal GDP to recover after the Great Depression. But the fallout of the Great Recession, he says, will be much worse. \u201cI don\u2019t think we\u2019ll ever see growth the way we experienced during the decades of the 20th century.\u201d \u201cWe have to create an economy that exists within nature\u2019s limits,\u201d he says. \u201cWe\u2019ve been borrowing from the past, by way of fossil fuels. We\u2019re also borrowing from future generations, by way of debt \u2013 all so that we can consumer as much as possible right now.\u201d Gilding highlights one industry, solar, for which projections are increasingly optimistic. Globally, the industry is growing 40% each year, he notes, and every time the industry doubles, the price per watt falls by 20%. By 2020, he expects solar to be cheaper than coal. That\u2019s not to say that energy incumbents will be easily swept aside. Oil firms are using every known trick, and developing more, to secure new deposits, Heinberg says: \u201cWe\u2019re getting better and better at scraping the bottom of the barrel.\u201d\u201cThey are fighting tooth and nail,\u201d says Paul Gilding. \u201cThey are going to do whatever it takes to defend their cash. It\u2019s up to government to overcome that, and to have the courage to stare them down and to enforce the change.\u201d Such a stand is underway in Gilding\u2019s native Australia, where parliament just passed legislation placing a price on carbon. Yes, the legislation is a compromise, with some carve-outs for energy-intensive industries, says Gilding, but \u201cthe key thing is that we\u2019re going to cross that dreaded line that you haven\u2019t crossed yet, which is that we\u2019re saying nationally: you have to deal with the issue.\u201d \u201cI think our country has a larger capacity for denial,\u201d says Richard Heinberg, an understatement that draws laughs. \u201cI think we\u2019re going to have to hit the wall before we see fundamental change.\u201d This program was recorded in front of a live audience at The Commonwealth Club in San francisco on November 7, 2011\nLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices