Economic decoupling
From Envirowiki
economic decoupling is the idea that economic growth can be separated from environmental destruction (often referring to climate change). However, it is not possible to decouple economic growth from some combination of growth in labour, materials, or energy.
The growth economy ideal is a fallacy: the earth is limited in its physical resources, as well as its energy resources (the earth's energy is provided more or less directly from the sun). The economy, being nothing more than a function of human social systems, is as limited, or more limited by the earth's resources as human society is. At some point, a growth economy will hit the total limit of these resources and energy. Long before that, other more minor limits will be hit. Climate change is the first, and most important, of these on a global scale (over fishing is another example).
It is possible to make the conversion to wealth more efficient (which is a partial decoupling), however there is a well recognised effect in economics, called "Jevon's Paradox", whereby increasing the efficiency of material or energy functionally increases the supply of that resource. This leads to a decrease in the price, and a subsequent increase in demand, and the overall use of of the resource goes up. In the case of climate change, increasing the efficiency of carbon-producing industries may increase the overall carbon emissions.
