Figure 12.1.
Variability
of characteristic human
develop ment indicators
over the last centuries
12. Sustainable Development
281
Exponential growth is the driving force that is responsible for
our economy approaching the physical limits of our planet. Rooted
in human culture, exponential growth has become an inseparable
part of the global system.
The concept of exponential growth, simple on the face of it,
can produce surprising results if we look into what it means in our
everyday life. It can be illustrated by a Persian legend about the
wise courtier who gave his ruler a gift of wonderful chessboard.
When asked about a reward, he asked for grains of rice the number
of which would be doubled on every next square of the board. One
grain on the first square, two grains on the second, and on the tenth
square there should be already 512 grains, on the fifteenth – 16 384,
while the twenty-first square required over a million grains of rice.
Naturally, the ruler’s resources of rice were insufficient.
The number of human population and capital are the driving
forces that ensure the growth of the industrialised world. Other
parameters – food production, use of resources and pollution – also
show a trend of exponential growth, although not because they
themselves multiply but because of the impact of the human popu la-
tion and capital. Thus, food production and the use of resources and
energy have been increasing not because of their structural capacity
but because the exponential growth of human population demands
ever more food, materials and energy. It is the growing number of
population and capital that determine exponential growth. As they
increase, they call forth demands for materials and energy which, in
their turn, increase pollution emission. This is no arbitrary assump-
tion; it is a fact. Exponentially growing systems have a structural
nature, and the mechanism that determines growth is known and
comprehended. We have to bear in mind that human population
and capital as well as the supporting flows of energy and materials
have been increasing for centuries, with a few short-term lapses.
Production capital includes equipment, hardware, machines and
plants that are necessary to produce goods with the help of labour
force, energy, raw materials, land, water, technologies, management
and our planet’s natural ecosystems. Production capital creates an
incessant flow of production.
Changes in the nature of capital can be characterised by expo-
nen tial growth, exponential decrease or dynamic balance. Just like
the number of population depends on demographic changes in the
process of industrialisation, so is economy dependant on the process
of long-term changes. Production capital grows exponentially and
faster than the number of population. Between 1970 and 2008, the
world production volume has grown by almost 100%. Such a growth
should have produced twice as many industrial goods per person if
the number of population had remained constant. However, with the
282
ENVIRONMENT, POLLUTION, DEVELOPMENT: THE CASE OF UZBEKISTAN
growing human population, the average amount of industrial goods
per person has grown only by a third.
If the rate of capital growth exceeds that of population growth,
according to the demographic transition theory, an increase in the
material standard of living should slow down the rate of population
growth. To a certain extent and in some places this is true. However,
neither economic growth nor its demographic counteraction is
sufficiently fast. In individual cases these factors even facilitate each
other. That is why economic welfare dwindles while the number
of population remains constant or is on the increase. In a way, this
trend is determined by the type of distribution of goods.
Economic stratification of the world society is particularly
evident. The type of distribution of natural resources as well as
human-produced material and non-material wealth has created both
very well-to-do people and an extremely destitute part of society.
According to the World Bank estimates, an average income of one-
fifth of the world’s population is less than 0.7 euros per day. 70% of
these people are women.
The world’s twenty most developed countries, comprising ap-
proxi mately one-fifth of the world’s population, mostly are in North
America and Western Europe, and Japan, Singapore, Australia,
New Zealand, the United Arab Emirates and Israel also belong to
this group. Over three billion live in the poorest countries in Africa
and Asia. The gap between these two worlds is growing. The annual
income level of an average person in a world’s affluent country is
over 100 times higher than that of an average resident of a low-level
income country. The inequality gap is even more striking at the level
of individuals. The total wealth of the world’s 200 richest people
amounts to 0.7 trillion euros, which is more than possessed by the
three billion of world’s poorest people together.
The lifestyle of the well-off people has an essential impact on
the consumption of the world’s resources. For example, the USA
with its 5% of the world’s population consumes about one-fourth of
the world’s industrial goods and produces nearly half of industrial
waste. An American citizen’s average daily consumption comprises
450 kilograms of raw materials, including 18 kilograms of fossil
fuels, 12 kilograms of agricultural produce, 10 kilograms of timber
and paper, and 450 litres of water. Annually, Americans dispose
of 50 million tons of paper, 67 billion bottles, 18 billion pampers,
2 billion razor blades and other resources.
The economist Jeffrey Sachs, Director of the United Nations
Millennium Project, points out that eradication of extreme poverty
by 2025 is feasible if the developed countries donated just 0.7% of
their GNP towards aid to developing countries. These funds should
be used on vaccinating children against infectious diseases, ensuring
While all sectors of world
human activity have
witnessed huge develop‑
ment, social problems in
the world become more
vexing year after year:
every year over two
million children below
the age of 5 die of easily
preventable diseases;
every day 6000 children
die of diseases that are
related to the shortage
of clean drinking
water or poor living
conditions;
about two billion
people have no
electricity, another two
billion suffer from its
shortage;
since 1985, over seven
million people in
25 countries have died
of AIDS;
out of 1.2 billion
people who live in
extreme poverty,
around 900 million
reside in rural
regions; their survival
directly depends on
biodiversity, level of
water pollution and soil
degradation.
12. Sustainable Development
283
general accessibility to primary education, family planning services
for those who need them, provision of drinking water and sanitation,
food for the famine-stricken, and for strategic micro-loans to self-
employed people. This sum – 10 billion euros a year – is much bigger
than the current donations; however, the question is about the
priorities. At present, military expenditure exceeds 0.7 trillion euros
per year, which amounts to the annual income of half of the world’s
population. The price of an aircraft-carrier is tantamount to the sum
that all the industrially developed countries donate to aid developing
countries in ten years.
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