Beyond IPAT and Kuznets curves: Globalization as a vital factor in analysing the environmental impact of socio-economic metabolism

We bring the rapidly developing tools for analyzing "society's metabolism" to the attention of a scientific audience concerned with matters of populat ion and, in a complementary fashion, we draw the attention of material and energy flow analysts to the role of population and population dynamics with in their own paradigm. As an analytic framework, we use the classic "IPAT-m odel" that relates environmental impact (I), population (P), affluence (A), and technology (T). We relate the]PAT model to the tool commonly used in M FA, so-called environmental Kuznets curves, and re-analyze empirical data f rom various sources, for both affluent industrial and for developing countr ies, within these frameworks. We conclude that population and technology se em to dominate over affluence as far as environmental impact is concerned, but that both the [PAT and Kuznets models fail to take into account the int ricate interdependencies among different socio-economic systems and the inc reases in their the economic, material and population exchanges. In effect, both models tend to underestimate the environmental impact and create too optimistic an image of "dematerialization" in affluent industrial countries .