These are the CASSE blog articles on economic growth.
Religious groups have long been players in movements to create a better world, from the anti-apartheid and civil rights movements to initiatives on arms reduction, debt forgiveness, and divestment from fossil fuels. It makes sense that they are involved in the sustainability movement as well. Sustainability, including the effort to create a steady state economy, requires a shift in one’s worldview and values,
Think about the county where you live. Picture your favorite streets, event spaces, scenery, or terrain. If you’ve lived there awhile, chances are you know what makes it great: the natural, cultural, and commercial places whose characteristics make your community special to you and your neighbors.
Your connection to them becomes part of your sense of place. You delight in taking visiting family and friends to these special sites and you lament changes that threaten or despoil them.
The speed of economic growth hinges to a large extent on the supply of fossil fuel, especially of oil and gas, which depends in turn on pipeline capacity. Thus, if we are to turn the tide against economic growth, pipelines are a good strategic place to start. In what follows I focus on the fight against one pipeline in particular.
Spiderwebs of pipelines hold six continents in thrall to climate-wrecking,
Trends in human health have recently decoupled from GDP growth throughout the world. In other words, health improvement no longer tracks economic expansion. Meanwhile, environmental degradation remains firmly coupled to economic growth. As damages from economic growth mount globally, and as benefits fade, the case against further growth is stronger every day.
Within the USA, the case against economic growth is especially compelling, and not just because of the country’s massively disproportionate contribution to global ecological breakdown.
On August 14, Montana’s Supreme Court ruled that in light of Montanans’ constitutional right to a clean environment, the failure of state agencies to take climate change into account when considering new projects is illegal. This ruling, resulting from a lawsuit by 16 young people, is being followed up by a similar trial in Oregon—and another is pending in Hawaii. At a moment of legislative disappointment across the sustainability policy landscape,
One of the more puzzling features of modern life is the starkly contrasting visions of humanity’s near-term future. Watch thirty minutes of commercial-filled TV and you get a cheery sense that all is well in the world. A BMW, an anti-depressant, or a Caribbean vacation—these will ensure ever greater happiness.
At the same time, a 2021 poll in ten countries found that four in ten young people are hesitant to have children because of the climate crisis.
A chapter in the U.S. Code entitled “Statements to accompany significant regulatory actions” contains a critical directive. It declares that any notice of proposed rulemaking by a federal agency that may result in expenditures of $100,000,000 or more must be accompanied by an estimate of that rule’s effect on economic growth.
Take out your editor’s pen. Imagine amending this code by replacing “economic growth” with “economic stability.” How might this simple change transform the purpose and operation of federal laws?
Limits to growth are all around us. Global heating, resource shortages, and biodiversity collapse are linked at the hip with stagnating productivity, inflation, and crippling debt. Little by little, citizens and politicians are waking up to ecological limits and the economic linkages.
The awakening is painfully slow for those who have long lamented society’s obsession with growth. After all, economic growth entails a growing human population and ecological footprint,
The merits and proper uses of GDP—gross domestic product—have been debated with increasing frequency and intensity in recent years. Neoclassical economists continue to view a growing GDP as the sign of economic success and even social health. Conversely, ecologists who have studied the issue view a growing GDP as an alarming indicator of unsustainability at this point in history.
Meanwhile, a growing number of individuals and organizations in the post-growth community have proposed to eliminate GDP altogether,
In late summer of 2001 I moved from the USA to Canada, where my rose-colored glasses paradoxically made the grass look even greener. While President Bush had just reneged on the Kyoto Protocol, Prime Minister Chrétien stood by it, having been one of the first to sign. Two years later Chrétien withstood the pressure to join Bush’s disastrous war against Iraq.