limits to growth

Post Peak Minsky—Debt, Unsustainability, and Inequality

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If we truly want to increase equality, then, it will have to be created at a sustainable level, and thus ones much lower than that enjoyed by the rich, middle-classes, and even workers of advanced industrial nations alike.  We may choose to fight inequality by way of strikes, wage increases, and taxation, but that will not return us to a golden age; it will hasten our rendezvous with economics in the age of resource exhaustion and mounting clean-up costs.

Where’s the “Eco” in Ecomodernism?

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Ecomodernism is the idea that we can harness technology to decouple society from the natural world. For these techno-optimists, to reject the promise of GMOs, nuclear, and geo-engineering is to be hopelessly romantic, anti-modern, and even misanthropic. An ecological future, for them, is about cranking up the gears of modernity and rejecting a politics of limits.

We Need to End Growth Dependency, but How?

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Because Positive Money are so selective in both their characterisation of the springs of capitalist accumulation and in their analysis of the impact of economic activity on the ecosystem, they end up proposing a scheme that at best will have little positive impact and could actually make matters worse.

A Fascinating, Flawed Look at Limits

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Mann’s story-telling skills shine when he’s narrating the life and times of Borlaug, Vogt and the colourful characters they worked with. When The Wizard and the Prophet embarks on a 200-page tour of today’s many global ecology challenges, Mann’s discursions are fascinating but the quality is uneven.

Is it Possible for Everyone to Live a Good Life within our Planet’s Limits?

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Imagine a country that met the basic needs of its citizens – one where everyone could expect to live a long, healthy, happy and prosperous life. Now imagine that same country was able to do this while using natural resources at a level that would be sustainable even if every other country in the world did the same. Such a country does not exist.

Limits to Economic Growth

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Is continued growth and an industrial economy actually desirable and, a separate and different question, is this growth sustainable? Can growth continue? In the 1970s growing uneasiness about the ecologically destructive effects of the growth economy led a few economists and scientists who were sceptical that growth could continue for ever to look into this matter in more depth.

The Cognitive Prison Habits of Economic Growth and Development

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I suggest we join Morin and Pogany in renouncing  the irrational exuberance that expects irresistible progress and economic growth extending to infinity. To break out of this cognitive prison habit may be very challenging indeed. However, at some point there will be no choice.  It’s time to stop digging that hole that we think is taking us up the mountain

A Society beyond Consumerism

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Post-purchase dissonance is an expression psychologists use to describe the disappointment we sometimes feel on realizing that our latest consumer purchase does not fulfil the promise we bought it on. At first sight it’s a curious anomaly. On deeper reflection, it turns out to be the structural basis for the entire edifice. The engine of consumer society is discontentment. This is more than a rhetorical claim.

Watching the Hurricane’s Path

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Thanks to modern science and technology—satellites and computers—we have days of warning before a hurricane hits. Science and technology have also enabled us to forecast “storms” of another kind. Using computers and data about population, energy, pollution, natural resources, and economic trends, it’s possible to generate scenarios for the future of industrial civilization.