growth
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The dilemma of growth, as dramatized by the voices in my head
Is continued economic growth inevitable and necessary to drive improvements in the human condition? Or is continued economic growth impossible, constrained by biophysical limitations? I let the two sides battle it out in my brain.
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A small venture that could generate big results
Imagine a program that turns a relatively small initial investment into billions of dollars of U.S. economic growth, thousands of new Americans jobs, and groundbreaking technologies that change the way we use energy in this country and around the world. It's called the Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy and it is about to be given the bureaucratic equivalent of a death sentence.
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How do you argue against the growth juggernaut?
I’ll be talking tomorrow to filmmaker Dave Gardner, who’s making a documentary called Hooked on Growth: Our Misguided Quest for Prosperity. He wants to hear about my choice to be a GINK — green inclinations, no kids. And I’ll be offering thoughts about growth in general. Any suggestions about points to make or ideas to […]
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Learning from past civilizations
To understand our current environmental dilemma, it helps to look at earlier civilizations that also got into environmental trouble. Our early 21st century civilization is not the first to face the prospect of environmentally induced economic decline. The question is how we will respond. As Jared Diamond points out in his book Collapse, some of […]
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Obama tells China the “ravages of climate change” demand cooperation
In a speech to head off the first meeting of the Strategic Economic Dialogue in Washington, D.C between the United States and China this morning, President Obama talks Chinese spending: Going forward, we can deepen this cooperation. We can promote financial stability through greater transparency and regulatory reform. We can pursue trade that is free […]
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Growing a better world
Crossposted from Znet “Every society clings to a myth by which it lives. Ours is the myth of economic growth.” So begins “Prosperity Without Growth“[1], the report of the UK government’s Sustainable Development Commission. Questioning growth has been the obsessive focus of many for decades. Questioners make important points. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has been, […]
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Robert F. Kennedy first challenged our Ponzi scheme pursuit of growth for growth’s sake
Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated 41 years ago last week. He challenged our monomaniacal pursuit of GDP in “one of the most beautiful of his speeches,” as Obama described it an August 2008 NYT profile of his economic thinking. Obama is one of the few major politicians who constantly challenges our unsustainable economic worldview today […]
