These are the CASSE blog articles by Brian Czech.
The Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (CASSE) has sent a letter to the presidents of the top ten environmental NGOs challenging them to a debate. The debate will center around one question: “Is there a conflict between economic growth and environmental protection?”
By Brian Czech
Some years down the road—probably decades—we’ll pass the Full and Sustainable Employment Act, calling for a steady state economy in the USA. This is our vision at CASSE. When that day comes, scholars and commentators will construct a timeline demarcating the major steps along the way. On that timeline, August 28, 2018 will be duly noted. This was the day when the Measuring Real Income Growth Act, “MRIGA,” was introduced in the U.S. Senate by Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Martin Heinrich (D-NM).
~Steady State Herald Premiere~
By Brian Czech
It’s been quite a run with our CASSE blog, the Daly News. Regular readers will recall a consistent weekly column from March 2010 through late 2015. Then for a couple years it was hit-or-miss, for reasons already explained (in a Daly News entry, naturally.) Now we’re back to blogging regularly under a new banner: the Steady State Herald!
Friends, colleagues, and past FWS co-workers,
I once considered the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to be the world leader in conservation, and was proud to sign on! But that was a long time ago: 1999 to be precise. Today, something is awry at FWS headquarters, and that’s what drove me to retire on October 31.
Democrats are stunned by Donald Trump’s lack of culpability for racist rhetoric, Twitter tantrums, and international insults. They shouldn’t be. They’re the party of “It’s the Economy Stupid.” They should know that if a president inspires a bull market, creates a few jobs, and grows the GDP, he can “stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody” without losing voters.
Elected Dems can’t hold Trump accountable because they can’t break their own addiction to growth.
WE NEED NATURE.
NATURE NEEDS HALF.
ERGO, WE NEED NATURE TO GET HALF.
Half of what? The planet. That’s the essence of E.O. Wilson’s latest – and greatest – project.
Why does nature need half the planet? To maintain a highly functional system of plants, animals, and their habitats. And we need such a functional ecosystem to support our own species.
Warning: President Trump’s national security strategy is going to backfire like a shotgun plugged with mud. In one fell swoop, Trump called for:
1) Locking out foreigners;
2) Growing GDP as the key to national security, and;
3) Better terms of trade.
Now many voters, going down the list, will promptly put a checkmark by one or two of the items, and some (especially Trump’s base) will check all three.
One thing about American holidays – there’s no mincing of words. Thanksgiving Day is as self-explanatory as it gets. And from where I write, it happens to be easy, giving thanks this time around. For starters, it’s a crisp fall day in Virginia!
But I’ve a bonus to be thankful for. Twenty days and three hours ago, I turned in my retirement papers at U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service headquarters and immediately went to work as CASSE’s executive director.
Here’s a day to remember: May 6, 2016. That’s the day when, late in the afternoon, the Legislature of the State of Vermont passed H.C.R. 412, “House Concurrent Resolution Honoring the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy for Its Important Work.” In a nation where acts of steady statesmanship – political support for a steady state economy – have only just begun, the Vermont Legislature has offered a perfect and prescient precedent.
Extremely dangerous political rhetoric has proliferated over the past several decades, seducing the masses onto a path that leads to the destruction of nature and civilization. This rhetoric is centered on the claim that “there is no conflict between growing the economy and protecting the environment!” Politicians are all about economic growth but, at the same time, none of them want to be seen as willful destroyers of the environment.