Economic Growth Archives – Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy

Carbon Footprint Tramples Planetary Boundaries

November 6, 2025/2 Comments/in Amelia Jaycen, Climate Change, Consumption, Economic Growth, Energy, Fossil Fuels, Limits to Growth, Pollution, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald /by Alix Underwood

by Amelia Jaycen

The carbon footprint of an individual, organization, or country is the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) that must be produced to accommodate their choices: the types of transportation, heating and cooling, and diet they adopt and the manufacture and disposal of products they use. As a component of the total impact on the environment, called ecological footprint, a carbon footprint can be expressed as the amount of land or biocapacity required to absorb CO2 emissions.

Hitting Freshwater Rock Bottom

October 23, 2025/9 Comments/in Alix Underwood, Climate Change, Consumption, Economic Growth, Food and Agriculture, GDP, Limits to Growth, Steady State Herald, Sustainability, Water /by Alix Underwood

by Alix Underwood and Marwa Ebrahem

Freshwater is arguably the single most essential resource for human life. Yet, its use seems more abstract than that of solid materials. Freshwater sources exist everywhere that humans do, but they are often hidden from view, buried underground or frozen in glaciers. It’s hard to fathom the scope and the impact of the 3.95 trillion cubic meters of freshwater the human economy extracted in 2021.

Liberty County, Florida: Globally Important Local Conservation

October 9, 2025/1 Comment/in Biodiversity, Conservation, Dave Rollo, Economic Growth, Endangered Species, Governance, KEEP Our Counties Great, Limits to Growth, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald /by Alix Underwood

by Dave Rollo

In the “Anthropocene,” human economic activities dominate the Earth, at the immense expense of other species. Scientists are calling this the “sixth mass extinction,” as entire genera disappear 35 times faster than they have over the last million years. This biodiversity loss is happening worldwide, but it plays out at the local level. Likewise, combating the crisis requires local action.

In the United States,

Growth of an Economy, Death of a River

October 2, 2025/1 Comment/in Amelia Jaycen, Climate Change, Consumption, Economic Growth, Environment, Governance, Limits to Growth, Steady State Herald, Sustainability, Water /by Alix Underwood

by Amelia Jaycen

The Colorado River has a simple math problem: More water is taken out than nature refills every year. The gap between the two is also widening. Every year, an increasing amount of water is taken out of the Colorado River, as demand for water increases across the arid American West. Meanwhile, every year less water is available in the river and its tributaries as climate change and other manmade stressors cause imbalances in natural systems.

Has the Hunger-GDP Relationship Crossed a Threshold?

September 25, 2025/8 Comments/in Alix Underwood, Climate Change, Degrowth, Economic Growth, Food and Agriculture, GDP, Inequality, Limits to Growth, Poverty, Steady State Herald, Trophic Theory of Money, Wellbeing /by Alix Underwood

by Alix Underwood

The world looked poised to end hunger in the mid-2010s, after decades of decline in the percentage of the population that is undernourished. People often attribute progress in the late 20th century to the technological advances of the “Green Revolution.” However, the revolution’s costs and benefits, and their distribution, are hotly contested. Many experts instead point simply to economic growth as the primary factor responsible for poverty reduction and,

Introducing the Sustainable Population and Immigration Act

September 18, 2025/25 Comments/in Brian Czech, Economic Growth, Economic Policy, Governance, Immigration, Limits to Growth, Politics, Population, Steady State Economy, Steady State Economy Act, Steady State Herald /by Alix Underwood

by Brian Czech

A steady state economy requires, by definition, a stabilized population. If population is not stabilized, it won’t matter how much we try to conserve. Our consumption as individuals—“per capita consumption”—can only go so low before we hit the lower limits of mere survival.

Mere survival isn’t comfortable, much less fun. It precludes any political viability for keeping consumption at minimal levels. So, as a society concerned about sustainability,

Carbon and Canada’s Cars: “Business As Usual, Electrified”

August 28, 2025/4 Comments/in Climate Change, Economic Growth, Energy, Limits to Growth, Materials use, Steady State Herald /by Alix Underwood

by Bart Hawkins Kreps

Auto industry voices in Canada have made headlines recently by urging a longer timeline for the transition to electric cars. We should hope that Prime Minister Mark Carney does not give in to this demand.

Yet even if Canada’s federal government sticks to the current policy, and Canadian new car sales are 100 percent zero-emission by 2035, carbon emissions will decline much more slowly than the world needs.

Dear Ecologist, Don’t Forget About the Economy

August 14, 2025/17 Comments/in Alix Underwood, Economic Growth, Environment, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Trophic Theory of Money /by Alix Underwood

Opinion by Alix Underwood

The Ecological Society of America’s (ESA) Annual Meeting concludes today in Baltimore, Maryland. Of the dizzying multitude of topics on the agenda, the most prevalent were wildlife conservation, forest ecology, and climate change. Meeting sessions focused on niche aspects of these topics: threatened wader species on Sonadia Island, the effects of endemic mistletoes on forest-floor invertebrates, and the impacts of warming on interactions between plants and symbionts,

No Steady State Economy with Global South in Debt Crisis

July 3, 2025/3 Comments/in Alix Underwood, Corruption, Economic Growth, Economic Policy, Governance, Inequality, Money and Investments, Politics, Poverty, Steady State Herald /by Alix Underwood

by Alix Underwood

This week marks the fourth annual International Conference on Financing for Development (FfD4). Leaders of governments, international organizations, and financial institutions meet in Seville, Spain, to “reform financing at all levels.” Global South countries and advocacy groups from across the world hoped this would be the moment for a UN Framework Convention on Sovereign Debt.

According to Didier Jacobs, Oxfam International’s Debt Relief Advocacy Lead,

Corporate Conservation Funding: A Contradictory Conundrum

June 5, 2025/2 Comments/in Biodiversity, Climate Change, Conservation, Corporate Reform, Economic Growth, Environment, Kali Young, Materials use, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Sustainability /by Alix Underwood

by Kali Young

Apple, Cargill, Walmart, United Airlines, Chevron, BlackRock, Starbucks, Ford Motor Company, Amazon, McDonald’s, Sotheby’s…What do they all have in common? They are among many megacorporations that fund Conservation International, one of the most prominent conservation foundations in the world. World Wildlife Fund and the Conservation Fund, also conservation powerhouses, have similar though less expansive funder profiles.

Walmart and BlackRock are two of the world’s top deforestation perpetrators.