Limits to Growth Archives – Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy

Unsafe at Top Speed: “SAFE” Summit Shoots Off the Rails

April 10, 2025/1 Comment/in Brian Czech, Climate Change, Energy, Fossil Fuels, Ideology, Limits to Growth, Politics, Steady State Herald, Sustainability, Technology /by Alix Underwood

by Brian Czech

The 2025 SAFE Summit in Washington, DC, was anything but. Sure, the hallways of the Walter E. Washington Convention Center were free of hooligans, and the attentive staff kept the floors cleared of banana peels. Yet if your idea of safety is big-picture, long-term—as expected at an energy-security conference—you could have left the summit fearing for your children’s future.

The three main themes percolating on stage were “energy dominance,” “all of the above” (as in all forms of energy),

Peruvian Gold: Producers, Consumers, Lands, and Livelihoods

April 3, 2025/3 Comments/in Alix Underwood, Consumption, Degrowth, Environment, Jobs and Employment, Limits to Growth, Materials use, Pollution, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald /by Alix Underwood

by Alix Underwood

When I say “gold mining,” what comes to mind? Perhaps you think of the 19th-century gold rush, with prospectors in suspenders swinging pickaxes and panning for gold in rivers. Maybe you envision industrialized mining, with terraced pits and heavy machinery. A visit to the Peruvian Amazon, where gold mining has surged in recent decades, transformed my perception of gold mining and miners.

I have the privilege of advising a team of Notre Dame master’s students—diverse in origins and expertise—as they work alongside a Peruvian NGO,

Saving Sledge Forest

March 27, 2025/7 Comments/in Conservation, Dave Rollo, Economic Growth, Governance, Limits to Growth, Population, Steady State Herald, Sustainability /by Alix Underwood

by Dave Rollo

Like many coastal communities, the county of New Hanover, North Carolina, is rich in habitat diversity. Its coastal plain is dominated by estuaries, marshes, and swamp forests and is considered a global biodiversity hotspot. The county is home to a number of threatened and endangered species, with mounting human pressures of a growing population and economy.

The county’s growth has accelerated over the past twenty years.

Unlearning Growth: Reclaiming Higher Education for Sustainability

February 6, 2025/1 Comment/in Corporate Reform, Economic Growth, GDP, Governance, Jobs and Employment, Limits to Growth, Postgrowth, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Sustainability /by Alix Underwood

by Zachary Czuprynski

At the bottom of McGill University’s coat of arms, beneath the red shield, a scroll reads Grandescunt Aucta Labore— “By work, all things increase and grow.” Historically, mottos of higher education institutions (HEIs) symbolize the cultivation of virtues and moral excellence, often rooted in religion. Over time, however, this idea of growth in personal and moral development became tainted by the paradigm of economic growth.

Today,

The Costs of Compounding: Exploitation and Collapse

January 23, 2025/12 Comments/in Banking, Corporate Reform, Economic Growth, Economic Policy, Inequality, Limits to Growth, Money and Investments, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Wealth /by Alix Underwood

by Koenraad Priels

The global financial system operates like a cancer, metastasizing throughout our economy and society. Its malignant core is a simple yet devastating formula: PL – PR + I, principal loaned – principal repaid + interest = an escalating debt trap that necessitates economic growth. This equation is familiar to anyone who has taken out a loan. It demonstrates the fatal flaw in our financial architecture,

Defending the Last Green Valley

November 26, 2024/3 Comments/in Conservation, Dave Rollo, Economic Growth, Environment, Governance, Limits to Growth, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Sustainability /by Alix Underwood

by Dave Rollo

The Northeast Megaregion, also referred to as BosWash, extends from Boston to Washington, DC, and is populated by more than 55 million people. It is the largest contiguous urban area in the United States. BosWash has the largest population of the eleven U.S. megaregions, which together hold over 76 percent of the nation’s population. BosWash has the highest GDP of any megaregion in the world at some $3.75 trillion.

Whose Behavior Needs to Change? The Other Side of the International Development Coin

October 10, 2024/10 Comments/in Alix Underwood, Consumption, Economic Policy, Governance, Inequality, Limits to Growth, Postgrowth, Poverty, Steady State Herald, Sustainability, Wealth, Wellbeing /by Alix Underwood

by Alix Underwood

“Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day. Teach him how to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.” The Western-led international development sector, born in the aftermath of World War II, has evolved according to this (ironically) Chinese proverb. To better reflect the status of international development, I would append the following sentences to the worn-out proverb: “Use advanced extractive technology to harvest all the fish from the man’s ocean,

Hitting the Pause Button in Colorado Springs

October 4, 2024/5 Comments/in Climate Change, Dave Rollo, Democracy, Governance, Limits to Growth, Population, Steady State Herald /by Helene Langlamet

By Dave Rollo

El Paso County is in the eastern foothills of the Rocky Mountains in a region known as the “Front Range,” the mountains first encountered by settlers traveling westward from the Great Plains. The Front Range includes such wonders as Mount Blue Sky and Pikes Peak. But it also refers to a chain of cities and the urban spatial expansion between them that has propagated within and along the foothills.

San Jose: An Information Economy Giant with Whopping Footprints

September 19, 2024/9 Comments/in Alix Underwood, GDP, Inequality, Limits to Growth, Materials use, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Technology, Trophic Theory of Money, Wealth /by Helene Langlamet

by Alix Underwood

What is your reaction when you hear the tagline “city with the highest GDP per capita in the United States”? Perhaps you would like to live in that city. Perhaps you think it sets a positive example for other cities. If so, you are not alone. Corporate and political leaders have been prioritizing economic growth for decades, and this mindset has trickled down until it has saturated the public.

The problem is that there is a fundamental conflict between economic growth and environmental protection.

A Steady Stater’s Response to the Harris-Trump Debate

September 12, 2024/15 Comments/in Brian Czech, Climate Change, Democracy, Economic Growth, Economic Policy, Governance, Limits to Growth, Politics, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald /by Alix Underwood

by Brian Czech

“Harris wiped the floor with Trump.” At least that’s how today’s Washington Post kicked off a discussion among in-house columnists. But for voters who prioritize Planet Earth for present and future generations, the 2024 presidential election is a classic example of seeking the lesser of two evils. Neither Kamala Harris nor Donald Trump is a student—much less a champion—of sustainability. They probably think “limits to growth” pertains to poll results or crowd size.