Population Archives – Page 4 of 8 – Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy

A Journey of No Return, Not a Circular Economy

April 23, 2019/9 Comments/in Consumption, Economic Growth, Energy, Environment, Food and Agriculture, Jobs and Employment, Population, Poverty, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Sustainability, Technology /by Brian Czech

By Herman Daly

The economic process is not a mechanical analog that can be run forward and backward, nor a circular process that can return to any previous state. Rather it is an irreversible and irrevocable process moving in the direction of time’s arrow of increasing entropy [1]. Finitude and entropy guarantee that the economic life of our species will be a journey of no return. Therefore even a stationary economy, in the classical sense of constant population and constant capital stock, is ultimately a journey of no return, because the metabolic throughput of matter and energy required to maintain constant stocks of people and physical capital, in the face of depreciation and death, is an entropic flow from ever less concentrated sources to ever filling sinks – and both sources and sinks are finite.

A Country of Immigrants

February 4, 2019/1 Comment/in Economic Policy, Jobs and Employment, Population, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Sustainability /by Brian Czech

By Herman Daly

Historically, the U.S. is undeniably a country of immigrants. But why is this uncontested fact so repeatedly emphasized? Might the unremitting celebration of immigration as a policy (as opposed to the celebration of particular immigrants as people) obscure a dark side of our immigration history?

Neocornucopianism and the Steady State: Part I

November 9, 2018/0 Comments/in Consumption, Economic Growth, Economic Policy, Energy, Population, Steady State Herald, Sustainability, Technology /by Brian Czech

By Josh Farley

Perhaps the main reason people reject the need for a steady state economy is some form of cornucopianism, the belief that technological progress will overcome all ecological and physical limits, allowing endless economic growth into the indefinite future. Cornucopianism has several flavors, and I will describe three: mainstream economics, eco-modernism, and singularity theory.

Population and the Steady State Economy

October 25, 2018/2 Comments/in Consumption, Environment, Jobs and Employment, Population, Poverty, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Sustainability /by Brian Czech

By Max Kummerow

Sir David Attenborough remarked in a 2011 presidential lecture to the Royal Society that “every environmental and social problem is made more difficult and ultimately impossible to solve with ever more people.” Wherever women’s status has improved and societies modernized, he said, birth rates have fallen. He begged his audience to “talk about population.”

First Cut: No Five-Kid Presidents

August 12, 2015/5 Comments/in Brian Czech, Population, The Daly News /by Brian Czech

by Brian Czech

(With apologies to the Octomom, who didn’t ask for this kind of attention.)

Mention the Octomom, and the first thing that comes to mind is that ridiculous fecundity. If she tried running for President, she’d never make it to the first debate, because everyone would take the 14-kid factoid (yes, she had 6 before the 8) to indicate some type of extremist propensity. More astute analysts would also point out that,

Would the Steady State Economy Be a Miracle?

August 5, 2015/6 Comments/in Consumption, Economic Policy, Environment, Population, Religion, Steady State Economy, The Daly News /by Brian Czech

by Herman Daly

Many people think that advocating a steady state economy is like wishing for a miracle. I understand their reasoning and take their point—in the present era of growthism, it does seem rather like advocating a miracle. But that raises the question of exactly what is a miracle? And how many other miracles are we wishing for these days? Of course, science, by definition of its method, rules out the existence of miracles,

Thoughts on Pope Francis’ Laudato Si

June 23, 2015/15 Comments/in Climate Change, Consumption, Economic Growth, Environment, Population, Poverty, Religion, Steady State Economy, The Daly News /by Brian Czech

by Herman Daly

As a Protestant Christian, my devotion to the Catholic Church has been rather minimal, based largely on respect for early church history and for the love of an aunt who was a nun. In recent times, the Catholic Church’s opposition to birth control, plus the pedophile and cover-up scandals, further alienated me. Like many others, I first viewed Pope Francis as perhaps a breath of fresh air, but little more. After reading his encyclical on environment and justice,

Preempting a Misleading Argument: Why Environmental Problems Will Stop Tracking with GDP

May 13, 2015/1 Comment/in Brian Czech, Consumption, Economic Growth, Environment, Population, Steady State Economy, The Daly News /by Brian Czech

Brian explains how GDP growth will eventually stop tracking with environmental damage–but the reasons may not be what you’d expect!

Potential New Allies in the Effort to Achieve a Sustainable True Cost Economy

February 11, 2015/4 Comments/in Economic Growth, Environment, Population, Steady State Economy, Sustainability, The Daly News /by Brian Czech

Dr. Blackwelder discusses how those in faith-based communities can become powerful allies for those of us seeking an economy that meets peoples’ needs without undermining the life support systems of the planet.

A Population Perspective on the Steady State Economy

January 15, 2015/9 Comments/in Consumption, Economic Growth, Economic Policy, Energy, Environment, Governance, Population, Steady State Economy, The Daly News /by Brian Czech

The population problem should be considered from the point of view of all populations–populations of both humans and their things–if we are going to achieve a steady state economy.