Steady State Economy Archives – Page 23 of 48 – Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy

Time to Stop Worshipping Economic Growth

October 28, 2015/1 Comment/in Economic Growth, Steady State Economy, The Daly News /by Brian Czech

by Brent Blackwelder

There are physical limits to growth on a finite planet. In 1972, the Club of Rome issued their groundbreaking report—Limits to Growth (twelve million copies in thirty-seven languages). The authors predicted that by about 2030, our planet would feel a serious squeeze on natural resources, and they were right on target.

In 2009, the Stockholm Resilience Center introduced the concept of planetary boundaries to help the public envision the nature of the challenges posed by limits to growth and physical/biological boundaries.

Appropriate Scarcity

October 15, 2015/8 Comments/in Consumption, Economic Growth, Economic Policy, Steady State Economy, The Daly News /by Brian Czech

by Robert A. Herendeen

… appealing to people to restrain themselves [by] self-enforced abstinence alone is a waste of time. By and large, we consume as much as our incomes allow…. changes… cannot take place without constraints that apply to everyone rather than everyone else. Manmade global warming cannot be restrained unless we persuade the government to force us to change the way we live.

—George Monbiot, Heat (2006/2009)

The results indicate that the likelihood of paying a positive amount for supporting renewable energy is higher under a mandatory scheme compared to a voluntary payment option in the UK.

Setting Things Straight for the Steady State

October 8, 2015/4 Comments/in Brian Czech, Economic Growth, Steady State Economy, The Daly News /by Brian Czech

by Brian Czech

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.

What Kind of Future Does Your Degree Prepare You For?

September 11, 2015/2 Comments/in Jobs and Employment, Steady State Economy, The Daly News /by Brian Czech

by James Magnus-Johnston

As the fall chill sets into the air and farmers begin to harvest, universities invite another wave of impressionable young minds to think about the future—of society, and of their place in it. But preparation for the future requires us to consider exactly what kind of future we think we’re in for, and far too many schools are preparing students for a fictional business-as-usual future.

Do your universities and instructors acknowledge that the global temperature will likely rise by at least two degrees this century?

A Sustainable True-Cost Economy Promises an Escape from Massive Water Pollution

August 26, 2015/2 Comments/in Economic Policy, Environment, Steady State Economy, The Daly News /by Brian Czech

by Brent Blackwelder

A year ago, I wrote about how a true-cost steady state economy would deal with water pollution. Last August, the alarming green slime at the west end of Lake Erie was so bad that it shut down Toledo’s water supply for half a million people. Who would pay the tremendous damages caused by the green slime? Certainly not the industrial agricultural interests who were responsible for about two-thirds of the problem!

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,

The Future History of Political Economy – Part 2

June 10, 2015/8 Comments/in Energy, Steady State Economy, The Daly News /by Brian Czech

by Eric Zencey

Ecological Economics represents the extension into economics of the thermodynamic revolution of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. In physics, that revolution dethroned Newton and brought relativity. In biology, it was midwife to the birth of ecology, the study of ecosystems as wholes in which energy networks—food webs—are a defining structure. In chemistry the laws of thermodynamics brought clarity and rigor to a science that struggled to bring theoretical unity to diverse phenomena.

The Future History of Political Economy – Part 1

June 3, 2015/2 Comments/in Economic Growth, Economic Policy, Steady State Economy, The Daly News /by Brian Czech

by Eric Zencey

Ecological Economics and its corollary, steady-state economic thinking, represent a step forward for the discipline of economics and also a return to how it was practiced in the past. In the nineteenth century, economics was a part of a larger enterprise: political economy, the integrated treatment of morals and economics, ultimate ends and efficient means. Late in that century economics calved off from political economy, leaving behind political science and political philosophy as the residuum.

Seismic Political Shifts Reveal Desire for Serious Change

May 28, 2015/0 Comments/in Corporate Reform, Economic Growth, Economic Policy, Energy, Environment, Steady State Economy, The Daly News /by Brian Czech

by James Magnus-Johnston

If you demonstrate to people that the NDP [New Democratic Party] can win in Alberta, suddenly anything seems possible. —Paul Fairie, University of Calgary political scientist

On the problematic political spectrum, neither the right nor the left have become wholesale champions of the steady state economy. Then again, embracing something perceived as ‘new’ has never been the strong suit of the politician. It takes years of ideological evolution among the grassroots before seemingly new and different ideas become politically palatable.