Steady State Herald (CASSE Blog) – Page 2 of 63 – Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy

Charleston County’s Greenbelt Success

April 30, 2026/3 Comments/in Conservation, Dave Rollo, Economic Growth, Governance, KEEP Our Counties Great, Limits to Growth, Politics, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald /by Alix Underwood

by Dave Rollo

Counties facing growth challenges can use a variety of tools in their land-use planning to prevent sprawl. One tool is a “greenbelt” composed of a ring of natural and agricultural land that is conserved to hem in urbanization.

Greenbelts have long been a popular planning method in Europe. Researchers at Concordia University compared 30 European cities with greenbelts to 30 without. They found decreases in urban sprawl in almost all of the greenbelt cities.

Measuring Ecological Limits: The United States and the World

April 16, 2026/5 Comments/in Climate Change, Consumption, Economic Growth, Environment, Food and Agriculture, Inequality, Limits to Growth, Population, Steady State Herald, Trophic Theory of Money /by Alix Underwood

by Peri Dworatzek

The science is clear: Our rate of economic activity is having disastrous impacts on the environment, starting with the climate so crucial to our survival. Economic activities require the use of natural resources and systematically entail pollution. Resources eventually get used up, as does the capacity of the planet to assimilate waste. We are reminded of Herman Daly’s long-running emphasis that the economy is a subsystem of the environment,

Blinded by the Light: Techno-Optimism in Overshoot

April 9, 2026/7 Comments/in David Shreve, Economic Policy, Energy, Fossil Fuels, Ideology, Limits to Growth, Population, Steady State Herald, Sustainability, Technology /by Alix Underwood

by David Shreve

Lovers of technology tend to love quantitative analysis. But when it comes to the accounting of Earth’s biocapacity and our ecological footprint, these same technophiles are often happy to ignore simple arithmetic. While increasingly rigorous and reliable, the “overshoot” accounting they dismiss does include some difficult-to-measure variables. It will always be imperfect.

But for many nearsighted techno-optimists, this is beside the point. They argue that modern scientists have engineered such technological marvels that we should only expect more,

At COP15 Mrema is Wrong — Guterres is Right

April 3, 2026/0 Comments/in Press Releases /by Jay Pipavat

CBD Secretary Mrema “doesn’t believe” there is a conflict between GDP growth and biodiversity conservation, despite the overwhelming evidence for a fundamental conflict, and despite the warning of UN Secretary General Guterres. Given that the bloating global economy is the ultimate and aggregate threat to biodiversity, Secretary Mrema should retract her “belief” or be replaced.

Montreal, December 13, 2022—During a press briefing on 12/12/2022, Elizabeth Maruma Mrema, Executive Secretary of the Convention on Biological Diversity,

Nuclear Safety Now Optional Under Trump

April 2, 2026/4 Comments/in Economic Growth, Energy, Environment, Governance, Kirsten Stade, Limits to Growth, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Technology /by Alix Underwood

by Kirsten Stade

At the beginning of his second term, President Trump pledged a regime of aggressive deregulation to stimulate economic growth. Unfortunately he has followed through on that promise, claiming 646 deregulatory actions over the past year. These have aided industries ranging from slaughterhouses to automakers no longer bound by emissions standards under the Obama-era Endangerment Finding, which has now been reversed.

The energy sector has been among the foremost beneficiaries.

Albemarle County, Virginia: Green Leader No More

March 26, 2026/3 Comments/in Economic Growth, Economic Policy, Governance, Jobs and Employment, KEEP Our Counties Great, Politics, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald /by Alix Underwood

by Tom Olivier

I’ve lived in Albemarle County, Virginia, for over forty years. Albemarle is a mostly rural county in the Piedmont region. It surrounds the city of Charlottesville.

For decades, the county valued its open spaces and created many policies to ensure their protection. Recently, leadership has taken a pro-development turn, jeopardizing citizens’ quality of life and many of our community’s natural features.

In the 1990s and 2000s,

The Strait of Hormuz: Trump’s Waterloo?

March 19, 2026/6 Comments/in Brian Czech, Consumption, Economic Growth, Food and Agriculture, Fossil Fuels, GDP, Inflation, Peace, Steady State Economy, Steady State Herald, Trophic Theory of Money /by Alix Underwood

by Brian Czech

Given his long-running obsession with GDP growth, an obsession punctuated with mid-terms in mind, President Trump has made some peculiar moves. Just this week, his stripping of immigrant truckers’ licenses took effect, as part of a broader crackdown on immigrant labor, a key source of economic growth. His hyperactive imposing of tariffs has undermined comparative advantage, a condition relied upon for global GDP growth.

The Vicious Fertilizer Cycle and the Growth Economy

March 12, 2026/9 Comments/in Alix Underwood, Consumption, Economic Growth, Food and Agriculture, Fossil Fuels, GDP, Pollution, Population, Steady State Herald, Trophic Theory of Money, Water /by Alix Underwood

by Alix Underwood and Marwa Ebrahem

The size of our economy, measured by gross domestic product (GDP), is intimately linked to our use of artificial fertilizer. So is the ecological havoc we are wreaking on the planet and its inhabitants.

Between 2002 and 2018, while the population increased by 22 percent, the per-hectare use of synthetic nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium fertilizers—the three most common types—increased by about 23,

Selling Off Public Lands: The Push to Privatize a Public Treasure

March 5, 2026/0 Comments/in Conservation, Corruption, Democracy, Economic Growth, Kirsten Stade, Politics, Steady State Herald /by Alix Underwood

by Kirsten Stade

The Trump Administration, in its dedication to self- and industry enrichment, is hoping to sell a sacred cow: public lands. And while many such efforts have been defeated in the past, the current no-holds-barred growth regime elevates their chances of success.

Federal lands are set aside in all 50 U.S. states for the benefit of all Americans. Primarily in the American West, these lands span 640 million acres of natural resources,

Conflict Between Growth and Conservation, Says Intergovernmental Platform

March 3, 2026/0 Comments/in Braking News /by Brian Czech

The EU countries, India, and China are among the nations where representatives have concluded that “Unsustainable economic activity and a focus on growth…has been a driver of the decline of biodiversity.” This conclusion is expressed by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES), comprising high-level scientists and diplomats from over 150 member states. The IPBES helps to empower national governments—from heads of state to bureaucrats in civil service—to recognize the conflict between economic growth and biodiversity conservation.