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97 search results for: degrowth to a steady state economy

51

Introducing a Different Type of 32-Hour Workweek Act

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by Daniel Wortel-London

Working long hours? You aren’t alone.  Forty-one percent of U.S. workers reported working more than 45 hours a week in 2021. Sixteen percent said they spent more than 60 hours per week at work. Working long hours has been shown to degrade quality of life and productivity. But there’s a bigger problem with full-time employment: It isn’t environmentally sustainable.

Additional economic growth is the only way to generate full-time employment.

52

We Asked for Science. We Got Sustain-a-Babble.

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Editor’s Note

CASSE encourages members and readers to hold their government agencies to account on the conflict between economic growth and environmental protection. Last week, Brian Czech presented Gag-Ordered No More to the Canadian Association for the Club of Rome, concluding with recommendations for engaging agency directors. We follow up this week with a letter from the Qualicum Institute (British Columbia) to Canada’s Minister of Environment and Climate Change,

53

Introducing the Commission on Economic Sustainability Act

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by Daniel Wortel-London

What U.S. federal agency is responsible for identifying and reducing the environmental and social costs of economic growth? None, really. The government has plenty of agencies and programs devoted to conservation, natural capital accounting, “green” industrial policy, and just transitions. But none address the elephant in the room: economic growth. Growth is what causes a nation’s ecological footprint to exceed its biocapacity.

54

Two Cheers for Circularity

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by Gary Gardner

Here’s some bad news for folks who see a circular economy as a way out of the polycrisis: Trends in global materials use, which recently bent modestly in the direction of circular flows, are flattening once again. The Circle Economy Foundation in Amsterdam reported in January that secondary materials amounted to only 7.2 percent of all materials in the global economy in 2023, down from 9.1 percent in 2018.

55

Redesigning Business for Sustainability

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by Daniel Wortel-London

Can businesses become sustainable? Certainly—at least in theory. In recent years, new business models have emerged that attempt to place business on an ecologically healthy footing. The doughnut economy, the regenerative economy, sufficiency enterprises, and postgrowth and degrowth businesses: These and other experiments represent ways of doing business that not only create customer and firm value, but address social and environmental needs as well. 

56

Learning from Las Vegas: The Costs of Growth

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by Daniel Wortel-London

Since 1998, the City of Las Vegas and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) have been gambling with nature. By auctioning off public land from the BLM for development and using the proceeds to preserve natural areas, policymakers and federal officials have bet that development and conservation can go hand-in-hand.

But it hasn’t worked out that way.

As the Las Vegas region has grown from 1.3 to 2.7 million people since 1998,

57

Herman Daly Has the Floor

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Editor’s Note: Saturday, October 28 marks the first anniversary of Herman Daly’s passing.  The father of steady-state economics, Daly was CASSE’s economist emeritus and a long-time board member. We celebrate his clear and stimulating thought with three classic essays from Best of The Daly News.

Wealth, Illth, and Net Welfare

Well-being should be counted in net terms, that is to say we should consider not only the accumulated stock of wealth but also that of “illth;” and not only the annual flow of goods but also that of “bads.” The fact that we have to stretch English usage to find words like illth and bads to name the negative consequences of production that should be subtracted from the positive consequences is indicative of our having ignored the realities for which these words are the necessary names.

58

Three Telling Takeaways from Climate Week in New York City

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by Daniel Wortel-London

New York City was busier than usual last week.

The occasion was Climate Week, a host of events devoted to charting and increasing environmental progress. Hundreds of sold-out summits, covering everything from biodiversity to energy, could be found across the metropolis. And within those halls, would-be thought leaders discussed the challenges of sustainability with both earnestness and self-congratulation.

There was a tension,

59

Defining “Economic Development” in Statutory Law: Content and Strategy

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by Brian Czech

The only way to arrive at a safe, sustainable, steady state economy is with substantial behavioral and political reform. Those two categories of reform correspond roughly with the demand side and supply side of the economy, respectively. In the simplest of terms, people must conscientiously demand less—wealthy people in particular—and policymakers must help ensure that the supply of goods and services is not in a state of overshoot.

My focus here is on the supply side.

60

Food: Abundant for How Long?

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by Gary Gardner

Global food production today is cornucopian: More food, of greater diversity, is available to more people in more places than at any time in human history. At the same time, this food abundance has a dark underbelly.  Some 828 million people—nearly ten percent of the human family—are chronically hungry, and two billion people lack critical micronutrients such as Vitamin A and iron. This juxtaposition of increasing abundance and chronic scarcity might suggest that ending hunger simply requires extending 20th century agricultural success to the entire human family.