true-cost economy Archives – 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.

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!

Progress Toward a True-Cost Economy Comes from Renewable Energy

May 21, 2015/4 Comments/in Energy, Environment, Jobs and Employment, Steady State Economy, Sustainability, Technology, The Daly News /by Brian Czech

by Brent Blackwelder

A renewable energy revolution is sweeping the planet. This revolution has profound implications because it signals that the global economy is moving to stop the growth of our human carbon footprint.

The global economy has run for a century primarily on fossil fuels but is now undergoing a rapid transition to a global economy based significantly on rooftop solar, wind, and efficiency. This is a tangible movement toward a steady state economy because with wind and solar,

Crossroads on Global Infrastructure

January 8, 2015/6 Comments/in Economic Growth, Environment, Food and Agriculture, Steady State Economy, Sustainability, The Daly News /by Brian Czech

A momentous choice is before us. Will we choose more mega-highway projects, centralized electric power plants, and mega-dams, or more decentralized wind and solar investments?