A shortlist of arguments in defence of growth

In random order
1. You're a pessimist!
2. I'm an optimist.
3. I'm crossing my fingers, hoping, praying, ...
4. We've been told many times the world is lost and look we're still here.
5. The Club of Rome was wrong
6. People have always found a way to deal with the problems.
7. We'll develop new technologies.
8. We'll find new energy sources.
9. We have renewable energies.
10. There are still large amounts of resources, oil.
11. They are hiding new technologies in the drawers.
12. You're a communist, socialist, weirdo, ....
13. You're too radical.
14. One day humanity will die out anyway.
15. The risk of a (traffic) accident is much higher than environmental collapse.
16. There will still be people around, possible 500 million.
17. There's still much space.
18. It just all ideas in your head.
19. You're agressive.
20. People will never give up ...
21. The leaders are only thinking of money.
22. We can't stop population growth.
23. Do you want to kill people to reduce population?
24. We need a dictator.
25. You're a green dictator.
26. Malthus was wrong.
27. Genetically modified crops will feed futur populations.
28. The stone age did not finsih because of a lack of stones.
29. We can't go back to the middle ages, to the stone age.
30. We must grow since we need jobs.
31. We must grow because of our obligations to the company's shareholders.
32. You cannot stop growth.
33. The economy will collapse without growth.
34. We're changing to a services economy.
35. We're changing to green growth.
36. We need growth that is balanced, different, sustainable, dematerialised.
37. We must internalise externalities.
38. We can increase efficiency.
39. The Chinese will not...
40. You can't stop the Chinese...
41. You can't forbid the poor to catch up.
42. You can't stop progress.
43. People always want more.
44. People will not willingly agree to live more simplified lives.
45. We're having a good life
46. People in the stone age had short, miserable, and brutish lives.
47. Environmentalism, climate change worries, population worries - it's part of a conspiracy for world government by a few.
48. The rich will survive.
49. It's better for nature if humans disappear.
50. We can't understand the plans of the Lord.
51. I don't care.
52. Leave me alone.
53. We hate the earth, we hate life, we first have to change ourselves.
54. You are an Ayatollah.
55. Your computer is depleting oil.
56. Do you have a car? Do you fly?
57. I'm only telling what I've been told (oil reserves, biofuels, etc.).
58. I'm an economist, not a scientist (their a re scarcities, the problem is investment.).
59. Climate change is part of a secret plan to govern the world.
60. Humanity has to die-out some day, when the sun cools off
61. God's plans are misterious
62. People hate the world.
63. People have a distructive character
64. The animals and nature will be better off without humans, so our demise will be no loss.
65. ...

Avoidance and Denial Strategies,
according to type:

(under construction)
A. ad hominem - attack the person
1. You're a pessimist.
2. You're an Ayatolla.
3. You're aggressive.
   
4. posing authority, age, quantity
5. ...
   
   B. evasive strategies
6. interrupt and capture the discussion
7. replying to a different question
8. changing subject
9. refusing to listen
10. refusing to discuss the issue
11. creating confusion by mixing issues, rapid speech, accumulating statements of any kind, such as lies, unwarrented accusasions
12. ...
    
    C. logical fallacies
13. make wrong comparisons
14. false generalisations
15. unwarranted claims
16. suggestive questions
17. philosophy and religion
    
18. use emotive particles
19. ...

A previous list with arguments and some answers

Growth page list