"Growth" means "more"
GDP growth means more goods and services,
always using more material and non-renewable resources.
Sustainable or sustained growth is impossible because
it is in stark conflict with the fundamentals of economics, "the study of the distribution of scarce resources".
Growth may or may not generate "jobs".
But Growth does not mean "jobs".
"Jobs" is not a valid reason to continue Business at Usual and deplete the environment.
"Dematerialized" growth is nonsense,
since using less materials is decreasing the GDP, ceteris paribus.
For details start here...
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"Sustainability"
means human society in the balance with nature.
The balances are maintained if a resource is not consumed at a higher rate than needed for regeneration.
Most resources are non-renewable on a human time scale.
So here we must judge very carefully with which speed we may reasonably use these.
All resources,
regenerative
and
non-renewable,
are
over-exploited.
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"Environment"  
frequently means "Business" - for business, politics, academia and non-government organisations.
Manifold are the models, propositions, and illusions about saving the world by business-as-usual less some measures on the margins.
Ecoglobe tries to cut through the "Business" maze of complications, contradictions and ideologies.
We simplify where possible and rectify where necessary, independent, committed to reality. A Glossary
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"Sustainable development" excludes economic growth unless development in poor areas is offset by contraction in overdeveloped areas.
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Population growth
is never sustainable. Population growth always increases environmental stress and depletion.
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"Economics has become the secular equivalent of religion. It includes an entangled network of scriptures (textbooks), disciples (students) and preachers (professors), trained to believe without questioning the supremacy of the free market and devotedly working to prove it in each and every context, defending it against non-believers. Like the Church and the priests before them, establishment economists will not change on their own. They can only become obsolete, relics of the past, as the world around them changes. And fortunately this seems to be happening sooner rather than later."
[Giorgos Kallis, 02 April 2014]
Added comment: Continued economic growth is another part of this logic-resistant "religion". |
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