Stuart Staniford proposed a “way forward” for humanity in his article Powering Civilization to 2050. This article proposes an alternative vision: instead of trying to create continual, technological stop-gaps to the demands of growth, we must address the problem of growth head on. Infinite growth is impossible in a finite world--a great deal of economic growth may be possible without a growth in resource consumption, but eventually the notion of perpetual growth is predicated on perpetual increase in resource consumption. This growth in resource consumption causes problems: it brings civilization into direct conflict with our environmental support system. Growth is also one way of improving the standard of living for humanity by creating more economic produce, more material consumption per human. Growth, however, produces very unevenly distributed benefits, and there is little convincing evidence that the poorest, most abused 10% of humanity is actually better off today than the poorest, most abused 10% of past eras. Furthermore, if you accept my statement above that infinite growth is impossible in a finite world, then employing growth today to “solve” our immediate problems incurs the significant moral hazard of pushing the problem—perhaps the greatly exacerbated problem—of addressing growth itself on future generations.

With that in mind, my intent here is to propose one possible means for humanity to directly address the problem of growth itself. I am attempting to take what I see as an inherently pragmatic approach—one that does not rely on the universal cooperation of humanity, nor on the assumption of yet-to-be-developed technologies. My approach to the problem of growth is to stop trying to address its symptoms—overpopulation, pollution, global warming, peak oil—and attempt instead to identify and address the underlying source of the problem.

This is a guest post by John Feeney, Ph.D. Trained as a psychologist, John is today an environmental writer and activist in Boulder, Colorado. He began investigating environmental issues while fighting destructive residential development in a small Iowa town where he and his family lived for two years. His research pointed inevitably to the interacting roles played by population growth, the drive for economic growth, and our reliance on fossil energy in fueling the ecological crisis we now face. His website is called Growth Is Madness.

Some of us who examine and discuss environmental matters are constantly puzzled and frustrated by the seeming inability of elected officials, environmental organizations, and environmental and political writers to “get” the nature of our ecological plight. Could it be they’re simply unaware of the ecological principles which enable one to understand it?