You are right.

“…serious, sober, studious, self-improving and circumscribed” are not necessary for a steadystate. Such personal virtues are to be recommended but a steadystate depends upon widespread community action.

What is holding that back is the mind-set of the majority who have accepted the mantra that the amelioration of their economic problems depends upon ever more growth and more consumption.

What we have to prove is that, while that may have been true up till now, we are living in a time in which we must change our ways or suffer the consequences. The problem, then, is how to persuade the majority

Beyond Growth is a step in the right direction.

agree with George Monbiot that the rich, including ourselves, are damaging the environment much more than the poor. I agree, too, that lowering consumption in the West is important and should be tackled. But I don’t agree that we should concentrate on that before doing anything about overpopulation or trying to get the poor to stop breeding so much.

Overpopulation is contributing to the destruction of the environment and endangering many species. If the growth in human numbers could be contained there would less pressure on the environment for living space and for land for food, leading to the destruction of the wilderness.

If the living standards of the poor could be raised, then the example of the West indicates that population growth is slowed or even reversed.

The question then becomes, how is that to be done? Every improvement in living standards depends upon more growth, and that growth (unless it is green) destroys the environment and speeds climate change.

What a dilemma.

I found the following in an article in the Guardian today.

The description of the alternative to growth life-style sounds attractive to me but how do we get the general public to accept it. Most of them seem to want what they had before the crisis. How do we persuade them that the alternative is better, for themselves and the planet?

“Weirdly, however, the alternative to growth sounds much more conservative than anything the Tories would dream of straightforwardly suggesting. It involves a revolution so much greater than taking to the street and proclaiming free higher education as “a fundamental human right”, or boycotting Topshop until Philip Green pays more tax. It involves the adoption of serious, sober, studious, self-improving and circumscribed lives that are quiet and careful, disciplined and thrifty, packed with work, mostly unpaid, highly reliant on “simple pleasures” for satisfaction and self- fulfilment, and held together by a small but tremendously reliable and highly decentralised state.

“If there was a brief vogue for discussion about the adoption of such Quaker-like existences just as the crash came, but people very quickly realised that they didn’t actually fancy it all that much, really. Instead, the hope is still to have it all, for ever, and in this the only real difference between the mainstream left and the mainstream right is how the fantasy gets dressed up. Happy 2050.”

Do you have a discussion forum on your website?

It seems that we are the only ones prepared to post anything.

It would be better to have a general forum, I think, than comments on any particular item, such as About.

What say you?

There is one area of growth which is basic and the cause of all types of growth but which seems intractable. That is the growth in population on a global scale. Even in countries such as China and India which have tried to do something about it have failed. Their populations are still increasing.

Attempts to get people to stop breeding, seem impossible.

Without we reduce our numbers, nature will do it for us because growth will hit the barriers of climate change and lack of resources. Social conflict will ensue.

What a prospect. Humanity is fouling its nest. It’s on the road to self-destruction, at least for large numbers of us.

I could send you the video if I had your email address but I don’t have the know-how to send it to you so that you can post it here.

So, I have asked Ben Dyson to do it.

I would still like your email address so that we can communicate privately.

Mine is: