Comments for Beyond Growth

Comment on Resources by bryanadkins

bryanadkins — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 17:17:18 +0000

Hey Jeremy,
Excellent as always. An interesting study along similar lines is summarized on Yale’s Environment site: http://e360.yale.edu/feature/the_new_story_of_stuff_can_we_consume_less/2468/

Cheers,
Bryan

Comment on Metrics by Thanks for asking – measuring Britain’s wellbeing « Make Wealth History

Tue, 26 Jul 2011 11:02:00 +0000

[...] limited usefulness of Gross Domestic Product is well known. It counts quantity, not quality, and measures activity without discerning whether [...]

Comment on Resources by Mike Brunt

Mike Brunt — Tue, 10 May 2011 15:10:26 +0000

There is a marvelous book by William R Catton called “Overshoot The Ecological of Revolutionary Change” more information here -

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_R._Catton,_Jr.

There are so very few people who realize that we are at the literal edge of how we live our lives and I am doing all I can to live with an ever diminishing footprint.

Comment on The growth report – an economic health check for January by Jeremy

Jeremy — Wed, 02 Feb 2011 16:48:01 +0000

True, scarcity is a big factor in inflation at the moment. It’s clearly demand that is driving the oil price, for example. I say there is too much money because it has been too easy to borrow, meaning the money supply has run ahead of economic growth. The property market over the last decade was the biggest problem, pumping new money into the economy through mortgages without the rising incomes to pay for them. We’re in the hangover of an easy-money decade.

Comment on The growth report – an economic health check for January by Bill Clarke

Bill Clarke — Tue, 01 Feb 2011 13:07:12 +0000

I am dubious about inflation being too much money in the system.

How can that be when practically everyone is short of cash and has to borrow? – and there is a credit crunch?

It’s more likely that the the fact that businesses are short of cash and have to borrow and then struggle to pay back capital and interest. To recoup what is, in effect, a loss, they raise their prices. That is inflationary.

Domestic inflation today is caused by the rise in global commodity prices and the falling exchange rate of the pound. So they are sold on the domestic market with higher prices. That is inflationary.

Comment on About by Bill Clarke

Bill Clarke — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 11:27:00 +0000

Hi Jeremy,

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.

Comment on About by Bill Clarke

Bill Clarke — Fri, 14 Jan 2011 10:36:11 +0000

Thank you Les for the link.

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.

Comment on About by Jeremy

Jeremy — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 20:57:30 +0000

No, I don't have any way of adding a specific forum on here, unfortunately. It's not a particularly busy site, and I created it as an introduction rather than an ongoing discussion per se. You may be interested in www.postgrowth.org, which is a more active community of people interested in steady state economics.

Comment on About by Jeremy

Jeremy — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 20:55:08 +0000

Hmm, I’m not sure that “serious, sober, studious, self-improving and circumscribed” are necessary for a steady state at all. And most visions of low growth economies have much more leisure, not lives “packed” with work. I’ll have to look that article up, it sound like someone who hasn’t read any of the literature.

Comment on About by les jones

les jones — Wed, 12 Jan 2011 19:58:38 +0000

Bill Clarke needs to read George Monbiot’s article,http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2009/09/29/the-population-myth/ to inform himself about the population issue. The third world has a population growth issue, but the first world has a consumption growth issue. We are able to do something about ours and unless we start we cant ask them to.