Current mood:

puzzled

"steady-state economy"
I am deeply alarmed by green campaigners' tendency to lurch from seemingly making sense to talking (what seems to me to be) absolute drivel. Example:

In New Scientist (25th November '06), Thomas Homer-Dixon is interviewed, and says:

it's increasingly clear that [an endlessly growing economy] is incompatible with the long-term viability of Earth's environment. We need to know what a "steady state" economy - one with a roughly constant output of goods and services - might look like.

You can imagine economic output, and how it's produced, staying at the current level, instead of growing. This would make lots of people poorer, but it wouldn't reduce CO2 emissions, protect fisheries, or anything else.

Conversely, you may be able to imagine a massive shift towards more sustainable means of production (the usual suspects: integrated pest control, renewable energy, emissions trading schemes, polluter-pays, recycling...) which would reduce ecological footprint without a massive (?) cost in foregone GDP.

steadystate.org claim this:

In a steady state economy, society focuses on goals more noble than economic growth.

... like, preventing economic growth? Is that a worthwhile goal?

(That's not to say that growth in GDP is necessarily the best thing for human welfare... there's a lot which GDP doesn't count. But it's far easier to campaign for that sort of thing when you haven't set yourself up on a soapbox fetishising constant GDP, rather than increasing GDP).

My current opinion: Trying to reduce ecological footprint by flattening GDP is akin to trying to reduce the spread of HIV by reducing the number of orgasms experienced.