I like growth. I want to be wealthier or be able to work less (which is really just an aspect of being wealthier). I want everybody else to be wealthier too. I want my children to be better off than I am.
The problem is growth without care for the consequences. Making some people wealthier at the expense of killing the planet is a bad plan.
But I think that it goes too far the other way to turn around and say that growth itself is the problem and should be eliminated. We should strive for sustainable growth, not stasis.
The story of the African tribe with external wealth is nice, but doesn't seem like a good goal. What happens when some change in the climate (which can happen even without human intervention) wipes out a plant they rely on, or a long drought shrinks their food supply by half for a couple of years? Heck, what happens when somebody gets cancer, or cataracts, or an abscessed tooth?
The problem is growth without care for the consequences. Making some people wealthier at the expense of killing the planet is a bad plan.
But I think that it goes too far the other way to turn around and say that growth itself is the problem and should be eliminated. We should strive for sustainable growth, not stasis.
The story of the African tribe with external wealth is nice, but doesn't seem like a good goal. What happens when some change in the climate (which can happen even without human intervention) wipes out a plant they rely on, or a long drought shrinks their food supply by half for a couple of years? Heck, what happens when somebody gets cancer, or cataracts, or an abscessed tooth?