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Why We Promote Sustainability:Economics is at the root of sustainability, but trying to improve our environment in the developed world with economic growth is like trying to put out a fire by throwing gasoline on the flames. The scale of economic growth already exceeds the Earth’s carrying capacity. Instead of growth in a planet that is already full we need a steady-state economy. The dominant model in economics promotes growth in the physical scale of economic activity. This worldview is traditional neoclassical economics, which includes its sub-disciplines environmental economics and resource economics. In the past economic growth benefited societies. Even now in the short term the right economic argument from a mainstream perspective might be useful in making a case for a specific narrow environmental concern. However, staying with the dominant paradigm invites serious local, national and international harm because growth’s large scale is straining the integrity of the Earth as our life support system. The stress is analogous to the depletion of trees that apparently caused collapse of Easter Island’s society that is explained in Collapse: How Societies Choose to Fail or Succeed (http://us.penguingroup.com/nf/Book/BookDisplay/0,,0_0143036556,00.html). The impact of growth is explained in Limits to Growth: The 30 Year Update (http://chelseagreen.com/2004/items/ltgcdandbook), pointed to in the Ecological Footprint Quiz (http://www.myfootprint.org/) and succinctly stated as follows:
Supporters of convention respond to environmental problems with emphasis on efficiency, substitutability and human capital (Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train, 44). Consider the shortcomings of each approach. 1) Efficiency in use of resources alone, even at its environmentally friendliest (e.g., smart growth, higher miles per gallon, and cradle to cradle) might at best slow the runaway train but does not solve the problem. 2) The notion of substituting some resources for other more depleted resources strains the global ecosystem in ways that jeopardize the Earth as our life support system. For example, it is unwise to jeopardize our food production with technologies and land conversion that kill off the insects essential to pollinating many of our fruits and vegetables, in anticipation of other resources replacing the insects. 3) By emphasizing human capital there is replacement of what can be done cheaper by nature (such as water purification, and pollination of agricultural plants) and this emphasis requires more of what causes problems in the first place, namely the know how to more efficiently liquidate the Earth and to stress the Earth with substitutions. The alternative worldview offered by Campaign for Sustainable Economics is ecological economics, the core of which is a steady-state economy. In a steady-state economy, economics is viewed as a subsystem of the Earth (as our life support system) and is in equilibrium with its sustaining environment. With this perspective the Earth has a finite carrying capacity. The people at Campaign for Sustainable Economics feel compelled to promote this worldview because it makes sense that we are a part of a finite biological and physical life support system. Moreover, it makes sense that we benefit by taking care of this system by emphasizing the management of ourselves more than management of nature. Thus, Campaign for Sustainable Economics’ mission is to promote ecological economics. Contact InformationPlease feel free to contact us at our post office box in Indianapolis or via email
Campaign for Sustainable Economics
537 Fletcher Avenue #2 |
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