Growth for the Sake of Growth Is the Ideology of the Cancer Cell

That’s a quote by Edward Abbey and he was an interesting dude, an environmentalist way before it was a ‘thing’ and a friend to all things natural. That included his own burial, when he requested (and was given) a grave in the Arizona desert, un-embalmed and zipped into a sleeping bag, laid out in the bed of a pickup truck, doused with whiskey. It was illegal as could be. His epitaph reads ‘No Comment.’

But for half a century we are, and have been, a nation in the thrall of growth. Our currency, rather than having In God we trust as its motto should probably replace it with In Growth we trust. Everything we value would be more useful, efficient, profitable and attractive in the Large Economy Size.

Which, except for breakfast food, is untrue.

Take population as an example. When I was twenty (1955), world population was two billion and close to seventy years later we are close to eight billion. And it looks as though we are not done yet, although there are some encouraging statistics that a…