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Introduction
- University Press of New England
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1 INTRODUCTION “Economic growth is key to environmental progress.” —George W. Bush, 2/14/02 The above statement is an excer pt from a speech that Pr esident Bush gave onValentine’s Day.I heard it while listening to National Public Radio’s All Things Considered news program as I w as driving home fr om Antioch New England Gradu ate School,where I teach.I found the President’s statement so provocative that I had to pull o ver so I could wr ite it down. As an ecologist, it’s evident to me that economic g rowth, as well as its associated e ver-increasing extraction of r esources and waste generation, is pr imarily responsible for the en vironmental problems that we are witnessing today. How can it be that a world leader would suggest that the solution to our environmental problems is more economic growth? It’s possible that President Bush was being disingenuous in his statement . But it is equally possible that his assessment is the result of his paradigmatic view of progress. If we remove the word “environmental,” the President’s statement becomes “Economic growth is key to progress”—an opinion that is shared by the majority of people and policy makers today. Introduction 2 Paradigm is a w ord der ived from the Gr eek paradeigma, which means to show side by side.This sounds like a rather innocuous thing to do, but with our mor e modern concept of paradigm such compar isons can be powerful and at times volatile. In our current use, a paradigm represents a core belief that dramatically structures our worldview. It is a lens thr ough which all of our per ceptions and thoughts ar e strongly filtered . Wherever differing paradigms inter sect, there will at least be debate, often confrontation, and sometimes violence. The contentiousness that so infuses the issue of abor tion is the result of differing paradigmatic views of what constitutes life; the clash of these differing views often sparks violent acts. In very powerful w ays, we ar e shr ouded and entrapped within the paradigms that w e accept —and this acceptance is often an unconscious act. Reigning cultural paradigms can be passed fr om generation to generation, and if the y aren’t challenged, they are simply accepted as truth.To change one’s paradigm is perhaps the most difficult of challenges, because it often requires turning one’s world inside out. People have killed other people o ver challenged paradigms. And people have even sacr ificed their children and f amilies rather than sacrifice their core beliefs.To change one’s paradigm is a dramatic event. This book is a critique of our reigning paradigm of progress —that in or der to pr ogress we need to k eep g rowing the economy. I need to distinguish her e between economic growth and economic de velopment. Economic g rowth is predicated on increasing consumption of r esources, whereas economic de velopment can occur without incr eased con sumption . Economic de velopment can be encouraged through value-added activities. In Vermont, dairy farming is the foundation of the ag ricultural economy. But due to the [44.199.212.254] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 01:36 GMT) Introduction 3 nature of the state’s mountainous landscape and nar row valleys , dairy farms are restricted in size.This restriction makes it difficult for Vermont f arms to compete with large w estern dairies that can ha ve thousands of co ws. So rather than just selling raw milk, a number of Vermont farms have added value to their operations b y turning the milk into cheese or yogurt.They use the same amount of resources, but they add value by further developing their milk products. My critique is focused solely on economic growth. Previous books have criticized this notion of pr ogress. In 1971 economist Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, in his book The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, attacked the idea of unlimited growth as being scientifically unfounded because it ignored the second law of thermodynamics.The following year, in The Limits to Growth, Donella Meadows and associate systems scientists fr om the Club of Rome sho wed through computer modeling that unlimited g rowth was not sustain able . In 1977 Herman Daly came forth with Steady-State Economics , which de veloped an alter native model to economic progress. More recently Daly par tnered with J ohn Cobb in writing For the...