Thoughts ...
The author is an idiot or a propagandist.
My bet is propagandist.
This article reeks of false assumptions preached as scientific fact.
Reading the NYT is a waste of time. Just my opinion, broskjold ;^)

I think that the author deliberately accepted postulates he knew to be false in order to present how unworkable 'no growth' would be.

That being said, there are many assertions that need to be set straight:
- No growth is not novel: is actually the default state of humankind (Australian abos are a good example). Think about it – there were very few nexus of development in the world. People from those locations conquered the rest of the world. Everywhere that they did not conquer remained Paleo-Neolithic (Central Africa, S. Am, Siberia, etc). If you leave us alone and do not introduce competition via warfare (the river valleys) or trade (Minoan empire, early Peru) then humans tend to remain at a steady state of no-growth.
- There have been Many declines in human tech. Farming was actually invented about 17K years ago, but then the Younger Dryas (mini-ice age) occurred and humans went back to a Mesolithic technology, because it was better suited to the cold weather. The Minoan age had Flush Toilets! and running hot and cold water. If Thera had not gone boom, we might have been on the Moon 1-2 thousand years ago. There was a proliferation of commerce and technology in the 3k-2K BC range. This fell in the 2M BC collapse. Again, we have the invention of the alphabet and differential gears at around 600 BC, but these are lost again. Then, finally we get recent enough for most people to call it ‘history’ – the Roman period, and subsequent collapse into the Middle Ages. At any of these points if you measure from the height of one civilization to the depth of the next period of collapse, you will find a decrease in per capita income, technology, and often population. So, yes, the Middle Ages were not as good as the Roman period. This is hardly unprecedented in the history of humankind.

So while I think that the author is using a straw horse well, he is also taking aim at the Achilles’ heel of lack of knowledge of the wavy growth pattern of human history.


Jan

I always have a curious question. What is "Growth"? Is it volume? is it based on "efficiency"? Is the "growth" "affective"? We use word-symbols in such vaguery and subjective context......I must be the burr under under the saddle.......hoping I'm pardoned for using metaphor.

What he is actually contemplating is a world without meaning or purpose. It's ridiculous from every standpoint. The sheer act of employment is a value-adding activity. The only way to exist is to add value through effort and activity. If one argues that no growth is the eventuality of the human race, it is a completely absurd argument which is in fact postulating the non-existence of humanity.

This is a very old story. When it comes to Mankind, a static anything dooms the race to a Dark Ages. It does, however, give power-mongers the opportunity to easily conquer and set up tribal fiefdoms and turning you and me into the pawns dedicated to increasing their power. Any attempt at innovation or betterment is rapidly put down using religion, environment or whatever is the anti-reason law of the time.

If you would like to read some baldfaced PC EcoNazi propaganda that comes with the article, click on "Short Answers to Hard Questions About Climate Change."

Life without growth is death.

the man is an idiot!
first of all the world as we know it is NOT getting warmer, it is cooling. one should never listen to any politician because when ever one opens his/her mouth they are lying. as for consumption declining which i think it is, is because of economic conditions and war. we are involved in a world war at the moment and it is having a negative effect on the economy unless of course you are selling guns and ammo. i hope this guy lives 100 years in good health so he can see he was absolutely wrong

It's bizarre as the result of attempting to meld two incompatible concepts into one.

The first is the anti-human and anti-life goals of the Eco-nuts.

The second is to prioritize current technologies against hydro-carbons instead of halting human population growth and technological progress to reduce carbon.

In the second scenario, the author neglects to include the possibilities of technological progress and invention, and also accepts human caused climate change as proven and real. He's then trying to be 'a reasonable and sane' client change controller similar to progressive's 'reasonable and sane' gun controllers.

I think you could fit about 2-dozen angels on the head of a pin, too.

Although Dale probably does not agree with the main premise of this article, he sure deserves a footnote from his book "Source of Economic Growth" The author clearly buys into the carbon scheme, but believes technology will be the savior. He is right economic growth only comes with innovation, and
his insight however into the real diehard greenies is spot on. They are clearly the degrowthers and are the ones who are denying reality and somehow think all there trappings of civilization will remain once the engine that made them possible is removed. This author is just beginning to see the light and is trying to justify in his mind that all the mental effort he has put into global warming was a waste. Sorry buddy but A=A

The assumption is that there is only so much to know or that we will at some point in time, know everything...Both are false. Creation or the Cosmos if you prefer, only continues with the creation of value seen as order; otherwise we are subjected to the forces of, (not heat related), entropy. There will always be something to learn, there will always be something to create, to improve. Creation is never static therefore conditions will always change and we must adapt or die.

The article is based on the false premise that the ratio of GDP to carbon emissions must fall into a narrow band. It's not true for two reasons:
1. Once we provide for people's basic needs, they start demanding more aesthetic things. For example, they don't want three phones but want to pay three times more for a really cool looking one. Businesses now need to figure out what people want rather than just find ways to get people more.
2. There are other sources of energy. If there weren't the world's ability to provide an affluent life for billions of people would end soon.

The article is a great example of applying the industrial mindset to the post-industrial world.

success doesn't require growth -- hey, we're retired and
spending our inheritors' money -- plus the gov't isn't doing
the COLA thing this year. . reminds me of a certain DOE
chief who "volunteered" to eliminate merit raises one year.
Hazel O'Leary if memory serves. . and she also did the
Hillary thing with classified info -- let it go;;; it doesn't
really matter. . Dummy. . so success is horizontal for us,
right now. . but Thomas Malthus was WRONG. -- j
.

I dont have real data to support this, but I would suspect that if there was no population growth, zero growth would be sustainable assuming people didnt want new things. Also for thousands of years, there were occasional plagues that decimated the populations.

Now, I suspect that there is an exponential growth in world population that would make a no growth proposition very unsustainable.

Governments have tried to prime the growth pump through printing money and promoting credit, but the piper must be paid for unsustainable growth. It gets paid for by depressions and wars.