Life Beyond Growth
By Alan AtKisson
Alternatives and Complements to GDP-Measured Growth as a Framing Concept for Social Progress
2012 Annual Survey Report of the Institute for Studies in Happiness, Economy, and Society — ISHES (Tokyo, Japan)
Table of Contents
Preface
A Note on Sources and References
Introduction
Chapter 1: The Historical Foundations of Economic Growth
Chapter 2:The Rise (and Possible Future Fall) of the Growth Paradigm
Chapter 3: The Building Blocks [...]
Let’s Stop Racing Each Other And Go For Bear Instead
by Donella Meadows
— September 7, 2000 —
I’ve heard the joke about the bear before, and so, probably, have you. Two guys are sitting outside their tent in a forest campsite when they see a huge angry bear charging toward them. One starts lacing up his running shoes. The other says, “Are you crazy? You’ll never outrun that bear!” The first [...]
What’s the President Worth? For Doing What?
by Donella Meadows
— May 27, 1999 —
Driving home last night I heard a snatch of radio discussion about whether we’re paying the president enough.
If I understood the argument while dodging traffic, it seems that corporate executive salaries have soared so high that the president’s salary is puny by comparison. Company CEOs earn millions. Michael Eisner of Disney earns in the [...]
So What Can We Do – Really Do – About Sprawl?
by Donella Meadows
— March 11, 1999 —
In my mind St. Louis is the poster city for sprawl. It has a glittering, high-rise center where fashionable people work, shop and party. Surrounding the center are blocks and blocks of empty lots, abandoned buildings, dying stores, a sad wasteland through which the fashionable people speed on wide highways to the suburbs. In [...]
If We Don’t Like Sprawl, Why Do We Go On Sprawling?
by Donella Meadows
— March 4, 1999 —
We have planning boards. We have zoning regulations. We have urban growth boundaries and “smart growth” and sprawl conferences. And we still have sprawl. Between 1970 and 1990 the population of Chicago grew by four percent; its developed land area grew by 46 percent. Over the same period Los Angeles swelled 45 percent in [...]
