Another nail in the coffin of economic growth, and its fundamental
conflict with biodiversity conservation, should we choose to wield the
hammer.
*Restoration of the Bay a failure and will remain so,”*
*argues environmental writer Tom Horton***
“The restoration of the Chesapeake Bay is a failure after 25 years and
will remain so until political and environmental leaders stop embracing
rapid, unending growth,” says environmental writer Tom Horton.
In his study he argues: “A fatal blind spot remains in the best
strategies to save the Bay. The blind spot is our allegiance--some would
say addiction--to perpetual economic growth, and to encouraging an
ever-expanding population of human consumers to support it.
“This is our mantra: Growth is good, or necessary, or at least
inevitable. So unchallenged is this premise that we discuss it little
more than the gravitational force that holds us to the planet."
In the study the longtime Baltimore /Sun/ environmental reporter and
columnist details how both government and environmentalists focus “only
on the impacts of our lifestyles, acting as if it does not matter how
many of us are living around the Bay.”
He makes the point that this approach, though it is vital to the Bay's
restoration, is a half-measure, doomed to fail so long as rapid growth
continues. He challenges the myth that growth is inevitable, or
necessary to achieve economic prosperity, and talks candidly about
foreign immigration, the largest source of population growth.
"By an end to growth," Horton writes, "we do not mean an end to
capitalism, stock markets, innovation, or even greed and corruption, but
rather a shift to economic /development/ to better serve those already
here versus making endless and expensive accommodations for all who
might be induced to come.
“Ending growth is a debate needing to happen. Once we begin to shift the
lens, to dare to consider alternatives to the current, growth-is-good
mentality, many ‘goods’ will become ‘bads.’
“Spending on wider roads, more power plants, bigger sewage treatment
plants, now seen as necessary investments to accommodate growth, will
look like taxpayer subsidies to a few sectors of the economy that are
growth's only real beneficiaries.”
Horton argues: “It will be virtually impossible to reclaim our numerous
environmental messes as population continues rising from the current 304
million Americans to a projected half billion shortly after 2050; the
Bay watershed, currently with 17 million people, is adding 1.7 million
every decade.”
A stable population and a steady state economy will not guarantee
environmental or social Utopia, he argues, "but it will give us
breathing room, leave us options we will not otherwise have.
"There is scarcely a problem facing us that can't be solved easier in
the absence of rapid growth."
The report has been prepared on a grant from The Abell Foundation and
can be downloaded from www.abell.org <mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]>.
