Review: Prosperity Without Growth?

When a British government commission publishes a report calling for an end to economic growth, it suddenly seems that we live in a world that is changing its direction. Growth has been the central goal of economists since the beginning of the industrial revolution. But Prof. Tim Jackson, the Economics Commissioner of the UK’s Sustainable Development Commission has written a book that sums up the current state of our knowledge about economic growth and that demonstrates convincingly that growth should end.

We have all heard about the environmental effects of growth, such as resource depletion and global warming, but the conventional wisdom says that better technology can deal with these problems. This book argues that, if growth continues at its present pace, better technology alone cannot reduce greenhouse gas emissions sufficiently. “The global economy is almost five times the size it was half a century ago. If it continues to grow at the same rate the economy will be 80 times that size by the year 2100.” That rapid rate of growth is likely to overwhelm our attempts to use better technology to reduce greenhouse gas emissions: by 2050, carbon emissions per unit of gross world product would have to be 130 times lower than today to avoid the worst effects of global warming.

If we are serious about controlling global warming, we must adopt better technologies as quickly as possible, but we must also move beyond the technological fix and deal with economic growth itself.

Sierra Club