Perpetual growth hurting Chesapeake restoration efforts

Benchmarks have stalled

Steve Hawley, Jan 12, 09.

The once-acclaimed Chesapeake Bay restoration effort is failing, and without a shift away from perpetual growth, the program will never meet its goals, according to a report funded by the Abell Foundation and recounted by Smart Growth. According to the article, “the Bay cleanup won’t meet a 2010 deadline; in fact, many of the benchmarks have been stalled for years.”

Report author Tom Horton believes that small improvements are possible, but large-scale success is impossible in the face of “perpetual economic growth” that “[encourages] an ever-expanding population of human consumers to support it.” Horton notes that the notion of perpetual growth is based upon the false assumption that the human population can expand infinitely.

Horton suggests the economy must shift from a high-growth economy to a “steady state” economy focused on efficiency - “building more comfortable, affordable and energy-efficient homes instead of more homes,” “producing tastier, more nutritious burgers with less impact on the environment, rather than more and bigger ones,” and “rebuilding our cities and towns and mass transit systems versus expanding roads and the suburbs.”

“Growing! Growing! Gone! The Chesapeake Bay and the Myth of Endless Growth” pdf, 324 kb