http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/mar/30/g20-sustainable-development-commission
The pursuit of economic growth was one of the root causes of the financial crisis, and governments should respond to the recession by abandoning growth at all costs in favour of a more sustainable, greener system, says a report out today [by the Sustainable Development Commission, the UK Government’s independent watchdog on sustainable development ( http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/pages/redefining-prosperity.html )]. http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/publications.php?id=914 "Every society clings to a myth by which it lives. Ours is the myth of economic growth. For the last five decades the pursuit of growth has been the single most important policy goal across the world. 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. This extraordinary ramping up of global economic activity has no historical precedent. It’s totally at odds with our scientific knowledge of the finite resource base and the fragile ecology on which we depend for survival. And it has already been accompanied by the degradation of an estimated 60% of the world’s ecosystems."
