Building a Sustainable Economyin a World of Finite Resources

by

Rob Dietz and Dan O’Neill

steadystate.org/enough-is-enough/

Roof: The goal of maximizing financial wealth and expanding the economy.

Structure: Policies and institutions that encourage more people, more profits, more debt, and more consumption.

Foundation: The culture of more.

Source: Global Footprint Network

Source: Sustainable Europe Research Institute

Technology’s Role

Foundation: changing awareness from more to enough

Roof: goal of sustainable and equitable well-being

Pillars: support structure of new policies and institutions

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Three Questions for Each Pillar

What are we doing?

What could we do instead?

Where do we go from here?

Gross National Happiness

Solution 1: Use measures of real progress.

Ranking Nation HPI Score (out of a possible 100)

1. Costa Rica 76.12. Dominican Republic 71.83. Jamaica 70.14. Guatemala 68.45. Vietnam 66.59. Brazil 61.017. Bhutan 58.520. China 57.135. India 53.051. Germany 48.174. United Kingdom 43.375. Japan 43.3106. Russia 34.5114. United States 30.7115. Nigeria 30.3143. Zimbabwe 16.6

Selection of Nations Ranked by Happy Planet Index

Happy Planet Index =Happy Life Years

Ecological Footprint

Solution 2: Limit throughput of materials and energy.

RenewablesExtraction ≤ Regeneration

NonrenewablesSubstitution ≥ Depletion

WastesEmissions ≤ Safe Absorption

Herman Daly’s Three Operating Rules for a Sustainable Economy

Solution 3: Stabilize population.

Solution 4: Achieve fair distribution of income.

TransamericaSan Francisco

JP Morg. ChaseHouston

Bank of Amer.Atlanta

WTCNew York

U.S. BankLos Angeles

Solution 5: Reform the financial system.

Solution 6: Secure meaningful jobs.

Solution 7: Change business practices.

Co-ops

Economic Growth Picks Up So Why All the Gloom?

Scotland Is Celebrating GDP Growth

“Our top priority must be to do everything we can to grow our economy…”

“Our top priority must be sustainable and equitable well-being—prosperity and justice for all.”

Only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change. When that crisis occurs, the actions that are taken depend on the ideas that are lying around. That, I believe, is our basic function: to develop alternatives to existing policies, to keep them alive and available until the politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable.

Ideas for Sparking Change

steadystate.org

Learn something. Say something. Do something.

steadystate.org/enough-is-enough/

“Lucid, informed, andhighly constructive…”–Noam Chomsky

“…the book we’ve all been waiting for.”–Kathleen Dean Moore

“…will restore your hopein the future.”–Thom Hartmann