Prospeity without growth

Iglethal, posperity without growth is not about keeping "3/4 of the worlds population continue to live in relative (and often real) poverty", although it's frequently and wrongly characterised as such.

Here's what Tim Jackson, one of the leading proponents of the concept has to say about it:

"For millions in developing countries, growth is clearly still vital to deliver basic standards of living and well-being. But, in developed countries including the UK, far from increasing prosperity, our debt-driven consumption has created an unstable system which has put jobs and livelihoods at risk, as well as damaging us psychologically and socially."

Check out the graphs from p41 of this publication:

http://www.sd-commission.org.uk/publications/downloads/prosperity_without_growth_report.pdf

After a certain point, increased GDP does next to nothing to improve life.

Alternatively, read Jackson's book of the same title (minus the '?')

Some comments

* How is a 'summit' != a 'conference' (or a 'round table' for that matter)? 'Summit' sounds a lot more high- falutin, but in the end ain't it a bunch of suits around a table swapping presentations?

* Isn't Asda the UK version of Wal-Mart? If so, they could consider sourcing more of their product from in-country to cut down on the emissions required to cargo-ship stuff from overseas (where environmental regulations tend to be less robust -- great 2 for 1 deal, no?) while also creating more jobs at home (economic stability).

* Too many "environmental" groups seem to have been 0wn3d by corporate polluters (see http://www.thenation.com/article/wrong-kind-green for some examples), so they might not be the great counterbalance one expects.

* "Growth for the sake of growth is the ideology of the cancer cell." -- Edward Abbey. Clearly, some growth will be needed to bring developing nations to levels of self- sufficiency, but I am concerned that any money thrown in this direction will be for wheel- spinning and handing out of fish instead of education, infrastructure, and other long-term "deep" foundations needed for residents to fish for themselves.

Wasn't baseless? Yer kidding...

Sure what's the difference in theories and guesstimates of linear losses taking glaciers to 0 in 25 years or 350 if they're heading the same way right? Give your head a shake. The whole movement took a major beating when these singular egos took over and the word "green" became punctuated with a $. The fallout of this is understandably distrust from the general public. That they've caught on is very much the fault of Al Gore's (snicker) Internet. You can't ever lay claim to high percentage projections from models whose code you then guard like KFC does their breading recipe or toss out that the raw data was scrubbed decades ago to make space for... the modified data?

I myself am what is termed a "luke-warmer" and of course universally disdained by both extremes. Not at all bad though as I'd rather reading discussion by Roger Pielke Sr and discussing with Roger Pielke Jr than baseless alarmism or blind denial any day.

Oh and if we're redistributing the Rockefeller fortune to the poor let's also make sure Al Gore's $125 million makes it into the pot. Can't call one if you're not going to call them all even if he did get a Nobel popularity prize (a Nebula would make more sense) all the while maintaining his claim to having spawned the internet.

Never excuse dishonesty on either side of any issue no matter your personal politics. Ever.

Raising the Bar and Moving On with Novel Style and Olde Worlde Panache

"Pressed on this subsequently by The Reg, she said: "If someone, say a client, insisted that someone else be there, then fine. But in general I'm not sure why we'd spend a lot of money giving them the time.""

Give IBM marketing veep Ms Caroline Taylor, eleven out of ten for that refreshingly honest and direct reply, and so reasonable as to be perfectly correct if even politically incorrect.

And Bravo, Prince Charles, strutting his stuff like an Enlightened and Enlightening Monarch indeed. And I'm sorely tempted to add like a Sun King in Deed, too, although a typical Right Royal Reserve and False Modesty would probably play down any such Personalising Magnificence for Significance in such Future Thought Eventing.

And yes, I do realise that the story doesn't mention much in the way of princely input other than "throwing open his gardens at Clarence House for festivities accompanying the summit in September,.." but one would not expect to know more than one needs to know about sensitive save the planet matters, would one, whenever there is far too much to know which which can all too easily presently overload and overlode Inadequate and Inequitable Operating Systems.

Green Goddess

Taylor has named herself after a 1950s Bedford fire engine.

Doing the boogie-woogie twitter

@scatter

"The point of the work behind proserity without growth is that we move away from using GDP as a measure of success and move towards metrics such as health, well being, leisure time, non-tediousness of life etc,"

Um, GDP is just a measurement of something that can actually be measured, and as such gives a useful indication of a country's growing or declining prosperity - that is, its material wealth. While it's true that money ≠ happiness, let alone "success" (whatever you may mean by that), it's hard to think of of any measurement that would measure happiness/success, not forgetting "well being" or "non-tediousness of life".

Also don't forget, those countries with the highest GDPs, by happy coincidence, happen to be the ones with the prosperity to make the scientific and technological advances to counter the impending ecopalypse relentlessly pedalled by the World Wildlife Fraud, Prince Big-Ears, your hero Tim Jackson and such.

What Jackson doesn't seem to get is that if prosperity (as measured by GDP) is the enjoyment and use of wealth - which I think is as good a definition as any - and there isn't sufficient wealth to go around at present, preventing economic growth is hardly the best remedy. I don't think the oppressed coolies of Bugandazawleland or wherever will thank you if they haven't got a hospital with a consistent power supply but their non-tediousness of life index is doing mighty fine.

But who cares about that when you can attend a swanky beano to hear Jools do a boogie-woogie on "sustainability" while Stephen bloody Fry twitters all and sundry about it.

Dearie me

"sessions will be held under Chatham House rules"

Isn't that just a fancy way of saying 'in secret'?

I'm surprised at Steven Fry - I thought he was brighter than that.