OMNI
NOTES ON GROWTH
June 17, 2016
Compiled by Dick
Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and ECOLOGY
For more on growth see
the many OMNI newsletters on US Capitalism and related topics. http://omnicenter.org/dick-bennetts-peace-justice-and-ecology-newsletters/ And see at end.
That is, Growth is a sub-topic of Capitalism. See Chamber of Commerce.
Contents Growth Watch June 17, 2016
OMNI’s Book Forum June 5, 2016, Klein’s The Changes Everything, Film
Boostering Growth Has
No Boundaries
Water District
(population growing)
Census:
Fayetteville and NWA Best in State
To AD-G Easter Sunday Good Day to Drum Up
Sales!
XNA, Whataburger, Cargill, Wall-Mart, U of
Arkansas! JB Hunt, Editorial
XNA, Whataburger, Cargill, Wall-Mart, U of
Arkansas! JB Hunt, Editorial
Progress
Ford’s New
F-Series Trucks
Global
Tourism: Disney
Air Travel:
Delta
Opposition to Growth
Monbiot, Air Travel
Chamber of
Commerce
WLF v.
Airplanes
Cities
US Forest
Service
National Park
Service
Scholarly Books
Limits to Growth
McKibben, Eaarth
Heinberg, The End of Growth
Rogoff, Rethinking the Growth Imperative
Derber and
Magrass, Bully Nation: How the American
Establishment Creates a Bullying Society
Establishment Creates a Bullying Society
OMNI’s
BOOK FORUM June 5, 2016, presented a film based on Klein’s This Changes Everything.
Like the book, the film tracks
unsustainable growth generated by our capitalistic economic system. “Growth is
the modern deity.” The film and much
more the book suggests many courses of action our committee might follow, particularly
direct action.
No one book
(and certainly no single film) can encompass all or even the most significant
topics in such an enormously complex subject.
For example, Klein has little to say about overpopulation or the
militarism-wars-imperialism complex as powerful sources of growth within capitalism.
Part I gives
growth boosterism from the AD-G. Part II, emphatically bringing up the
rear, scarcely mentioned in the AD-G:
opposition to growth.
BOOSTERING
GROWTH
Growth is to our economic system what
blood or lungs is to the human body.
(Note: AD-G refers
to the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)
NWA
AND ARKANSAS GROWTH, Reports in Chronological Order 2015-16:
BOOSTERISM
AND HUCKSTERISM FOR GROWTH
“Water District
Updates Plans” by Amye Buckley. NWA Democrat-Gazette (5-17-15).
“The updated
plan anticipates the need for a pipeline to supply more water to Fayetteville.
. . .” [population!]
CENSUS CONFIRMS
FAYETTEVILLE'S REMARKABLE GROWTH, BEST IN STATE
From Maylon Rice 5-26-15. ]
The
Northwest Arkansas cities of Fayetteville, Bentonville, Centerton, Goshen and
Cave Springs were among the most remarkable growth stories in the most recent
year, new U.S. Census Bureau estimates show. . . . (Email
5-26-15)
EASTER SUNDAY, MARCH 27, 2016, the AD-G thinks it a GOOD DAY TO BEAT THE DRUM FOR GROWTH AND PROGRESS
(five of the many examples this one day)
Large ad “FLY XNA”: “Almost 40 Flights a Day to 14
Destinations.” XNA has a new runway and
concourse too.
“Second Fayetteville Whataburger Opens.” “The company has grown to more than 790 restaurants in 10
states.” EAT MEAT FAYETTEVILLE, GO USA. See studies OF THE FORESTS CUT DOWN for BEEF AND FUEL
CONSUMED for transportation.
Full-page Ad for Cargill (plant in Springdale). “We help people thrive” by “feeding the world in a responsible
way, reducing environmental impact, and improving the communities where we live
and work.” Whata? Cargill is Increasing meat production for
the increasing population while reducing CO2?
“Making Connections: Economic Connections.” Special Section. Praising growth of Wal-Mart of course, University of Arkansas
(26,754 Fall 2015 enrollment), JB Hunt Transport Service (467,461 intermodal
loads moved, new six-story bldng under construction, year-long advertising logo
on No. 9 car during NASCAR Sprint Cup Series), and so on.
Editorial. “Making
Connections: Special Report Examines Northwest Arkansas’ Progress.” A report titled “Making Connections: Progress 2016” praises
“this vibrant corner of Arkansas,” its “economic growth and the developments
creating a bright future.”
Resisting
growth is up against one of the USA’s
most powerful myths—Progress through growth.
It appears everywhere in our blood stream. A local example: “Making Connections,” AD-G (March 27, 2016),
1A. To read the entire article we are
told to “See PROGRESS, P. 10A.” There we
are regaled with news of NWA’s expanding cities and towns. --D
Regulatory
Agencies, one arm bound and mouth partly gagged by the Republicans and
Libertarians, struggle to Stop Growth by Curbing Its Effects
John
Lippert (Bloomberg News). “Some of Ford’s New F-Series Miss Fuel, Emission
Goals.” AD-G (June
17, 2016).
Ford spent “six
years and…more than $1 billion” in “overhauling the crown jewel of their
empire, the F-150” truck. But some versions don’t meet government’s 2016
mandates, and for fuel economy infractions Ford must pay a fine and for greenhouse
gas the government us stricter, and “by 2015, the targets will be much more stringent.” Like so many articles in the smaller and
smaller AD-G news reporting, the
title does not epitomize the whole. Read
the whole article to discover for example that in fact “average greenhouse-gas
emissions from new models were six percentage points higher in March than in
August 2014 because of low gasoline prices encouraging suv and similar
purchases.
GLOBAL
GROWTH: USA, THE WORLD
[This
section is arranged topically.]
TOURISM:
THE WORLD DISNEYIZED
Jon
Gambrell, “Dubai Amusement Park to Add Six Flags.” AD-G (March
29, 2016). “A sprawling Dubai amusement
park project still under construction plans a $454-million addition to include a Six Flags” (my italics). The park “already includes Bollywood and
movie-themed parks, as well as a Legoland.”
The cost of the entire project will be “well over $3 billion.” Planned in connection is the Maktoum
International Airport at Dubai World Central, “which officials hope someday
will handle over 200 million passengers a year, and the 2020 World Expo, or
world’s fair. [Tourism travel must be a
high priority concern for anybody seeking to reduce growth. Perhaps OMNICCL fee-dividend campaign strikes
at the heart of transportation of all kinds.
--D]
Paul
Traynor and Joe McDonald (AP). “Disneyland
Debut in Shanghai.” AD-G (June 17, 2016).
Cost: $5.5 billion, shared with
Disney’s state-owned Chinese partner, the Shanghai Shendi Group, which owns 57
percent of the park. Revenue should be “as
much as $4.5 billion a year.” “Analysts
expect Shanghai Disneyland to become the world’s most-visited theme park,
attracting at least 15 million guests a year.” [Travel to see Goofy anybody?]
AIR TRAVEL
“Delta
Bets on Ocean Flights for Growth.” AD-G (6-17-16).
“’You can’t
have a big international presence without a big domestic presence, and the international
piece makes the domestic piece more profitable,’” said a spokesman of MIT’s
International Center for Air Transportation.
The article’s scope is much larger than Delta, with information about
global air travel expansion.
ON THE OTHER HAND
COUNTER-GROWTH (also arranged more by subject matter)
From Fran: My
favorite rejoinder to the growth-is-good cheerleaders is, “Growth is
the working philosophy of a cancer cell.”
On air travel read George Monbiot’s chapter, “Love Miles,” in
his book Heat: How to Keep the Planet
from Burning.
STOP
SUBSIDIZING CHAMBERS OF COMMERCE
RICHARD MASON,
“How to Grow a City.” AD-G (5-24-15, 1H)
“The premise to
grow, grow and continue to grow permeates not only Arkansas society but
flourishes nationwide. . . .
Almost all the chambers of commerce in our state have the same goal:
unbridled growth with jobs, jobs, jobs at any cost.” Mason urges cities to stop giving tax money to
chambers of commerce to encourage industrial growth and to convert the money to
creating a decent place to live, many features of which he specifies. This article is a manifesto for our cities’
Quality of Life. [And it complements
parallel contraceptive efforts by family planning organizations to enable
people to reduce their family sizes, water use, crowded roads. If you know Richard Mason, invite him to our
forums. –D]
WLF vs AIRPLANES
 |
|
[OMNICCL’s
fee/dividend efforts are up against several enormously powerful polluting industries.]
DEVELOPMENT
OF CITIES: LOS ANGELES
“Smog-befouled
Los Angeles, the Eden that paved over its garden, is a symbol of the patterns
of development that have led to rising seas, intense droughts, and furious
storms. The late-1930s decision to
euthanize the [Los Angeles] river rather than revive it represents the more
general choice that the United States took in the 20th century: growth over sustainability, industry over ecology.” Richard Kreitner, “LA Lost, and Found.” The
Nation (March 28/April 4, 2016).
THE
COMMONS CONCEPT AND PRACTICE RESIST UNBRIDLED GROWTH
“The
destruction of the commons is fundamental to climate change, and it is integral
to the bullying of animals and the bludgeoning of all of nature.” Derber and Magrass, Bully Nation (77).
https://lawreview.uchicago.edu/.../12_...
University
of Chicago Law Review
by Y Benkler - Cited by 15 -
Related articles
question of property versus commons as institutional
forms for managing the .... See Yochai Benkler, Growth-Oriented Law for the
Networked Information Econ-.
www.lse.ac.uk/.../Gro...
London
School of Economics and Political Science
Grantham Institute and
Global Green Growth Institute. London, 1st ... Green Growth vs. Degrowth? 2. From growth to welfare. 3. Commons as a new paradigm.
4.
US
Forest Service
AP. “US Deals Blow to Development Plans.” AD-G (March 29, 2016). The U.S. Forest Service stopped a company’s
plan to build hundreds of homes, boutiques, and five-star hotels “just outside
Grand Canyon National Park.”
Environmentalists “said the growth would mar the beauty of the region
and stress resources.” [The history of
the Forest Service shows generally cooperation with economic exploitation of
resources. –Dick]
National
Park Service
Jill
Rohrbach. “National Parks to Celebrate
Sites.” AD-G (March 29, 2016). “This
year marks the centennial of the National Park Service with celebrations and
special events planned across the U.S. to honor the agency.” Arkansas has 8 Park Service sites, including
the Buffalo National River.
(see
OMNI Service Newsletters http://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2016/02/service-how-did-you-serve.html)
SCHOLARLY
AND SCIENTIFIC REPORTS/BOOKS versus GROWTH in Chronological Order
NO
GROWTH DEBATE FORTY YEARS AGO
Recently I
looked over a book (acquired at OMNI’s sale of Rev. Dave Hunter’s and Rev.
Kerry Mueller’s books given to OMNI) published in 1972 in which the pre-climate
change positives and negatives of zero growth are discussed. The
book will interest and perhaps assist us, since possibly the same arguments
apply today in regard to stopping population growth in order to reduce the
harms of climate change.
The No-Growth Society, ed. by Mancur Olson and Hans Landsberg. 1972.
The Limits to
Growth, 1972
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
For the entire article go to: search
|
The
Limits to Growth
|
|
|
The Limits to Growth first edition cover. |
|
|
Author(s)
|
Donella
H. Meadows
Dennis L. Meadows Jørgen Randers William W. Behrens III |
|
Language
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English
|
|
Publisher
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Universe Books
|
|
Publication date
|
1972
|
|
Pages
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205
|
|
OCLC Number
|
|
The Limits
to Growth is a 1972 book modeling the consequences of a rapidly growing world
population and finite resource supplies, commissioned by the Club of
Rome. Its authors were Donella
H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jørgen
Randers, and William W. Behrens III. The book used the World3 model to
simulate[1]
the consequence of interactions between the Earth's and human systems. The book
echoes some of the concerns and predictions of the Reverend Thomas Robert Malthus in An Essay on the Principle of
Population (1798).
Five
variables were examined in the original model, on the assumptions that
exponential growth accurately described their patterns of increase, and that
the ability of technology to increase the availability of resources grows only
linearly. These variables are: world population, industrialization,
pollution, food production and resource depletion. The authors intended to
explore the possibility of a sustainable feedback pattern that would be
achieved by altering growth trends among the five variables.
The most recent updated version was published on June 1,
2004 by Chelsea Green Publishing Company and Earthscan
under the name Limits to Growth: The
30-Year Update. Donnella Meadows, Jørgen Randers, and Dennis
Meadows have updated and expanded the original version. They had previously
published Beyond the Limits in 1993 as a 20 year
update on the original material.[2][3][4]
In 2008
Graham Turner at the Commonwealth
Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) in Australia
published a paper called "A Comparison of `The Limits to Growth` with
Thirty Years of Reality".[5][6]
It examined the past thirty years of reality with the predictions made in 1972
and found that changes in industrial production, food production and pollution
are all in line with the book's predictions of economic
and societal collapse in the 21st century.[7]
In 2010, Peet, Nørgård, and Ragnarsdóttir called the book a "pioneering
report", but said that, "unfortunately the report has been largely
dismissed by critics as a doomsday prophecy that has not held up to
scrutiny."[8]
For the entire article go to: search
BILL
MCKIBBEN, EAARTH (2010)
Pp. 90-97
McKibben praises the Club
of Rome and its 1973 book, Limits to
Growth. The early ‘70s
were an optimistic spurt of service to the earth: the first Earth Day, the EPA
established, first fuel economy cars, 55-mile per-hour speed limit,
Schumacher’s Small Is Beautiful, Pres.
Carter’s White House reception for him, Carter’s WH solar panels, and Limits to Growth—transl. into 30
languages and 30 million copies sold.
The researchers of this book saw the likelihood of our planet overwhelmed
by growth and development. “They foresaw
this planet Eaarth [growth and all of
its consequences], and if we’d heeded
them we might have prevented its birth” (91).
RICHARD HEINBERG, The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality. (August 2011)
The End of Growth describes what
policymakers, communities, and families can do to build a new economy that
operates within Earth’s budget of energy and resources. We can thrive during the transition if we set goals that
promote human and environmental well-being, rather than continuing to pursue
the now-unattainable prize of ever-expanding GDP. [OMNI has a “transition” study group, contact
Gladys, Jean.]
Rethinking the Growth Imperative
|
|
 Kenneth Rogoff, Op-Ed, NationofChange,
January 3, 2012: Modern macroeconomics often seems to treat rapid and stable
economic growth as the be-all and end-all of policy. That message is echoed
in political debates, central-bank boardrooms, and front-page headlines. But
does it really make sense to take growth as the main social objective in
perpetuity, as economics textbooks implicitly assume? But there might be a
problem even deeper than statistical narrowness: the failure of modern growth
theory to emphasize adequately that people are fundamentally social
creatures. |
Derber
and Magrass. Bully Nation: How the
American Establishment Creates a Bullying Society. UP Kansas, 2016.
The
first value of the capitalist system is private property.
“The
second specific value in capitalist systems is growth.” Regarding the environment, “this means humans
dominating and exploiting nonhuman animal species and all of nature.”
“Unlimited
growth will foster climate change, at least as growth is conceived today. More and more production means extracting and
using more and more finite resources, leading toward more energy use and
increased emission of greenhouse gases.”
Solutions: 1) replacing the growth of private
commodities by growth of public goods (e.g., education). This is “extremely difficult to accomplish”
in the US because “wealth is conceived as created only through private markets.”
The US lacks a “robust concept of public
goods” and “does not recognize the public goods deficit that is the true
deficit in American society.” 2) “growth that is not environmentally
destructive, involving neither bludgeoning nor bullying, would require
regenerative rather than extractive production processes.”
“Growth,
as conceived in the US model, and bullying are closely connected.”
PP.
77-8. –Dick
OMNI
US CAPITALISM NEWSLETTER #21, December 28, 2014.
OMNI
US CAPITALISM NEWSLETTER #22, April
2, 2015.
END GROWTH WATCH JUNE 17, 2016
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