OMNI
NOTES ON GROWTH
Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace,
Justice, and ECOLOGY
For more on growth see the many newsletters on US
Capitalism and related topics. http://omnicenter.org/dick-bennetts-peace-justice-and-ecology-newsletters/
OMNI’s BOOK FORUM yesterday
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, including 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.
Following are a few related comments, citations, and quotations. 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.
Note: NAD-G refers to the Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette
NWA AND ARKANSAS GROWTH,
Reports in Chronological Order 2015-16:
“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—of Progress through growth. It appears everywhere in our blood
stream. A local example: “Making Connections,” NAD-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
GLOBAL GROWTH: USA, THE WORLD
TOURISM:
THE WORLD DISNEYIZED
Jon
Gambrell, “Dubai Amusement Park to Add Six Flags.” NAD-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 our fee-dividend strikes at the heart
transportation of all kinds.]
ON THE OTHER HAND
COUNTER-GROWTH (also in chronological order)
STOP SUBSIDIZING CHAMBERS OF
COMMERCE
RICHARD MASON, “How to Grow a City.” NWADG (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.]
And of you know Richard Mason.
Invite him to our forums.
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
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.” NAD-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.” --Dick
National
Park Service
Jill
Rohrbach. “National Parks to Celebrate
Sites.” NAD-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 versus GROWTH
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
1973 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.
BILL MCKIBBEN, EAARTH (2010)
Pp. 90-97 McKibben praises the Club
of Rome and its 1973 book, Limits to
Growth. It was an optimistic spurt of service to
the earth: the first Earth Day, the EPA, 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. |
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