Posted on 01/05/2014 9:21:29 AM PST by artichokegrower
Fresh-faced tech millionaires snap up glitzy new condos in San Francisco. Across America, construction is up and unemployment is down. Consumers are buying. The economy is growing.
Yet instead of applause, voices from across the political spectrum - Berkeley activists and Beltway conservatives, Pope Francis and even some corporate CEOs - offer a critique of economic growth and its harm to the well-being of humans and the planet.
Ecologists warn that economic growth is strangling the natural systems on which life depends, creating not just wealth, but filth on a planetary scale. Carbon pollution is changing the climate. Water shortages, deforestation, tens of millions of acres of land too polluted to plant, and other global environmental ills are increasingly viewed as strategic risks by governments and corporations around the world.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
The economy has to keep growing to cover the unfunded pension and health care benefits of public university employees.
I double dog dare you to mail him that comment!
Save America! Deport all illegal aliens!
Ah the blatherings of the left that is Buzzerkley
A former student is going to UC Berkeley. When I heard this I just shook my head.
she and her parents pay to be ‘taught’ by these idiots.
Anyone who, in the first place, doesn’t recognize that we are $17 trillion in debt and that that cannot be paid back, under the current and projected trends, is stupider than I am about economics, and I have zero academic economic credentials.
The Beltway, Castro, Silicon Valley and Tribeca are not the sum total of America. In most localities the above statement is not only untrue but a cruel joke.
There ya go. Zero growth is too much. If they have their way they would cause a tremendous depression. This explains their, otherwise, insane economic policies.
Lets see. In one day I’ve seen that all sex is rape, meat eating is pedophilia, global warming is worse than ever, and there’s no reason for economic growth.
And yet in the same paper, an article celebrating the Bay Area’s wealthy and those consuming planetary resources:
http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Bay-Area-s-People-to-Watch-in-2014-5114765.php
Note the first person mentioned in the list (who also has the first and last photos in the related gallery).
What did Chesterton say about how could you tell whether you were part of the “surplus population” or not?
Lets see. In one day I’ve seen that all sex is rape, meat eating is pedophilia, global warming is worse than ever, and there’s no reason for economic growth.
The self-proclaimed "intellectual leaders" are out in force.
*snicker*. Good on you.
All up and down the Jersey shore, people are renovating. They are spending a lot of money.
I am told it has nothing to do with Sandy, and everything to do with a growing economy.
Oh. OK. Nothing to do with insurance payouts and certainly not anything to do with the love between their governor and his boardwalk buddy.
Nothing to do with printing money out of control.
WE are $1 trillion in debt as of the last election. That was acceptable and not powerfully stated by Romney.
What is the debt now? What are the predictions for how we are going t take care of this, besides passing it to our children, who are being taught Crap in these colleges?
Where is the wisdom?
That the wealthy are not being wise in distributing their money however they see fit, including providing for their on future or not, has to do with the wisdom of the family, their own family.
Our government Is responsible for strapping the youth with, as it is, an unpayable debt.
these guys need to focus on that.
If a guy in SF wants to spend money, what’s it to some dopey college professor?
If this professor would be honest, he’d investigate Pelosi’s, Boxer’s, Feinsteins and the Schwoarzeneggars’ spending and earning, and usury of those whom they are entrusted to serve.
The individual has no such civically binding obligation.
$17 trillion in debt.
The elite want to accumulat wealth, power, and possessions. There are too mahy people on the planet, more than they deem necessary to satisfy their lusts. There were too many people reaching that extremely rich status before the recession. Now, it's time to impoverish and kill off the bottom 98% or so while continuing on the road to idyllic existance.
That's a conspiracy theory, for sure. Convince me it's not plausible.
All you had to do was mention “California”, and any debate of growth or prosperity is instantly shut down. Do the people of California even realize just how much they’re loathed, despised, and ridiculed by the rest of the US?
I moved to Oregon from the upper midwest, and even the people here east of the cascades don’t want anything to do with anyone from California. California earned the name of the “granola” state for a reason, and it isn’t just a west coast thing.
If the planet isn’t used for our growth it has no value.
“Be fruitful and multiply”- all the ecology I need to know.
“Growth” is being funded by QE (in the USA and elsewhere) in the name of ‘stimulus’ and ‘job creation’ ... which is supported and advocated by who? The LEFT .. in every country.
Yet ‘growth’ (which would logically include the creation of more jobs) is considered bad for the environment.
The illogical LEFT wants more jobs, but no growth.
The Berkeley professor is right up to a point. More industry (which is the definition of growth) does necessarily require we consume more energy and natural resources. But this is more a factor of population growth rather than economic growth per se.
But the Berkley professor and the LEFT can’t have it both ways. Either the people of the planet have jobs (which necessitates growth in industry which in turn necessitates consumption of energy and resources) or people of the planet don’t have jobs and live in abject poverty.
Of course, when you are never ever required to be logical (the LEFT) then you don’t have to recognize this at all. You can always have utopia ... for nothing.
“In one day I’ve seen that all sex is rape, meat eating is pedophilia, global warming is worse than ever, and there’s no reason for economic growth...”
No wonder they call you crazieman... with all this lunacy... we are all crazymen or women!
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