Efforts to curb unbridled growth that's killing the planet

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | January 4, 2014 | Carolyn Lochhead

[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.

[Nifster]

“Conservatives should support managing growth to prevent more than 800 people living per square mile. “

No conservative I know would advocate the idea of having the government (because when you say managing growth that’s what you really mean) tell them where to live. You are promoting Agenda 21 view points so please don’t lecture me with commie ideas and basic baffle gab

[The Antiyuppie]

“A sudden transformation from American values to communist values reliably occurs above 800 people per square mile. “

This alone doesn’t explain it. The population density of the most populous cities in the US was higher in the past than it is now.

[grania]

In your argument, you state that there is plenty of land and resources to easily support the earth's population. One argument you use is that cities such as Detroit, Newark and Cleveland have lost over half of their populations, and certainly they could be repopulated.

There's a problem with that argument. That would be that the reason these cities in some areas have become unliveable cesspools is that people do not behave very well when they are idle, and the result is unliveable chaos. The problem is not caring for people, but keeping them from idle dysfunction so they don't self-destruct.

That's where the too many people argument happens. We're past the era of manufacturing, there's an over supply of labor, so what do you do with the masses? Look at the world....in places where there is overpopulation, the tendency is to wars, disease, crime and social breakdown.

That can't be addressed by just feeding, clothing, and housing people with nothing to work for and no reason to work.

[Anton.Rutter]

The Chinese are the ones turning their country into a toxic waste dump. Let us know when you’re done straightening them out.

[Jim from C-Town]

The only reason there is a surplus of labor is because of poor economic policies stunt economic growth. Even unskilled workers can be employed in industry when we have economic growth and unencumbered labor markets.

The best form of welfare is a job. If everyone on welfare was required to report to duty to sweep the streets and spruce up the neighborhood. A vast amount of these people would become employed in the private sector toot sweet. That is if the government allows a private sector. Right now they are intent on regulating it to death.

[grania]

I agree with everything you just stated.

I've often said of Cleveland's challenged neighborhoods that the solution to the probems starts with opening those abandoned factories and making everyone who reports for a handout also have to report for work.