JD at POD has an interesting rant about economic growth and jobs up at Peak Oil Debunked - Growth = Jobs. I think he's being too harsh about the TOD editors and readership when he declares virtually all "anti-growth" - obviously many doomers tend to be anti-growth, but not everyone at TOD is a doomer. Personally I'm strongly in favour of continued economic growth - however I think it should be directed to areas that are sustainable (clean energy sources, smart grids, electric transport, dense environmentally friendly building and cities, cradle to cradle manufacturing systems etc) and I'm of the belief that making people richer means they tend to have fewer children and thus solve the environmental side effects of the "population problem" by slowly ending population growth and entering a (roughly) steady state.

Of course, you could argue that we are actually capable of producing everything we need or want, thus continuing economic growth, without everyone needing to work (which seems to be a modern day heresy but is something I believe myself), which would be an interesting, but different conversation.

Through many changes, one thing stays constant in the peak oil community: opposition to growth. Colin Campbell, Kunstler, Heinberg, virtually the entire staff and readership of the The Oil Drum... They all believe that growth is insane, and have vehemently and incessantly attacked it for years.

I think it's high time that we followed this anti-growth agenda to its logical conclusion.

On the surface, an anti-growth site like The Oil Drum seems to be comprised of very smart, rational people who have the best interests of the public at heart. But is that really true?

Well, there's no doubt that the title of this post is true: Growth = Jobs. So a strong case can be made that anti-growth advocates are very much not in the public's corner. The logic is straightforward:

* Anti-growth advocates (The Oil Drum, Heinberg etc.) are in favor of a halt in growth.
* A halt in growth will cause massive unemployment.
* Therefore, anti-growth advocates are in favor of massive unemployment. ...

This line of thought occurred to me when I was reading about Obama's projected stimulus package, so I asked the folks at the Oil Drum about it:

My point is this: if you genuinely believe that we must stop growth because it is killing us (a view which I believe I can fairly ascribe to the vast majority of people on the Oil Drum), then how can you, in good conscience, support measures which are aimed at reigniting growth, such as Obama's upcoming stimulus package and similar packages in other countries?

Jeff Vail has finished off his series on "The Problem of Growth" with a post called "Implementing Rhizome at the Community Level". His summary of the series is quoted below. Jeff also suggests reading John Robb's "The Resilient Community".

While I like Jeff's ideas about rhizome, as I'm one of the Roddenberry's mentioned I guess I should make some comment about promoters of technological fixes basing their beliefs on faith rather than reason. Personally I was quite prepared to accept the collapse scenario as being the likely outcome - until I'd investigated all the alternatives to oil (and other fossil fuels) after which I concluded that there is far more energy available from renewable sources - specifically solar thermal (and possibly PV / thin film), wind, geothermal, ocean energy, hydro, biogas / biomass and "negawatts", coupled with varying forms of energy storage and demand management - than we will ever need.

Most of these (with the exception of the high tech variants of solar power and using smart grids for managing demand) don't seem to add to our overall level of complexity either - they are no more complex than coal fired power, and can be deployed on a microgrid / community scale if required.

While I'm still prepared to accept that some countries / regions / companies / individuals won't handle the post peak transition comfortably, I think that many will - and these will be the successes of the coming decades.

This isn't meant to imply any criticism of individuals or groups pursuing permaculture or "transition town" style strategies - there is plenty of scope for people to respond in different ways. Nor does it mean that I think that rhizome can't or won't emerge - just that a full scale collapse of industrial civilisation is unlikely to be the trigger for this.

The fifth and final essay in "The Problem of Growth" is published (see links to all five essays below). This summary post is intended to place the series within the context of the problem it addresses, and will serve as an introduction to those who are getting to the party a bit late:

"The Problem of Growth" addresses what I see as the critical problem facing humanity: the structure of our civilization, its inherent need to grow (and therefore its unsustainability), and how we can fix the problem realistically. My proposed solution is, by definition, quite radical, because it rejects the prevalent problem-solving mechanism of modern technology: that we can use technology to continually mitigate the symptoms, rather than take the difficult (but, as I will argue, necessary) step of actually identifying and addressing the underlying problem.

Of course, it is certainly possible to "fix" the problem by continually developing more and better high technology "solutions" to each symptom of the underlying problem as it arises. This is what I call the "Roddenberry" solution, after the Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry. It consists of addressing symptoms through high-tech fixes, though it often claims to be addressing causes--in fact, it fails to either identify the underlying cause, or to address that underlying cause in any fundamental way.

It may be possible to successfully mitigate every symptom of our civilization's greatest problem as it arises through newer and shinier technology--we can, by definition, never know the truth of this proposition. I submit, however, that anyone who "believes" that it can or cannot happen is acting on faith, not reason. I personally view the potential for success of this "Roddenberry" proposition as very unlikely, primarily because success requires an unending streak of successes while failure simply requires failing to address any one key symptom; secondarily, I see this approach failing because I see most of the attempted "solutions" under the "Roddenberry" approach as actually contributing to the underlying problem; finally, I dislike this approach because the requisite faith in the technological solution necessary to believe that it will continue to work indefinitely, and not merely pass on a truly insurmountable problem to our grandchildren or great-great-grandchildren, seems eerily akin to some talking-sky-god religion. As Arthur C. Clarke noted in his Third Law, any sufficiently advanced technology [here, one that could continue to solve our problems indefinitely] is indistinguishable from magic.

That said, if we continually rely on technology to facilitate infinite growth on a finite planet, I think we're quite likely to be disappointed. I won't go so far as to say that "I know we'll fail" because that would rejecting the possibility that I'm wrong. Anyone who takes a position on this topic on faith--that is, anyone who "knows" that they're right or that I'm wrong--is, I suggest, acting irrationally. Even if you think it's very, very likely that technology and human innovation will continue to solve our problems, if you can't admit that there is a possibility that you're wrong, then you're just not being rational. If we can get people to rationally discuss the problems facing civilization (tall order, I admit), then I think we have a decent chance of solving them.

Below are links to each of the five essays in "The Problem of Growth" series:

Part 1: Hierarchy Must Grow, and is Therefore Unsustainable
Part 2: Hierarchy is the Result of Dependency
Part 3: Building an Alternative to Hierarchy: Rhizome
Part 4: Implementing Rhizome at the Personal Level
Part 5: Implementing Rhizome at the Community Level