Overcoming the European Progress Illusion
The European Progress Illusion needs to be recognised and addressed to prevent a widening gap between what is and what ought to be done.
Stay updated with breaking news from Progress Illusion. Get real-time updates on events, politics, business, and more. Visit us for reliable news and exclusive interviews.
The European Progress Illusion needs to be recognised and addressed to prevent a widening gap between what is and what ought to be done.
Our exploding global population —186,000 more people each and every day — clings for life to an exploding economy, a system faithful not to the habitat it exploits, but only the single species that gorges on it. Our economy obeys not the limits of the biosphere but the limitlessness of human greed. I have long distrusted this economy. I was among a few volunteers who helped found the Hunger Mountain Co-op when it was just a small group of us who gathered to buy really bulk from a national cooperative and then met to divide up the bulk among us
Erickson is now an ecological economist, and he champions a new kind of economics that fosters a healthy, balanced relationship between people and planet. Ecological economics has been gaining influence both in academia and in environmental and social justice movements.
To maintain working ecosystems, biodiversity, and our life-support system in Vermont (and around the world), we need to work to dispel the myth that a healthy economy requires population growth and increased consumption.
With a square and a circle, the father of ecological economics and a founding architect of sustainable development redrew our understanding of the economy. It was revolutionary.