The coalition government risks making the same mistakes as the previous administration if it continues the pursuit of perpetual economic growth, experts will warn this week.
The coalition government risks making the same mistakes as the previous administration if it continues the pursuit of perpetual economic growth, experts will warn this week. At the first international Steady State Economy Conference, Andrew Simms, policy director of the New Economics Foundation, will say that never-ending growth is ecologically unsustainable and argue the case for an alternative economy, where the goal is economic stability instead of GDP growth. The conference, which takes place in Leeds on 19 June, is organised by the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (CASSE) and Economic Justice for All. The event aims to devise new policy recommendations to allow the UK economy to move away from its primary focus on growth to a more sustainable alternative. The panel will include six members of the University of Leeds Sustainability Research Institute. "Look no further than BP's disaster in the Gulf of Mexico to see the consequence of trying to live beyond our environmental means," Mr Simms will say at the event. "We can no more have infinite economic growth than a bird currently fishing off the Louisiana coast can come up squeaky clean." "Our challenge is not only to break our fossil fuel addiction, but to engineer our economy into equilibrium with the biosphere in order that we may survive and thrive lastingly." Policies up for discussion at the one-day conference include the transfer of money creation from private banks to the public sector to stop debt from rising and to decrease the need for economic growth.
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