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Hooked on Growth: Economic Addictions and the Environment
Author(s): Douglas E. Booth (Author)
- Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
- Publication Date: May 3, 2004
- Language: English
- Print length: 288 pages
- ISBN-10: 0742527182
- ISBN-13: 9780742527188
Book Description
This accessible work explores whether getting “unhooked” from growth to meet the needs of the environment is possible. Giving the environment priority over growth may seem to some like a radical idea, yet the author argues that it can be accomplished using marketable emissions allowances, transferable development rights, and other tools popular with conventional economists. It can also be achieved by creating more interesting and environmentally friendly urban landscapes less beholden to the automobile. The key problem a less growth-oriented society will face is ensuring that everyone who wants employment can find it. This will require something that many people wish for anyway, a shorter workweek. More leisure, a higher-quality environment, and more attractive cities and towns are the potential rewards of a less consumption-oriented society.
Yet powerful economic interests that benefit from a high-growth economy are arrayed against changes in the status quo. Under what circumstances can the power of special interests be overcome in the name of environmental conservation? This is the author’s critical final question as he offers a clear path to a sustainable economic and environmental
Editorial Reviews
Review
In
Hooked on Growth, Booth uses the metaphor of addiction to link three apparently distinct areas of society’s affluent life: consumption, employment, and the natural environment….Using concepts from economics ecology, and environmental ethics, Booth examines questions of whether it is possible or desirable to get “unhooked” from growth. Recommended. (M. Morgan-Davie Choice)Doug Booth dares to explore the tradeoff between the environment and economic growth. He concludes that American consumers would have to pay a price for environmental sustainability, but the price is well worth paying. (John Norquist)
In
Hooked on Growth, Douglas Booth takes us on a very readable and accessible examination of the economic dependency on growth and the implications of that growth on the environment. After making compelling arguments to support the claim that the U.S. economic system is not environmentally sustainable, Booth provides direction for realigning the growth rate with the environment. . . . This is a thought-provoking book that makes readers consider the future of America’s current path and where they surely want to go instead. (Kirk Waters Environment, Vol. 48, No. 2)
