I first want to say how appreciative I am for those of you who responded to our blog. Without your response, we would be left to debate the global issues that we are facing amongst ourselves. And, as a former college debater and debate coach, I must say that I always learn so much whenever I look at the many sides of an issue. Reading your posts catalyzed me going out on the web and reading about the many issues surrounding economic growth and development. And what I gleaned from many anti-growth web sites is that as earnest as all seem to be, as professionals, we must agree to disagree. Here is why.

In one such web page, David Gardner talks at length about “our misguided quest for prosperity”—in fact it is in the name of his upcoming documentary film. Throughout his web site (http://www.growthbusters.com) he quite understandably criticizes “more”, e.g. “more jobs, increasing income, bigger companies, (and, sic) more revenue”. Obviously he was not moved by the film “Wall Street” where Michael Douglas played Gordon (the lizard) Gecko who said “greed is good”. But somehow implied on his web site and stated rather poignantly to me earlier, “Only those making millions off the labor of others stand to benefit (and financially only) from continuing to increase population and production in our finite environment.” Now, I like David and what he is doing—I welcome the debate and honor what he is doing. But, it might be time to examine some economics-the third leg of the three legged sustainability stool.

Wal-Mart is the world’s largest company. It is using its considerable influence to force their many suppliers to go “green”—in one major Board decision in 2005(see http://www.social funds.com/news/article.cgi/1844.html) they have done more to combat global warming than any nation on earth. GE, the 2^nd largest corporation in the world, has launched Ecomagination. There are debates about “peak water” the “finite” limits of our water supply, yet GE is producing desalinization plants that are now producing 3 cubic meters of potable water for less than 50 cents! Try to buy a gallon of reverse osmosis water at your local store for less than $2.00 a gallon, let alone the cost of 50 cents to produce 3 cubic meters. Both of these companies are responding to a very demanding customer base that is very serious about energy efficiency and greenhouse gas emissions. Plus, by creating innovative and new technologies, more (yes, more) and different kinds of jobs are created, many of which are “knowledge workers”. And, finally, aside from creating new jobs and more revenue and more earnings for their stockholders (who, like many of us, reinvest in other worthwhile, community causes), there is the increased salaries and taxes that go directly into other businesses, the community and of course the state tax coffers. But I should mention one other item, in case one did not read the manifesto for Billion Ready Minds. Last year, the United States contributed nearly $300 billion dollars to global non-profits. And, companies like Wal-Mart and GE (and their thousands of employees) gave away profits (and time) to philanthropic organizations because it was and always will be the right thing to do!

Now, I could end this blog posting here, but allow me to cover a little bit of history (cultural, social and economic) that has been missing from the sustainability argument. I start with that old document, “The Declaration of Independence”, where some very smart and rebellious men addressed why they no longer could be a part of the nation of Great Britain. You may remember the words that Jefferson penned:  “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.” It seems to me, that if I wanted to go to college (instead of working in the coal mines of West Virginia where I grew up), took out student loans (made available through our local bank’s profits, which I paid back) and worked my tail off, saved my money, gave it away to my university for scholarships or any other kind of non-profit, then I should be able to do that, i.e. “the pursuit of happiness”! Those things, gentle reader, are the unintended consequences of what won’t happen if we go down the road toward what has been labeled as “Our Misguided Quest for Prosperity”!

But prosperity at any cost—no, I think not. Again, when you read our manifesto, we call for a balance of ecological, social and economic change in and around the globe. It is because of our global growth problems, our lacking of clean air and water, climate change and the widening gap between “haves and have nots”, that sustainability is taking hold in our corporations, schools, governments and communities. But it calls forth for “systemic thinking”, looking at the whole and not just the constituent parts.

The United Nations Human Development Index, developed in large part by Amartya Sen, Nobel Laureate in 1998, has shown the empirical linkage between income growth, higher life expectancies and higher population levels. You quote Ansley Coale of Princeton whose book on population growth and development in 1958 has informed much of the misguided thinking, policy formation and research agenda that you articulate on your web site. It might have made sense back then, when the “baby boomers” were booming (also contributing to Erlich’s mistaken assumptions) but understand that fertility rates are dropping globally and that the annual growth of the human population had dropped from a high in 1990 of 87 million people per year to the now low of 75 million people per year. And, sadly over ½ of the world is made of nations with sub-replacement rates of fertility. This is all according to the United Nation’s Population Division and the United States Census Bureau.

Sen writes in his best-selling book, “Development as Freedom” (1999) that “global markets are inevitable but that does not mean they are inherently damaging”. He calls forth the need, like we do at Billion Ready Minds, for citizens to become educated and trained with new skills so that they can take part in the global economy. And, that leaders must ensure that citizens have enough information, education and freedom to make reasoned choices in the public sphere about how they want their societies to change. In other words, inculcate a sense of dialogue and participation. And for my readers, I would welcome your participation, your inputs and I would honor them. You may disagree with my statement, “The planet is facing another problem, a severe decline in the growth rate of the population, so much so that it will impact global productivity and a decline in economic growth”, but it is factually true! We are going to be facing this issue. I am not saying that is a good thing or a bad thing—it just is, what it is.