Interview with William R. Catton, Jr. (Part 1 of 5)

[4aSteadyStateEconomy]

RE 3:24, why are "housing starts" considered a leading economic indicator, as if housing can grow forever? It's a classic pyramid scheme.

The construction industry thrives on cancer-like growth, and building materials are a big part of resource depletion. Dead trees and mined ore don't "produce" net resources. Man just rearranges existing materials into more sterile forms and nature loses out.

New home construction should be called "nature stops," not just "housing starts."

[TheBioregionalState]

Sad really. He's still constructing this as a population issue. All the amazing developments of the past 30 years in environmental sociology completely passed him by. For those unaware, he is talking about only one of several ways to think about environmental degradation--one increasingly fallen by the wayside for organizational blames for degradation. Ex: many low population countries outconsume high population countries, so the direct connection between population and degradation is missing.

[4aSteadyStateEconomy]

@TheBioregionalState, by diminishing the importance of population growth, politically-correct enviros have created a false sense of progress that dwells on per-capita improvements. Example: vehicle emissions are improving in theory, but with more cars on the road, benefits are negated. We see smog in formerly rural areas that didn't have it before. Another example is overfishing, which you can't rationally detach from human population size. At the end of the day, "more people demand more stuff."

[fileboy2002]

Sounds like Catton's critque is rooted in his personal desire to have fewer people around. Sounds more like NIMBY than science.

[NaushinPotter]

This helped me greatly on my World Issues project.

Thanks so much=]

[nataliewhat]

somebody needs to get this man on jon stewart or the colbert report to get his messages out on a larger scale to the general public

[BladeMcCool]

another 2 years gone by ... too late now. Endgame is upon us. People get it or they dont. Be food secure.

[postgrowthinstitute]

@nataliewhat agree 100 per cent...we're on it - watch this space!