Among the encouraging political straws in the wind are the growing momentum in the United States and the United Kingdom, two leading carbon states, for something called the ‘Green New Deal’. I have some questions about it.These are questions from an interested and, to be clear, broadly sympathetic amateur. I'm not raising them in the spirit of 'dissing' the Green New Deal, so much as trying to feel out the limits of its scope. And, if there does happen to be a degree of magical thinking involved, and if it does come with 'national' blinkers, to suggest that we need the Green New Deal plus something else.
What does genuine economic progress look like? The orthodox answer is that a bigger economy is always better, but this idea is increasingly strained by the knowledge that, on a finite planet, the economy can’t grow for ever.
But what is a steady-state economy? Why it is it desirable or necessary? And what would it be like to live in?
