Herman Daly on the Fundamental Contradiction of Sustainable Growth
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"In its physical dimensions the economy is an open subsystem of the earth ecosystem, which is finite, nongrowing, and materially closed. As the economic subsystem grows it incorporates an ever greater proportion of the total ecosystem into itself and must reach a limit at 100 percent, if not before. Therefore its growth is not sustainable. The term "sustainable growth" when applied to the economy is a bad oxymoron—self-contradictory as prose, and unevocative as poetry."
- Herman Daly (VALUING THE EARTH:Economics, Ecology, Ethics. By Herman E. Daly and Kenneth N. Townsend. MIT Press, 1993)