Sooner or later, and hopefully sooner, we will realise that money and the accumulation of material possessions does not lead to real wealth.
If any advancement in GDP is at the expense of our sustainable environment then we will have failed.
The result will be Evolution in action.

China is a so-called economic miracle!
Unprecedented economic growth has lifted millions out of poverty.
China now has over a million millionaires, all of who demand the best things in life!?
The dollars designated for a designer dress draped over one, would likely support a whole village, for over a year!?
A million millionaires, would disappear, in a sea of over a billion faces!
Yet, where would China be now, without the phenomenal economic growth?
Well, arguably where they were before, a largely pastoral economy, suffering the endless feast and famine/death and dying, that was par for the course in theirs'; and indeed, every similar subsistence economic model.
Literally millions were lifted out of poverty, with widespread industrialisation; and acceptance of innovation and technology.
While we can and should do better, and indeed, embrace economic models no longer reliant on population growth, there is simply no substitute for economic growth, for lifting millions out of poverty.
However, with that growth has come an ever widening gap between the very wealthy and the very poor.
Wealth also seems to breed greed and tax avoidance!
Almost as if no amount of wealth is enough for some individuals, or an inherent belief, if the less well off have more, the better off may have to manage with less?
Nothing could be further from the truth, but particularly as any economy transitions from export reliant growth, to a domestic consumption based economy.
For mine, we need to jettison current tax laws and arrangements; and replace all that complexity with an entirely unavoidable, stand alone expenditure tax!
A surprisingly small rate would raise more tax than the current complexity, simply by eliminating any opportunity to actually avoid tax.
The black economy will also disappear when we transition to a cashless economy!
The extra tax receipts garnered by eliminating both avoidance and a burgeoning black economy, could be redistributed, to allow others to be lifted from endemic and often generational poverty!
In any event, growth can no longer be allowed to mean or rely on population growth; just endlessly sustainable growth!
Rhrosty.

"...Or start with people and the environment, as Senator Milne does, and ask how the economy can best serve their interests."

And what are the 'interests' of the environment? Does it prefer a kangaroo to a cow, or a molecule of nitrogen to a molecule of carbon dioxide? Animals have 'interests', and we should respect them, but to anthropomorphise 'the environment', and pretend its hypothetical 'interests' should take priority over human happiness and welfare, is simply madness. Even if Senator Milne's policies had been shown to help preserve or improve 'the environment' -- and they haven't -- that would mean nothing unless they could be shown to be consistent with protecting the humans that she has been elected to represent.

Excellent article Charles.

Ditto - Very Good article Charles Berger and, "identifying things the economy is meant to deliver, such as worthwhile jobs, human wellbeing, and a healthy environment" as a blueprint for advancing futures.

I am surprised at the resistance to common sense given all the noise, the nanny-state policies and our nations knowledge as a whole.

http://www.miacat.com/

Jon J, thanks for the excellent footnote mate!
Cogent credibility, which I couldn't have ever penned better!
Cheers, Rhrosty.

Oh, and parenthetically, we were once the third wealthiest nation and a creditor one at that!
Now we seem to be "lifting our sights to number ten? And we owe the rest of the world well over a record trillion dollars!
Perhaps that's what "growth" in the Asian century means?
Growth in debt and or foreign ownership or both!?
Or fixing all those things that were never ever broken?
Why? Because some highly educated whiz kids came out of college, with great big new ideas and no practical experience?
None whatsoever?
Or untried untested intellectual concepts, which allowed the empire building bureaucracy, to centralize and collate to their hearts' content, fix our health workers wage delivery system, close down a thousand hospital beds, defer essential infrastructure roll-outs for a decade, and then privatise and privatise and privatise; so we could pay double the price for substandard alternatives?
Well we can't afford both an over-bloated, over-rated, overpaid empire building bureaucracy; and, real roads, rapid rail and hospital beds etc/etc, as well?
Or jettison the gold standard, which by the way, allowed our currency to actually float in line with commodities, and then having achieved all that, float our dollar!
If we've got one thing right, in this or the last century, it has been the fibre to the home NBN!
And you guessed it! Some self proclaimed expert, wants to wreck it, tear it down?
Why?
Well it is still owned by the people; and, the govt has no business in business!
Well, if you repeat a cliché often enough, you'll likely brainwash yourself in to believing it is a magical mystical mantra, founded on some discernible truth!?
Rhrosty.

< What does 'growth' in the 'Asian Century' even mean? >

Well I hope to goodness that it means growth in our quality of life and then the maintenance of it at a high level, growth in care for the environment, growth in the supply capability of all our resources and services, growth in the efficiency with which we utilise our resources…. and NOT too much further growth in the demand for goods and services… a la; an end to population growth and the stabilisation of our population at a level not too much higher than at present.

Charles, as the Director of Strategic Ideas to the Australian Conservation Foundation, I wonder how you are going. I used to be a member of ACF years ago, but I left in disgust because of their abject lack of action on growth / sustainability issues.

I hope you are not a lone voice within the organisation. It would be really excellent to see ACF concentrate on growth / quality of life / sustainability issues. In fact, they really should become Australia’s sustainability-promoting organisation, with a passion.

Your president Ian Lowe is really good on population and sustainability issues, and he’s an excellent orator. But still ACF doesn’t feature prominently these days.

I remember Philip Toyne – high-profile – lots of media for ACF just about every day. (I interviewed him on my radio program in about 1993).

But alas, these days we don’t hear much from ACF. Occasional short sound-bites from Don Henry (never about population or sustainability), and that’s about it……unfortunately.

"What consequences would a significant melting of the Himalayan ice mass have on water supplies for India and China?"

It would have the same response as any other wildly hypothetical question - buggered if I know. If I was a farmer, I'd plant.

While a little off message for this article - and I appreciate the writer has probably read those soft lefty type books by the Australia Institute - which constitutes critical thinking on the left - it's probably worth looking at two areas: energy and food stocks in Oz.

In Australia, net energy exports accounted for 68 per cent of domestic energy production in 2008-09 and domestic energy consumption accounted for just 32 per cent. Domestic energy consumption has not only flattened over the last three years but has turned down.

http://www.ret.gov.au/energy/Documents/facts-stats-pubs/Energy-in-Australia-2011.pdf

So your little Aussie at home only uses 32 per cent of Australia's energy consumption for domestic use and this is falling as a share of exports. So individual consumption is very low. The anti-pop rhetoric about second law of thermal dynamics and energy sources winding down is in fact cow flatulence.

How about food stocks? We'll Australia exports about $32 billion in food stuffs (grain, dairy, etc,) to feed hungry tums all over the world. Domestically we consume about $12 billion per annum and that's static. We import about $9 billion, mainly in reciprocal trade agreements. Food we have.

What we do have is a shortage of critical thinking on how we expand food production. Maybe the ACF can come up with some good ideas.

ateday: couldn't agree more!

Rhrosty: thanks for your comments. My main argument is that economic growth is less relevant for the wellbeing of most people in wealthy countries like Australia. In less wealthy countries, some economic growth may be needed, though there are intriguing examples of countries which do very well in terms of social and ecological outcomes with far lower GDP per capita than Australia. Costa Rica has comparable health and wellbeing levels as Australia, on about one third the per captia GDP.

John J: I didn't suggest that environmental interests should take precedence over human interests. I see the two as strongly complementary. And no intention to anthropomorphize the environment. Humans have a strong self-interest in the preservation of ecological systems.

miacat: thanks!

Ludwig: give ACF another look - we're steadily improving our capacity & focus on deep economic, social and demographic challenges. I'm definitely not a lone voice. Have a look at our "Better than Growth" report and policy online. ACF's Council and staff are increasingly working towards better measures of progress, real-world economics, population stabilisation, and other systemic shifts needed for a sustainable future. As for media, we do the best we can and garner several hundred media mentions per year, plus dozens of opinion pieces. And some of our best work is now done through direct engagement (social media and face-to-face) with concerned Australians and Australian communities.

Cheryl: completely agree that energy and food futures are crucial for Australia, and you're correct of course that domestic electricity consumption is a small share of our total energy use (and emissions). But I would question whether expanding food production should be a priority for Australia. How would such expansion lead to an improvement in our lives, and what's the evidence? My point is that expanding production in the economy is not the best way of increasing the wellbeing of Australians. Why not expand the free time available to Australian families, rather than expanding production of commodities?