Two Worlds Colliding

In recent decades, ecological politics in the United States has been locked in a zero-sum conflict, with ecological goals pitted against economic ones. The result is that ecosystems and public health are increasingly at risk, needed transitions in energy and other systems are delayed, and opportunities for leveraging economic and ecological goals are unrealized. This matters, because economic growth is placing increasing pressures on local, regional, and global ecosystems and resources. Growing and compelling evidence of ecological limits raises not only critical threats to health and the natural environment but undermines the very basis for economic and social well-being. The alternative to an irresponsible strategy of unguided growth or a politically unrealistic and socially risky one of no growth or de-growth is that of green growth. Green growth defines a basis for both a politically realistic framing of ecology–economy issues and a workable policy agenda for change.