I dissent. We ARE unavoidably going to becoming materially poorer. We ARE going to have to shrink, not grow when it comes to material consumption. It's improper to sugar coat that.

Where I begin to agree again is in saying that this need not impoverish our lives if it is done correctly. And certainly there has to be an exploration of the property relationships appropriate to the new era of reduced material consumption.

Redefining growth is not a straighforward way of explaining the matter. People know what the current definition of growth is. Growth is out of the question. Improvements in life there can be, but not via growth as commonly understood.

The underground physical resources, hydrocarbons in particular, that underpin industrialism are depleting, and industrialism itself will wind down in this century (and winding down does not necesarily exclude collapse at some point).

I would go further and say that there is a name for the system we have: capitalism. What gets done only gets done if there is profit in it. That's what has to change. When the common good is in conflict with profitability, it must be possible for the common good to trump profit considerations, at least in matters of survival. Until that changes, we're screwed. There's no way to put a happy face on that either. Capitalism has a powerful constituency in case anywone hasn't noticed.