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The End of Growth

Adapting to Our New Economic Reality

By Richard Heinberg

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| Others | 9780865716957

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The End of Growth by Richard Heinberg

With the newspapers full of economic doom and gloom the last thing you might want is to pick up a book that reiterates it and then some. But while this book may seem at first glance to be a bit of a downer, it also provides an insight into how things ... (read full critics)

thebookbag published on Sun, 4 Dec 2011

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1 person find this helpful

There is still hope for humanity

Check out my comment on this book in my Spanish blog: http://lunairereadings.blogspot.com/2012/02/end-of-growth-adapting-to-our-new.html This book is divided in three parts. In the first one, the author shows the arguments to support the fact that growth is a past thing. No matter what they say, the ... (continue)

Check out my comment on this book in my Spanish blog: http://lunairereadings.blogspot.com/2012/02/end-of-grow… This book is divided in three parts. In the first one, the author shows the arguments to support the fact that growth is a past thing. No matter what they say, the economies are not going to grow any more. Businesses are not going to double their profit year after year, and households are not going to have raises in their income (even smaller ones). This is a fact, and can be terrifying because we have been raised in a culture that poses growth as the way of life: after all, we are born as babies, and grow to adulthood. Isn't everything else supposed to be the same way? meaning: we study and have more knowledge, we start in an entry-level position and start growing in our work life, earning better salaries every time, and aquiring more and more things (bigger house, fancier car, last-generation toys, etc) The news is: nope. That continuous growth is a past thing. A way of life enjoyed at a particular time in human history that is about to literally become that: history. The first part of this book is very clear and very irrefutable. And it is scary too. It is scary because growth is everything we know about. Everything we have been taught to fight for.
However, there is hope at the end of the tunnel: we can view life from other perspective. And that is what the rest of the book is about: look at life from the perspective of being better, of improving. Enough of having more and more things. The key now is to improve what we already have. To enjoy life more with everything that have been given to us. This is a very scientific book; it has a lot of economic theory in it, and a lot of graphs and charts too. But it is in essence a compelling message of hope and change. We must do something now that we are still young and strong: we must change our own little worlds in order to make big changes in the world as a whole. I might not see humanity emerging from this deep dark whole we are in, but I think that in the end, many years from now, that better life is what we -as mankind- are going to achieve, and it gives me hope in what we are.

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ariadna73 said on Feb 7, 2012 | Add your feedback