Many times what appears to be growth is really just inefficient forms of wealth transfer where we're seeing only one side, causing more poverty than it solves.
The word "externalities" don't mean that no one pays. It means that powerless third parties pay (who are unable to consent) -- poor children and the elderly breathing diesel fumes because their family can't afford to live far from the dump, or the indigenous people displaced/exterminated to raise cattle in slashed-and-burned rainforests, or the slave laborer, or our grandchildren who will have to deal with the effects of climate change and species extinction. Externalities aren't on a ledger somewhere, but it makes them no less real.
Environmental protection is actually just humanity's enlightened self-interest, a fact the human/"environment" distinction serves only to mask.
Many times what appears to be growth is really just inefficient forms of wealth transfer where we're seeing only one side, causing more poverty than it solves.
The word "externalities" don't mean that no one pays. It means that powerless third parties pay (who are unable to consent) -- poor children and the elderly breathing diesel fumes because their family can't afford to live far from the dump, or the indigenous people displaced/exterminated to raise cattle in slashed-and-burned rainforests, or the slave laborer, or our grandchildren who will have to deal with the effects of climate change and species extinction. Externalities aren't on a ledger somewhere, but it makes them no less real.
Environmental protection is actually just humanity's enlightened self-interest, a fact the human/"environment" distinction serves only to mask.