The Zovanyi article I featured in the last post has a brief passage on the language those in “growth management,” and increasingly those in the growth industry itself, use to justify continued needless and harmful growth:

Spokespersons for the growth management movement affix a number of adjectives to growth in order to justify its continuance. They speak of “inevitable, normal, reasonable, proper, realistic, sensible, responsible, and legitimate growth.” They also refer to “balanced growth,” arguing that a balance can be achieved between ongoing growth and environmental protection without compromising either.

Don’t question it; it’s “inevitable.”
These kinds of terms aim to legitimize growth, assuaging our concerns about the harm it does. Most of them are misleading or, when paired with “growth,” become oxymoronic. “Inevitable growth,” for instance, is usually a complete fabrication. It suggests growth simply can’t be stopped. That’s obviously ridiculous. And given the current state of our natural environment, “responsible growth” is an oxymoron.

A particularly striking oxymoron mentioned by Zovanyi just after the passage above is “sustainable growth.” To understand the problem here we have to recognize that when we use the term “sustainable” in the context of populations and urban planning, we are referring to a very long period of time. For practical purposes the term essentially means “capable of being sustained indefinitely.” That brings us to Albert Bartlett’s First Law of Sustainability:

Population growth and/or growth in the rates of consumption of resources cannot be sustained.

Simple enough, but profoundly important in light of the illusion of endless growth to which we’ve become accustomed during recent history.

Honey, I think the furniture’s on fire.
Let’s close with another gem from Al Bartlett. Zovanyi lays out the problem of trying to “control” or “manage” growth. With mounting worldwide environmental problems resulting from growth interacting with consumption levels, “management” is not enough. We need to stop growth. Yet, for political reasons, we hear words like “manage,” “control,” or “balance” from our leaders and from organizations charged with protecting the environment. Sometimes we are diverted quite subtly from the need to stop growth. In the following passage, Bartlett confronts the EPA on diverting our attention from the problem of growth itself and suggesting we can somehow preserve natural resources and ecosystems without stopping growth. I especially like his analogy about the woodwork in the burning home :):

From an EPA report: The EPA… is an active participant in these discussions, which focus on sustaining high quality natural resources and marine ecosystems in the face of rapid population and economic growth in the area.

From Bartlett: Here the Report diverts our attention away from the “rapid population growth” that is destroying the natural resources and marine ecosystems, and it suggests instead that we focus our preservation efforts on the ecosystems and not on the agent that is destroying them. This is like trying to polish and maintain the beautiful woodwork in a home that is being destroyed by fire, or like trying to rearrange the deck chairs on the Titanic.