Suggested Reading
Steady State ACT particularly recommends the following texts on limits to growth and the steady state economy:
The Limits to Growth. Meadows, D, Meadows, D, Randers J and Behrens, W.
Arguably the most important book of the last century, Limits to Growth identified in 1972 that humanity was living beyond the means of planet Earth to provide for us – that we were in ‘planetary overshoot’. It illustrated the risks of continuing on our current path of global economic growth. While its scenarios were not predictions, a review 40 years later found that they remained accurate. This easy-to-read book is critical to understanding our current situation.
The original edition is downloadable at the above link. Alternatively, the 30-year update should be available for purchase:
Limits to Growth (The 30-Year Update). Meadows D, Randers J and Meadows D, 2002.
Collision Course: Endless Growth on a Finite Planet. Higgs, K, 2014.
Collision course documents the history of economic growth as a concept, particularly over the last century, sets out the myths related to growth, and how vested interests have succeeded in maintaining economic growth as the foremost economic priority across the globe, despite the inevitable calamities along that path.
Positive Steps: To a Steady State Economy. Edited by Haydn Washington. For CASSE NSW. 2017.
Positive steps, produced by CASSE NSW, identifies a range of achievable measures that societies can take along the path to a truly sustainable society.
Enough is Enough. Dietz R and O’Neill D, 2013
Another a very readable explanation of why need to move away from economic growth to a sustainable society, and some measures to do that.
Supply Shock: Economic Growth at the Crossroads and the Steady State Solution. Czech B, 2013.
Brian Czech, a wildlife ecologist, is the founder of the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy. In this book, he critiques modern economic thinking as it relates to growth and puts forward a different model for understanding the relationship between human activity and the natural environment.
Is A Sustainable Future Possible? Turner G, 2019.
Dr Graham Turner is one of Australia’s leading thinkers on sustainability matters. He previously updated the Club of Rome’s Limits to Growth analyses and found that after four decades they were still on track. In this paper, Turner explores what would be required for Australia to achieve true sustainability, and some of the barriers to that.
Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World. Hickel, J, 2021.
A very readable outlining of the Degrowth argument. It emphasises how capitalism and societal power relations are central to environmental degradation and social injustice. The books sets out a number of societal changes which would redress these problems.
Earth for All: A Survival Guide for Humanity: A Report to the Club of Rome
On the fiftieth anniversary of the release of The Limits to Growth, the Club of Rome sets out a program for addressing the environmental and societal crises facing humanity. They identify five key areas for urgent change: eliminating poverty, reducing inequality, empowering women, transforming agriculture and electrifying everything.