It's time to turn our attention away from global warming and climate change and toward a full scale discussion of the underlying cause of many of the conditions now faced by people and their governments most everywhere around the world. It's time to look for an alternative to the "growth for growth's sake" economy and the consumption that is needed to support it.

The legacy of the growth and consumption economy is wide ranging. It includes over population, over-consumption, and ever-increasing human poverty, a depletion of natural resources, ever-increasing greenhouse gas levels from industrial facilities, automobile use and food production, destruction of natural habitat, loss of biodiversity, species extinction and poisoned oceans.

An alternative to the growth model and its domination of life, in all respects is one based on no growth. There is no working model available for a no growth or de-growth system so it would have to be designed and developed from scratch.

What is de-growth? At a conference in Paris, France, in 2008, "de-growth" was defined as "a voluntary transition towards a just, participatory, and ecologically sustainable society." Herve Kemp, a French journalist calls it a system where humanity consumes less and shares better.

Ted Trainer, a professor in the School of Social Work, University of New South Wales, says de-growth involves highly co-operative and participatory systems and mostly small, highly efficient local economies.

Peter Victor, an ecological economist who teaches at York University's school of environmental studies rejects the idea that economic growth is essential to progress. To prove his point he created a computer model that duplicated the modern Canadian economy. He then adjusted it so that three crucial elements: consumption, productivity, and population, gradually stopped growing after 2010. He shortened the workweek to four days; imposed higher taxes on the rich; provided more public services for the poor; and imposed a carbon tax to provide government revenue. His model showed that within a couple decades things had changed.

The outcomes of Victor's model were: lower unemployment, a rise in standards of living, and lower greenhouse gas emissions. The economy reached a steady state after a couple decades.

A no growth or de-growth society sounds radical when compared to the growth society in which we now live, but it is not new. Adam Smith agreed that economic growth has limits. John Stuart Mill argued against uncontrolled capitalist growth and John Maynard Keynes talked about a time when the economy would not need to grow to meet human basic needs.

An encouraging start was made on de-growth thinking in British Columbia when a small gathering of people met recently in Vancouver to talk about a healthy society without an expanding economy. Another was the world conference held in Bolivia where 40,000 people from 135 countries gathered to talk about the relationship between the capitalist economy and the climate change issues the world is now facing.

Evo Morales, president of Bolivia and host of the Bolivian conference, told those in attendance, "The elephant in the room is an economic system based on the absurdity of unlimited economic growth." With Morales’ help perhaps we can develop plans to take care of the elephant.

A transition to a simpler local economy would yield a far higher quality of life for all (the emphasis here being on "quality"). However, the advocates of de-growth say that the prospects of making the transition are poor.

At the local level the work of the Grand Forks Economic Development Task Force can be rated a huge success if it leads to the development of a local economy that is not subject to the vagaries of the world economic system.