As the iconoclastic US writer Kenneth Boulding once quipped: "If you believe exponential growth can go on in a finite world, you're either a madman or an economist."

There are lots of people who understand that, at least implicitly, and a growing number are doing something about it, through "downshifting" and growing their own food. They are thinking creatively and building new lives with a smaller environmental footprint; a post-growth world in the making. You'll find examples in this special issue of the New Internationalist magazine on the joy of zero growth.

But with our politicians still holding on grimly to economic growth as the touchstone for prosperity, it will take much more than a minority counter-culture movement to ensure that our global civilization makes the transition to sustainabiltiy.

NOTE: This completely free trial subscription will start with the special issue on Life Beyond Growth, plus you'll receive the following three issues free of charge, and there's no obligation to continue as a subscriber after that. In this tremendously important magazine, zero growth advocate Professor Tim Jackson argues that we can't rely on a technological fix to move us towards ecological sustainability. Our economic system will not adapt on its own because growth is currently hard-wired into the system. But Professor Jackson argues that the solution is staring us in the face.

Limit GDP growth

We need to apply limits to GDP growth as a whole, just as we are now attempting to apply limits to carbon pollution.

Re-wire investment to favour sustainability

Similarly investment structures need to be re-wired, such that through state-enforced taxation, higher emitters of pollution would have their profits and investment returns shaved. But this brief summary doesn't do justice to the inspirational nature of this new way of looking at prosperity. To get the full picture, please be sure to read this special issue of the New Internationalist magazine.

Special feature from the New Economics Foundation on the way poverty is measured.

Issue #434 of the New Internationalist magazine also includes: - How poor is too poor? - Global poverty has seen a dramatic decline, says the World Bank. But is this so? David Woodward of the New Economics Foundation critiques the way poverty is measured and proposes an alternative to the dollar-a-day "poverty line".

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