Discussion
Have you clearly broken growth down into its population and economic components? I can only recall seeing the word "growth" without any clear differentiation.
You might want to read some of anthropologist Marvin Harris's books which gets into the doctrine of environmental (material) determinism. His ideas have affected my thinking, and they might very well affect yours.
You also need to contemplate what public forum to address your arguments toward. Once you think about that you realize that you want to address your arguments to the public forums where the relevant policy issues are decided. In this case it is what I call the "evening news" forum. I suspect you are aiming the site at the choir, not John Q. Citizen. Does JQC hold Fidel Castro in high regard?
I tend to view the analog of this issue as trying to lead an elephant by a string tied around its trunk. If you pull in the wrong direction too hard you just break the string, but if you tug so as to bias the elephant's every move just a little bit, you eventually get the beast where you want it to go.
REPLY FROM KEN MEYERCORD
Zero Growth applies to both demographic and economic growth. In a zero growth world, both population and the economy would be stable. I don't see much need to distinguish between the two, especially not in the sense that population growth is bad but economic growth is good. They are two aspects of a common problem. Many economists, I believe, would argue that growth in population and economic growth are inextricably linked. Zero Growth implies an attitude, an "ethos", that finds both types of growth equally repugnant and threatening.
I am not crafty enough or prescient enough to direct my appeal to any particular audience. I am, as they say, running the concept of zero growth up the flag pole and waiting to see who salutes. I am placing no bets on whether the cause will be taken up by the masses or the ruling elites, by capitalists or communists, by the industrialized world or the Third World. I try to be ecumenical in my reach; Zero Growth is, after all, inherently global in scope. To the extent that anyone, be he The Great Satan of the East or The Great Satan of the West, has something interesting to say on growth, he deserves to be quoted on our website. Moreover, I am certainly not addressing my appeal to Americans only, and, as you may be aware, President Castro enjoys a considerably better reputation worldwide than he does here in the United States. Personally, I don't see much hope of achieving zero growth, or saving ourselves from ultimate annihilation, if we can't surmount the petty, yet so tragically significant, political bickering that afflicts our world.
To amplify on your analogy of the elephant, I would place the beast in a garden, a garden of finite dimensions, and suggest that by the time you have gotten him to go where you want by gentle tugs he will have obliterated everything that sustains us. Instead of trying to lead the pesky pachyderm about, maybe we should just shoot the damn thing!