THE ZERO GROWTH CREED

We believe the Earth, our home, the most beautiful in all the heavens, is a finite sphere. Copious as she has been in the riches she has bestowed upon us, her beneficence is not without limit.

We believe mankind has attained the maximum utilization of Earth's treasures which he can prudently attain without harm to his well-being, both material and spiritual; indeed, without threatening the very existence of his kind and of all his life-sharing companions upon this fruitful orb. Humble as are man's works before the awesome majesty of Earth's natural forces, we have in our power the capability to destroy the fragile balance of Nature, to upset the mechanisms - so unlikely and so wondrous, so far beyond our power to comprehend - by which our earthly home has evolved and will evolve.

We believe the technological genius of man, through which he can assure himself a life of comfort, security, and enlightenment, should be dedicated to shepherding Earth's resources, not rapaciously exploiting them in a self-indulgent gluttony, a theft from generations yet to come. True progress, which is not only possible but preferable without growth, lies in gaining not more, but more from less.

We believe all mankind shares a common destiny. The peoples of the Earth, having multiplied through her bounty to a plenitude beyond which she should not be asked to nurture, must unite to protect our home, while we nurture and protect one another out of the compassion unique to humans which justifies and sanctifies our survival as a species.

Confident in our beliefs and grateful for the world bequeathed to us by our parents, as to them by theirs, we call upon all mankind to abandon the life-threatening and ultimately self-defeating doctrine of heedless growth in favor of an ethos of ecostasis, so that we may pass on to our children, enjoining them to pass on to theirs, a stable, progressive world in which this blessed Earth gives of her fullness through the ages; until, having given her full, she can give no more, at which far millennium man will prosper or perish as he so merits.

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