Thread by @Noahpinion

Stagnationists (including Robert Gordon) underrate the importance of sustainability.

We built industrial civilization quick, cheap, and dirty. REBUILDING that civilization to last longer is a form of progress that the official statistics often miss.

bloomberg.com/view/articles/…

Suppose you build a crappy, fragile house that will fall apart in a few years (or when the first big storm hits).

And then, having achieved temporary shelter, suppose you work on rebuilding the house piece by piece to last longer and be more robust...

A stagnationist would look at this situation and say "Look, we haven't built a new house in a while. Progress has slowed."

But it hasn't slowed. It has continued. A more durable, sustainable house represents progress relative to a fragile, short-lived house.

Things we do to make our economy more sustainable include:

Replacing coal and gas with solar and wind

Clean air/water regulations

Reducing habitat destruction

Recycling

(These things *also* tend to boost quality of life in ways that productivity numbers *also* miss.)

Some of these things reduce measured productivity today, but stimulate innovation that allows the economy of tomorrow to provide the same living standards in a more sustainable way.

Others, like clean energy, have sustainability benefits that manifest over the long term.

The worst arguments come from the people who respond to low growth numbers by advocating wanton slashing of regulations.

Some regulations are bad, but some are trading short-term consumption for long-term sustainability...we shouldn't throw those out!!

And those who claim technological progress is slowing down shouldn't rely only on the official numbers.

The clean energy revolution is a real technological revolution with huge implications for the long-term thriving of industrial civilization.

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