Smith wrote this piece on "green growth" yesterday. Here are my thoughts on what's wrong with it, and on how Smith might move forward. The source for my claims is at the end of the thread. bloomberg.com/opinion/articl…
1) Smith parades a bunch of graphs showing US GDP rising while use of energy, some metals, and water remain steady. But these graphs don't account for the resource footprints of goods that the US imports from abroad; i.e., extraction and production that has been offshored.
2) When we *do* account for the footprint of imports, we see that the US economy is not dematerializing at all. Blue is US GDP, red is aggregate domestic resource consumption (Smith's approach), and green is total resource footprint, which includes the impact of imported goods. 
3) Next Smith has a graph of GDP decoupling from embodied emissions. We all know this is happening. The real question is, can decoupling be achieved fast enough to keep us within the carbon budget against a background of continued growth? The empirical evidence shows it cannot.
4) Smith suggests that rich countries are the heroes, as they are "dematerializing" while the global South is not. But (a) rich countries are not dematerializing, and (b) rich countries are the problem here, not the solution. See graph. The red line is the sustainable level.
5) Smith says he would like to see the state "force" companies and consumers to shift to green growth. So, I have a question for him: Is he willing to join ecological economists in calling for a declining cap on annual resource use? It would be a simple solution.
6) I discuss these arguments in full here: jasonhickel.org/s/Hickel-and-K… Smith is aware of this piece, and of the evidence it marshals, and yet he continues to write about green growth as if it doesn't exist. Not good enough.
Honestly, Smith is peddling arguments that have been dealt with many, many times in the academic literature, by hundreds of careful scientists. His refusal to engage with this empirical research is intellectually irresponsible, and degrades the quality of our public debate.
