question of the weekend: How do we redefine our economy away from growth?

This is an enormous topic, one that smart people have been discussing for a long time -- see: The Club of Rome -- if only in the same way that smart people discuss all sorts of pie-in-the-sky matters: that is, as thought exercises, not with any hope of their ideas actually coming to fruition. Because there’s no serious discussion of zero-growth in mainstream politics or media -- there doesn’t even seem to be any serious appreciation for the question. I don’t expect us to have all the answers... maybe not even any of the answers. But we’re smart people, too, coming from lots of different disciplines, so I’m interested to hear your thoughts on this, whether they’re economic, technological, social, cultural, environmental, whatever.

Oh, and one more related question: If so many people, both laypersons and experts, take the necessity of growth for granted, what would it take to change that paradigm? Ecological disaster? $100-a-gallon gasoline? Anything? How do we begin to even redefine our thinking about these things?

(If you have a suggestion for a QOTD/QOTW, feel free to email me. Responses to this QOTW sent by email will be ignored; please post your responses here.)