Another bastion

An article by Madeleine Bunting on the Guardian website today alerted me to the existence of another bastion of growth scepticism in Britain. Evidently Surrey University has a Resolve programme, sponsored by the Economic and Social Research Council, whose aim is “to unravel the complex links between lifestyles, values and the environment”. It is designed to advise politicians on how to influence our behaviour: “the group will provide robust, evidence-based advice to policy-makers in the UK and elsewhere who are seeking to understand and to influence the behaviours and practices of ‘energy consumers’.” The centre’s director is Professor Tim Jackson (see, for example, posts of 11 March 2007 and 30 March 2009.

Although growth scepticism is a pervasive outlook there are certain intellectual centres which are particularly involved in propagating the outlook. In Britain these also include the RSA (see 17 June post) and the London School of Economics (home to, among others, Anthony Giddens and Nicholas Stern).