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Darwin's long battle has disturbing echoes today. We, too, are trapped in the same sort of false illusion that stymied critical thought before his radical breakthrough, except that the myth that envelops us is more dangerous and even more deeply rooted.
直到今天，達爾文那時的長期斗爭還有令人不安的回響。和他一樣，在實現(xiàn)徹底突破之前， 我們一直被困在妨礙批判性思維的錯覺和幻想里，只不過我們所陷入的幻想更加危險,而且更加根深蒂固。
Our great sustaining myth is economic growth: faith that the economy can grow forever, that there are no limits to the wealth we can create from Earth's natural resources. Growth, measured by an increasing Gross Domestic Product (GDP), is what drives government policy worldwide.
我們心中持久不能擺脫的偉大幻想就是經濟增長:我們相信經濟將會永遠增長下去，我們相信利用地球的自然資源能創(chuàng)造永無止境的財富。這種以不斷提高的國內生產總值（GDP)為衡量標準的經濟增長就是世界各國政府政策的決定性因素。
The equation has been drummed into us for so long that it's received wisdom. Growth equals prosperity and jobs. Growth equals progress.
增長等于繁榮和就業(yè);增長等于進步。這種等式關系被如此長久地灌輸給人們，以至于成了人們的普遍信念。
Yet this is a relatively recent turn of events. Using the GDP as a tool to measure growth has only been around since the late 1940s when the UN System of National Accounts was developed. For most of human history, economic growth was a mere blip. Only the last eight generations of humans have experienced consistent growth. As the father of green economics, Herman Daly, points out: "Historically, steady state is the normal condition; growth is an aberration." By "steady state," Daly means an economy with a constant population and "the lowest feasible flows of matter and energy from the first stage of production to the last stage of consumption."
然而，用GDP來作為衡最經濟增長的手段還是相對較近的一種事態(tài)變化，僅僅從 20世紀40年代末才開始，那時聯(lián)合國提出了國民經濟核算體系。在人類歷史的大部分時間里，經濟增長只是曇花一現(xiàn)。只有在過去八代人的歷史中，人類才經歷了持續(xù)的經濟增長。作為綠色經濟之父，赫爾曼•戴利指出：“從歷史上看，平穩(wěn)是常態(tài)，而增長則是異常狀態(tài)。”所謂“平穩(wěn)”，戴利指的是在人口基數(shù)比較穩(wěn)定的情況下“從第一階段的生產到最后階段的消費，這兩個環(huán)節(jié)中間物質和能源的流動盡可能保持了最低的水平。”
