Mission of Growth Education

All over the country people are concerned about the adverse impacts of sprawl in their neighborhood. Thousands of local civic groups, national non-profit organizations, and state and federal agencies are working to minimize sprawl.

There are many successes. But when these successes are measured against the open space we are losing daily, it is clear that our efforts to curb sprawl are being overwhelmed in areas experiencing rapid population growth.

Vanishing open space is but one example where population growth adversely affects our quality of life. Yet population growth is glaringly absent from out national discourse. To help remedy this omission, Growth Education was founded for the purpose of educating the general public. Specifically, the corporate mission is to make people aware that:

failing to address U.S. population growth will increasingly diminish the quality of life of our children and grandchildren,

• our mushrooming population is neither inevitable nor economically necessary, and
• U.S. population stabilization can be achieved by voluntary means supported by the vast majority of Americans.

Education is critically needed because awareness precedes action. Politicians at every level avoid the population stabilization issue even though presidential reports acknowledge the need to address the issue.

They will not act in the absence of a demand for action. Only when enough people become aware of the problems and solutions, will there be a demand for change. Only then will there be a demand for programs that promote population stabilization via voluntary means.

The primary tools of the Growth Education Movement are books.

The issue of population growth is complex and fraught with misconceptions. To reach people in a convincing way, to be effective in educating them, the issues and solutions must be set forth in a dispassionate, rational, and complete manner.

In other words, objective, well-supported books are an essential tool. On the other hand, no matter how informative a book may be, it can be effective only if people are interested enough to read it.

As of the summer of 2003, Growth Education Movement has published one book, In Growth We Trust, and has produced one video of the same title.

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