The growth plan for the state is largely focused on land use.

But growth is far more than that. Land use is only one aspect of growth - and too often only attended to as a symptom of growth gone awry. Often we add the costs of growth to the benefits as when people sickened by environmental toxins add to the growth of health care industry.

Another question about growth is who benefits? Economic improvement needs to touch the lives of all our families. That's education, public health, employment, a relatively egalitarian distribution of income, wealth and opportunity. It's easier to provide that for few people than for many; if we grow, we need to provide more of everything to everyone.

Absent an explicit levelling, the gap between the rich and the poor widens. Privilege helps the rich get more benefit and more privilege and the rich can save and invest more to grow still faster.

That is why growth in our current economic system is not ending poverty and why even the middle class are having a harder time. Growth is widening the gap between rich and poor.

The standard Democratic line - that a rising tide lifts all boats - is misleading. Instead, the rich get richer and the poor get children.

When we talk about growth, we need to distinguish kinds of growth. Is it qualitative growth? What is the growth for and who will benefit? Are there times when shrinking makes sense?

If our society does not provide what we want for its members, how will getting bigger help?

Furthermore, we are running up against real limits. The inputs for growth: energy, water and natural resources of all kinds are fully tapped. At the other end of our production stream, there is no more room for the waste - Maine's landfills are filling rapidly and the oceans cannot hold more CO2. We can't put more mercury in our air, water, land and children.

We are using our renewables faster than they can regenerate. No longer is it possible to walk across the Georges Banks on the backs of the cod. All this talk about biofuel from our forests - our forests are already being heavily harvested.

We are using our non-renewables - fossil energy in particular, but also land, water, soil and forests - faster than we are replacing them with renewables.

We are polluting our environment faster than the environment can purge itself clean.

Our wealth depends on our cutting back our consumption and our growth.