Even if frugality means slower growth, it also means fewer products filling up landfills. Beyond a certain finite satisfaction of one's basic needs, people are not really 'happier' as a result of excess. Anyone who has ever strolled through Costco or Wal-Mart, or even a storage facility where people pay for house-size accommodations for their material goods will appreciate the author's wisdom. Saving money at discount stores to buy more goods causes more damage to the environment by stimulating production, and if the developing world adopts our models of behavior, we will find there is simply not enough energy to sustain us all on the planet. Principle 2: think small...

Globalization, equalizing the nations of the world under one economy, and increasing incomes are often not evaluated in terms of their long-term consequences. Ultimately, McKibben seems backward-looking in his principles, and one wonders if residents of the developing world would agree with him, but it is hard to argue with his numbers regarding energy consumption and use of finite resources.
Works Cited

McKibben, Bill. Deep Economy. Times Books,…