The experience of what is lost

• Growth is a quantitative measure whereas development is a qualitative measure. 
• Growth implies material increase; development implies non-material increase. 
• Growth implies bigger; development implies better. 
• The neo-classical economist says more is better; the scriptural ecologist says better is better. 
• Quantitative decisions can be made on the margin; and, on the margin, those decisions tend to be near the point of indifference so they tend perforce to be minor decisions. 
• Qualitative decisions, and especially ecological decisions, are hard choices. 

The market is ill-equipped to manage such decisions. Those are the real choices we face in our lives. Those are the hard choices that cannot net out the difference between costs and benefits and certainly cannot make the decision exclusively on the basis of that difference. 

Hard choices preserve the experience of what is lost and require mourning for the loss irrespective of the gain, and healing and reconfiguration of one's own shape and design.