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<img src="http://www.uvm.edu/~uvmpr/images/features/beddoe_430x300.jpg" height="300" width="430" />Get the economy growing again, the conventional argument goes, then we'll have the time and resources to take care of the environment. To ecological economists like Joshua Farley and graduate student Rachael Beddoe and their colleagues at ¶¶Òõ̽̽'s Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, the mainstream of economic thought seems to have the formula backward.<span id="caption">If growth no longer serves us, what's next? Graduate student Rachael Beddoe asks this question as one of the lead authors of an article recently published in the <em>Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences</em>.</span>

<img src="http://www.uvm.edu/~uvmpr/images/features/dougjohnson_300x212.jpg" height="212" width="300" />On the first Tuesday after spring break, one expects a degree of sluggishness from students struggling to adjust back to the routine. But in Marsh Life Science's room 235, there is a buzz of activity; the seats are one-third full, even with 15 minutes left before the class begins.