Green economy - why is North America so slow to understand growth has limits?

With China building 2 coal-fired electric generation plants a day, some of us have read enough science to know that greenhouse gases are going to eventually force us to halt the illusory quest for limitless growth in GDP that our governments claim is necessary. Any growth needs to be sustainable or it will lead to collapse. Many societies in Earth's past have learned this lesson the hard way. Southern Alberta and Saskatchewan are headed for desertification under present climate projections: can we afford this? Here in Canada the Conservatives seem to have scared the electorate away from their environmental concerns with economic fears. Thinking that we can just ignore science and not pay dearly is wrong. Some in the neoCon camp really believe that climate change was disproved by some hacked email sent from East Anglia Hacked climate science emails | Environment | guardian.co.uk and may continue to stick to their guns when water hits $10/litre in some future nightmare scenario, but I believe the Canadian public knows that David Suzuki, for one, is right when he says the environment is the larger economy, they are not disconnected and we can't have an economy without an environment.

Here is some interesting reading for Greens from Britain's Green Party 2010 Election Manifesto_web_file.pdf with the campaign slogan "fair is worth fighting for":

"Inequality is not just wrong in itself. It makes us ill, causes us to die earlier, raises crime levels, depresses educational achievement, and creates stress and mental illness.

New research has shown that more equal societies do better, and that equality – rather than simple average wealth or even lack of poverty – is the main route to a better society for everyone, rich and poor.

Underpinning all this is green economics, which is the only realistic economics. Greens understand that we need a one-planet economy that uses no more than the resources it gives us, not the fantasy multi-planet economy of the other political parties that will one day hit the buffers with a catastrophic crash. The very way we measure economic ‘success’ today shows the bankruptcy of business as usual.  

‘Gross Domestic Product’ measures all the economic activity in Britain – even the money spent on picking up the pieces of our unfair and unsustainable society. Prisons and pollution are as ‘productive’ as schools and sanitation in the world of conventional economics.

We want to improve the welfare of people   and the health of the planet rather than the   size of the economy. Because size matters:   if the economy gets too big it will grow   beyond its ecological limits. Now we are up   against a very challenging limit: the capacity   of the atmosphere and the Earth to absorb   our greenhouse gas emissions without overheating.

Only the Green Party is willing to   face up properly to these limits, and to say that limitless economic growth without thinking about the consequences is a dangerous and careless fantasy."

Also of interest to me is their European Election 2009 manifesto.

Just thought I'd share the text and links. Europe has accepted at the political level that climate change must be mitigated, not so here in North America. Why? What can we do to change the conversation from "attack advertising works" to "the environment needs our attention"? A Green candidate is contesting for London's mayorship in 2012 and they campaign nationally now saying "Greens get elected and stay elected".