Richard McNeill Douglas is a research fellow at the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity (CUSP). His new book, The Meaning of Growth: Anti-environmental Rhetoric and the Defence of Modernity (Routledge, September 2025—and featuring a foreword by Tim Jackson), draws on both his research for CUSP and previous experience as an environmental policy analysist at the House of Commons. He has previously been published in a range of publications, including The Conversation, Prospect, Political Quarterly, Church Times, LSE Impact Blog and British Politics Blog, The Mint Magazine, Environmental Humanities, Environmental Politics, International Journal of Green Economics, Social Epistemology, Monthly Review, Capitalism Nature Socialism, and Renewal, as well as chapters in three books.
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Climate denial and the defence of modernity
What we are lacking is an inspiring vision of our lives, collective futures, and spiritual reality in a world in which we cannot keep growing forever. As much as we need policy wonks, scientists, and campaigners, now is the time for religious thinkers, philosophers, and writers to apply themselves to social change.
October 15, 2025