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The two processes are distinct - sometimes linked, sometimes not. For example, a child grows and develops simultaneously: a snowball or a cancer grows without developing; the planet earth develops without growing. Economies frequently grow and develop at the same time, but can do either separately. But since the economic is a sub-system of a finite and not growing eco-system, then as growths leads it to incorporate an ever larger fraction of the total system into itself, its behavior must more and more approximate the behavior of the total system which is development without growth. It is precisely the recognition that growth in scale ultimately becomes impossible - and already costs more than it is worth - that gives rise to the urgency of the concept of sustainable development. Sustainable development is development without growth in the scale of the economy beyond some point that is within biospheric carrying capacity.

- Herman Daly