Andrew Simms on how Britain can learn about living at low environmental cost from small islands

The experience of small islands can teach us a lot about living good lives at low environmental cost

'A man who falls from a 100-storey building will survive the first 99 storeys unscathed," wrote the economist EJ Mishan in response to critics of his attack on the costs of economic growth. It was the 1960s and then, as now, it was heresy to question growth. The cry went up: "But natural resources haven't actually run out yet, and what about the costs of not growing?" Mishan returned to his...