If you cut down a forest and sell the timber, GDP goes up. If you strip a mountain range to mine for coal, GDP goes up. If you extend the working day and push back the retirement age, GDP goes up. But GDP includes no cost accounting. It does not measure the cost of losing the forest as a sinkhole for carbon dioxide, or the loss of the mountain range as a home for endangered species, or the toll that too much work takes on people’s bodies and minds and relationships.
