I have read some of his theories in summary form, none of his writings per se. At one level I agree with the concepts, but I am not very comfortable with the mechanisms that "government" would use to implement his ideas. Government almost always reverts to taxing things and exerting control over human behavior not solving problems.

Herman Daly’s Three Rules:

Sustainable use of renewable resources means that the pace should not be faster than the rate at which they regenerate.

Sustainable use of non-renewable resources means that the pace should not be faster than the rate at which their renewable substitutes can be put in place.

Sustainable rate of emission for pollution and wastes means that it should not be faster than the pace at which natural systems can absorb them, recycle them, or render them harmless.

Applying those theories to atmospheric CO2, I think the answer for sustainable abundant cheap energy does not lie in solar panels, windfarms, or nuclear plants... none of which are "natural".

And all of which create new albeit different forms of pollution or waste. Yet those solutions along with carbon taxes seems to be our government's application of Daly's theories.

We know how nature recycles CO2 and we have the technology to build massive multi-story algae farms as well as changing farming techniques so that we could replace fossil fuels with biodiesel as well a supercharge the planet's need for more CO2.

Let's invest the necessary money to figure out how to make global CO2 cycle much bigger by creating more "plants" not restraining the use of carbon fuel.

So, where I disagree with Daly is the problem is not with our "growth economy". The problem is our ability to use human creativity and innovation to build ecological sound solutions to fix out of balance resource cycles.