Links tagged “degrowth”

Article in Journal Nature: Wealthy economies should abandon growth of gross domestic product (GDP) as a goal, scale down destructive and unnecessary forms of production to reduce energy and material use, and focus economic activity around securing human needs and well-being. ... Degrowth is a purposeful strategy to stabilize economies and achieve social and ecological goals, unlike recession, which is chaotic and socially destabilizing and occurs when growth-dependent economies fail to grow. ...

Researchers should study political movements that are aligned with degrowth values — from La Via Campesina, the international peasants’ movement that advocates food sovereignty and agroecological methods, to the municipalist and communalist movements and governments in progressive cities such as Barcelona or Zagreb, which promote policies favouring social justice and the commons. Better understanding is needed of the obstacles faced by governments that have ecological ambitions, such as those elected this year in Chile and Colombia.

Nature published a call to “degrowth,” claiming that “degrowth can work” and “wealthy countries can create prosperity while using less materials and energy if they abandon economic growth as an objective.”

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Lockdown 2.0: The "Switch Off Putin" RePlanet report: “We propose bans on all business flights, private jets and internal flights within Europe to save oil, and bans also on car use within cities,” the report's authors said. “This should be combined with free public transport.”

"In some ways, the speed of the change will resemble the Covid lockdowns," the report noted, adding, "as, with Covid lockdowns, social pressure to abide by national restrictions will also play a big part."

Morano: "This 'Switch Off Putin' report is serving as Putin’s revenge on the West, allowing the once free West to destroy itself under the false guise of hurting — Putin."

John Stuart Mill: In 1848, decades into the Industrial Revolution, Mill wrote that “[h]itherto it is questionable if all the mechanical inventions yet made have lightened the day’s toil of any human being. They have enabled a greater population to live the same life of drudgery and imprisonment...”^[3]Mill’s answer as to why this was the case was, at its core, Malthusian. The fruits of innovation had not been equally shared, he argued — a few made fortunes, and productivity growth had increased the comforts of the middle classes, but most saw no benefit and would not do so until “the increase of mankind shall be under the deliberate guidance of judicious foresight.”^[4]

Marc Morano comments: My new book Green Fraud devotes an entire chapter to how climate activists praise COVID lockdowns and are seeking climate lockdowns and "planned recessions' and Degrowth to fight global warming. 

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Axios: "The global economy shrank by an estimated 4.3% in 2020, according to data from the World Bank. That contraction was due both to the direct pain of the pandemic and the effects of social distancing measures, but it also led to a roughly 6% reduction in global carbon dioxide emissions — the biggest annual drop since WWII. However accidental, 2020 represented perhaps the best example we've ever experienced of degrowthism in action."

"For degrowthers, simply cleaning up the global economy by switching from fossil fuels to zero-carbon sources of energy isn't enough. Economic growth — the goal of essentially every government everywhere — is itself the problem.
Environmental activist Greta Thunberg...chastised delegates at a UN climate summit in 2019: “We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!”
The movement now has its own dedicated academic journals, associations and conferences."

Greta Thunberg denounced world leaders for their main focus on what she called “the fairy tale of eternal economic growth.” ...Now Europe’s main scientific body, the European Academies Science Advisory Council (which comprises of the National Academies of Science of EU Member States, plus Norway, Switzerland and UK), has followed in Greta’s footsteps, hitting out against policy makers and governments who prioritise economic growth.

“Generation Greta gets it. Our focus should be on well-being and welfare, but our economic system puts all focus on growth and GDP which adds fuel to the climate and biodiversity crises.” That’s how the European Academies Science Advisory Council press release highlights the main take of its report that calls for “‘transformational’ change that is necessary if policy-makers and their public (sic) are to support the conclusions of the advocates of change.” ... Tracking happiness could be the key to beating climate change, a group of European scientists has said.

Update: Greenpeace Co-Founder Dr. Patrick Moore responds to study: "How does this garbage get published? I have never seen the forests and wild lands so lush with growth. The CO2 fertilization effect is real, 35% increase in growth, caused by affluence. Can’t we teach them just one thing, that the CO2 we are putting into the atmosphere came from there in the first place? That fossil fuels were made from plants?"

Eric Worrall at WattsUpWithThat: "Central planning, rationing, price controls, punitive wealth taxes and wealth redistribution. The glorious future climate concerned scientists are planning for us."

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New study in the journal Nature Communications - June 2020: "The affluent citizens of the world are responsible for most environmental impacts." Propose "far-reaching lifestyle changes."

"We provide evidence from the literature that consumption of affluent households worldwide is by far the strongest determinant and the strongest accelerator of increases of global environmental and social impacts." - "These solution approaches range from reformist to radical ideas, including degrowth, eco-socialism and eco-anarchism."

Study laments that "low-income groups are rapidly occupying middle- and high-income brackets around the world. This can potentially further exacerbate the impacts of mobility-related consumption, which has been shown to disproportionately increase with income." - "Affluence needs to be addressed by reducing consumption."

'A shift beyond capitalism': "It is clear that prevailing capitalist, growth-driven economic systems have not only increased affluence since World War II, but have led to enormous increases in inequality, financial instability, resource consumption and environmental pressures on vital earth support systems"

New goal: "Avoid or to reduce consumption until the remaining consumption level falls within planetary boundaries, while fulfilling human needs." ...Avoiding consumption means not consuming certain goods and services, from living space (overly large homes, secondary residences of the wealthy) to oversized vehicles, environmentally damaging and wasteful food, leisure patterns and work patterns involving driving and flying."

Propose ‘sustainable consumption corridors’, i.e. minimum and maximum consumption standards.'

"Eco-feminist approaches highlight the role of patriarchal social relations and the parallels between the oppression of women and exploitation of nature."  ... "Strengthen equality and redistribution through suitable taxation policies, basic income and job guarantees and by setting maximum income levels, expanding public services and rolling back neoliberal reforms (e.g. as part of a Green New Deal)."

'Setting maximum income levels': "The transformation of economic systems can be supported with innovative business models that encourage sharing and giving economies, based on cooperation, communities and localised economies instead of competition"

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Note: The journal Nature likes touting 'degrowth.' See: STUDY in Nature in 2018: Global wealth redistribution, economic ‘degrowth’ needed to fight ‘global warming’

Paul Ehrlich: "I don't know a single person, virologist, epidemiologist on -- I know a lot of them -- I trust them all. Everybody says the same thing. We desperately need a national shutdown, and ordered from the top."

Ehrlich on his book: "The worst mistake we made was to put in scenarios. which are little stories to help you think about the future. But every reviewer treated them as if they were predictions. And I would not do that again."

 Ehrlich: "Even people as smart as Obama won't say we have too many people, we are growing too fast."

"I don't think there is a chance in hell that we will get the changes we need to keep civilization going. I hate to tell you that. But I don't see any sign. I can't be optimistic." -  "I had great hopes I would die before the collapse really got going, but I missed. The smartest thing I ever did was to be born in 1932."

"If you think the health problems of this virus pandemic are serious. They are nothing, absolutely nothing, compared to the health threat of climate change. There is no chance as far as we can tell that this particular coronavirus will kill everybody, but climate disruption can kill everybody. And we have very little time to act. And instead of acting in the right direction, this moronic imbecile (Trump) is working very hard to kill Americans and other human beings in the future for his personal gain and profit." 

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Overpopulation guru Paul Ehrlich still ginning up fear at age 87: ‘It’s insane to have so many people alive at the same time’ – Claims: ‘Trump’s got a lot of blood on his hands’

New study claims economic systems must be restructured to fit 'within planetary boundaries.' Paper urges "moving beyond the pursuit of GDP growth to embrace new measures of progress. It could also involve the pursuit of ‘degrowth’ in wealthy nations and the shift towards alternative economic models such as a steady-state economy."

From a study in the journal Nature: “A Good Life for All Within Planetary Boundaries:” - "We apply a top-down approach that distributes shares of each planetary boundary among nations based on current population (a per capita biophysical boundary approach)...If all people are to lead a good life within planetary boundaries, then our results suggest that provisioning systems must be fundamentally restructured to enable basic needs to be met at a much lower level of resource use."