Thank you for this resource & information, felt like a great intro to the topic as someone fairly new to it. I imagine a hard aspect in all of this is balancing degrowth and equality. While many countries/regions/etc can and should practice degrowth, there are many developing regions that desperately want growth to have access to basic needs and opportunities. I guess in the nuances of it all, degrowth is also a balancing of growth, or about the equality of growth - some degrow while others grow, and ideally we all meet somewhere in the middle. While I agree with your comments about using a term like degrowth, that is perhaps one aspect of the name that could be misconstrued, but I do agree that the directness of a term like degrowth is powerful. Thank you for this!
Yes, that is a tricky aspect of the name, although I feel as though the two definitions do cover this - the first specifically says over-consuming nations (those using more than their fair share of resources, there are many ways to measure this, country specific planetary boundaries, Earth Overshoot day etc), and the second is about moving away from using economic growth (GDP) at all, and just providing people with the things they need to live a good life, regardless of whether the economy grows or not. Thanks for taking the time to read through the slides, I appreciate it!
2. Without fossil fuels modern civilization is not even remotely possible. Summed up well by this comment from https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-may28-2024/#comment-775994. "I’ve come to the conclusion that modern civilization is just a flash in the pan, a brief period of human ingenuity using the natural resources of the world. It was never sustainable in the long term, the combination of using all the high grade ores of everything, plus the combination of entropy and dissipation means that once past peak fossil energy use, the whole of modern civilization has to unravel. We have a choice of being honest that it’s not sustainable, or we can deny the reality of the future. Our choice was soft landing by deliberately reducing population and powering down to simpler lives, or tell ourselves fairytales and crash hard at some point. We have as a species clearly chosen the latter."
3. Without fossil fuels the world can't support the current population - The Human Ecology of Overshoot: Why a Major ‘Population Correction’ Is Inevitable by Bill Rees - https://www.mdpi.com/2673-4060/4/3/32
These are fair points (and, of course, beyond the scope of my Intro deck). I'll try and address them in turn:
1. The economic and financial system will collapse regardless due to risking sea-levels flooding major cities, bushfires etc (eg https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2024-home-insurance-real-estate-crisis/). But yes, once people realise that stock values are based on growth which is causing a mass extinction event, those stock values will plummet. We can ensure everyone's needs are met as best as possible through this process via publicly funded pensions, public housing, education and a federally funded job guarantee, but we will have to decide would we prefer a habitable planet or wealth on paper for a small percentage of the world's population. It's a tough one ...
2. Perhaps degrowth is politically unpalatable, although the research suggests otherwise:
3. I'm with Rupert Read and Samuel Alexander on this one - This Civilisation is finished (free excerpt available here: https://www.resilience.org/stories/2019-06-17/this-civilisation-is-finished/), the only question is whether we will just wait for collapse, or whether we will proactively try and create something far less harmful. This is what we are seeking to do with degrowth.
4. I haven't had a chance to read the full paper you shared, however I think it's helpful to remember that the poorest half of humanity are only responsible for 10% of global emissions, and the wealthiest 50% are responsible for 90% (see slide 16 in my deck). Surely there's some flex in there to reduce our emissions without reducing our population (although of sure long term population reduction is necessary, just not a viable option in the short time from we have). As I understand it, we could cut global emissions by 33% just by adopting the lifestyles of the average European (Prof Kevin Anderson talks about this). There's so much we could do if we started trying to save life on Earth rather than trying to save business as usual.
The Bill Rees paper is worth reading for its view of humans and modernity from an ecological perspective. A really important concept it covers is the Maximum Power Principle where "natural selection favours systems that evolve (self-organize) in ways that maximize their energy intake and power output in the service of self-maintenance, growth and reproduction. Systems that markedly fail to maximize their useful power output would be selected out. H. sapiens are arguably the archetypal demonstration of maximum power." A reason I believe there will be no voluntary degrowth.
You might be right about no voluntary degrowth, but I don’t believe it’s because of “natural selection”. It will be because the ruling class are holding onto their power no matter the cost. Colonisation, imperialism, globalisation are not “accidents” that were unavoidable, and are on full display in Gaza right now. There’s nothing inevitable about killing hundreds of thousands of people and intentionally starving over a million. These are choices and we can make different choices. I like this thread by Aashis Joshi: https://x.com/aashisjo/status/1797179447964991753?s=46&t=eoi37_UjXlyk1Cf-Oei1yQ
I have subscribed to The Honest Sorcerer, thank you.
Thank you for sharing the slides so generously, they are very clear. I just think that the slides about how to do it are more crammed with text and less friendly than the rest.
Thanks for the feedback Casandra, I appreciate it. I think you are right re the degrowth slides. I will have a think about how I can make them more visually appealing.
More power to you, Erin
Thank you Ashwani! 💚
Thank you for this resource & information, felt like a great intro to the topic as someone fairly new to it. I imagine a hard aspect in all of this is balancing degrowth and equality. While many countries/regions/etc can and should practice degrowth, there are many developing regions that desperately want growth to have access to basic needs and opportunities. I guess in the nuances of it all, degrowth is also a balancing of growth, or about the equality of growth - some degrow while others grow, and ideally we all meet somewhere in the middle. While I agree with your comments about using a term like degrowth, that is perhaps one aspect of the name that could be misconstrued, but I do agree that the directness of a term like degrowth is powerful. Thank you for this!
Yes, that is a tricky aspect of the name, although I feel as though the two definitions do cover this - the first specifically says over-consuming nations (those using more than their fair share of resources, there are many ways to measure this, country specific planetary boundaries, Earth Overshoot day etc), and the second is about moving away from using economic growth (GDP) at all, and just providing people with the things they need to live a good life, regardless of whether the economy grows or not. Thanks for taking the time to read through the slides, I appreciate it!
This is a good slide set Erin. Three issues I think that Degrowth fails to address adequately are:
1. Without growth the current economic / finncial system collapses and chaos will erupt -
https://www.collapse2050.com/trapped-by-economic-growth - While necessary, degrowth is both damaging and politically unpalatable.
2. Without fossil fuels modern civilization is not even remotely possible. Summed up well by this comment from https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-may28-2024/#comment-775994. "I’ve come to the conclusion that modern civilization is just a flash in the pan, a brief period of human ingenuity using the natural resources of the world. It was never sustainable in the long term, the combination of using all the high grade ores of everything, plus the combination of entropy and dissipation means that once past peak fossil energy use, the whole of modern civilization has to unravel. We have a choice of being honest that it’s not sustainable, or we can deny the reality of the future. Our choice was soft landing by deliberately reducing population and powering down to simpler lives, or tell ourselves fairytales and crash hard at some point. We have as a species clearly chosen the latter."
3. Without fossil fuels the world can't support the current population - The Human Ecology of Overshoot: Why a Major ‘Population Correction’ Is Inevitable by Bill Rees - https://www.mdpi.com/2673-4060/4/3/32
Interested in your thoughts.
Regards
Hi Campbell,
These are fair points (and, of course, beyond the scope of my Intro deck). I'll try and address them in turn:
1. The economic and financial system will collapse regardless due to risking sea-levels flooding major cities, bushfires etc (eg https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2024-home-insurance-real-estate-crisis/). But yes, once people realise that stock values are based on growth which is causing a mass extinction event, those stock values will plummet. We can ensure everyone's needs are met as best as possible through this process via publicly funded pensions, public housing, education and a federally funded job guarantee, but we will have to decide would we prefer a habitable planet or wealth on paper for a small percentage of the world's population. It's a tough one ...
2. Perhaps degrowth is politically unpalatable, although the research suggests otherwise:
* Here is a good thread on the popularity of degrowth and post-growth aligned policies from citizens assemblies: https://x.com/PoliticOfNature/status/1564216991614918656
* Here is a summary of all of the research that suggests people are actually in favour of degrowth/post-growth/agrowth: https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2023/11/24/how-popular-are-post-growth-and-post-capitalist-ideas
3. I'm with Rupert Read and Samuel Alexander on this one - This Civilisation is finished (free excerpt available here: https://www.resilience.org/stories/2019-06-17/this-civilisation-is-finished/), the only question is whether we will just wait for collapse, or whether we will proactively try and create something far less harmful. This is what we are seeking to do with degrowth.
4. I haven't had a chance to read the full paper you shared, however I think it's helpful to remember that the poorest half of humanity are only responsible for 10% of global emissions, and the wealthiest 50% are responsible for 90% (see slide 16 in my deck). Surely there's some flex in there to reduce our emissions without reducing our population (although of sure long term population reduction is necessary, just not a viable option in the short time from we have). As I understand it, we could cut global emissions by 33% just by adopting the lifestyles of the average European (Prof Kevin Anderson talks about this). There's so much we could do if we started trying to save life on Earth rather than trying to save business as usual.
I hope that helps!
Cheers,
Erin.
The Bill Rees paper is worth reading for its view of humans and modernity from an ecological perspective. A really important concept it covers is the Maximum Power Principle where "natural selection favours systems that evolve (self-organize) in ways that maximize their energy intake and power output in the service of self-maintenance, growth and reproduction. Systems that markedly fail to maximize their useful power output would be selected out. H. sapiens are arguably the archetypal demonstration of maximum power." A reason I believe there will be no voluntary degrowth.
I agree this civilization is finished. Do you read the Honest Sorcerer on Substack? Well worth it if you don't. https://open.substack.com/pub/thehonestsorcerer/p/on-radical-acceptance?utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
All the best.
You might be right about no voluntary degrowth, but I don’t believe it’s because of “natural selection”. It will be because the ruling class are holding onto their power no matter the cost. Colonisation, imperialism, globalisation are not “accidents” that were unavoidable, and are on full display in Gaza right now. There’s nothing inevitable about killing hundreds of thousands of people and intentionally starving over a million. These are choices and we can make different choices. I like this thread by Aashis Joshi: https://x.com/aashisjo/status/1797179447964991753?s=46&t=eoi37_UjXlyk1Cf-Oei1yQ
I have subscribed to The Honest Sorcerer, thank you.
Thank you for sharing the slides so generously, they are very clear. I just think that the slides about how to do it are more crammed with text and less friendly than the rest.
Thanks for the feedback Casandra, I appreciate it. I think you are right re the degrowth slides. I will have a think about how I can make them more visually appealing.