Timothée Parrique

Either we democratically plan a downscaling of production and consumption to reduce ecological footprints while securing wellbeing for everyone, or we keep pushing planetary boundaries until nature imposes sufficiency upon us through a lethal mix of resource shortages and climate catastrophes. Degrowth might be a hard sell but it’s still sexier than collapse.

Perhaps the title of this piece is a bit too provocative. Even if Hannah Richie falls within the usual eco-modernist discourse, she is not obsessed with economic growth. This builds a good basis for agreement.

This article perpetuates this counter-productive bashing of alternatives. At a time where plan B are precisely what we lack, this mentality is tragically uneconomical.

As political leaders gather for a second conference at the European Parliament on how to move “beyond growth”, we, the undersigned academics and civil society organisations, see the geopolitical crisis as an opportunity to disengage from the socially and ecologically harmful growth competition and instead embrace a wellbeing cooperation.

There is a rumour that is picking up speed in the media, affirming that it is possible to both produce more while polluting less. Some people call it “green growth.”

Who is still actively defending green growth? There is Alessio Terzi, the author of Growth for Good: Reshaping Capitalism to Save Humanity from Climate Catastrophe (2022). In this article, I want to respond to a number of arguments developed in a chapter titled “Post-Growth Dystopia.”