Is green growth happening?
By Timothée Parrique, Uneven Earth
So, is green growth happening? The answer is no, not really. As of today, economic growth is still a vector of resource use and environmental degradation.
Tag: decoupling emissions from economic growth
The Nottingham Economic Recovery and Renewal Consultation – Part Three
By Brian Davey, Feasta
Promoting economic growth is unethical because economic activity has overshot the carrying capacity of the biosphere and is degrading the ecological system.
Growth without economic growth
By R. Strand, Z. Kovacic, S. Funtowicz, L. Benini, A. Jesus, European Environment Agency
Economic growth is closely linked to increases in production, consumption and resource use and has detrimental effects on the natural environment and human health.
Aggregate green growth is a mirage: we need to take a more scientific approach to societal wellbeing
By Caroline Whyte, Feasta
In other words, it is impossible, within the time constraints that we are now facing, to decouple GDP growth from environmental damage strongly and deeply enough to be able to adequately repair that damage.
Of mice, men and elephants
By Gunnar Rundgren, Garden Earth Blog
In most prevailing sustainability narratives, increased efficiency is a prominent component. It is a prerequisite for the supposed possibility to combine decreasing pressure on natural resources with economic growth.
No, the “Environmental Kuznets Curve” won’t save us
By Jason Hickel, Jason Hickel blog
My appeal to McAfee: let’s try to get beyond this sort of thing and engage more honestly with the empirical and theoretical work that has been done, so we can have more meaningful conversations. If we are going to realise our shared goals, we can and must do better.
What a Milk Carton Can Tell Us
By Gunnar Rundgren, Garden Earth
My milk package, the electric cars, agriculture land use and the wood saving stoves are all examples showing why overall reduction in resources use or emissions (absolute decoupling) through substitution and efficiency is a pipe dream in a growth economy.
Green Economic Growth is an Article of ‘Faith’ Devoid of Scientific Evidence
By Nafeez Ahmed, Insurge Intelligence
For years, financial institutions and governments have been focused on the idea of ‘decoupling’ GDP growth from resource use. This has been driven by the recognition that to stay within the ‘safe limit’ of 2 degrees Celsius, we have to dramatically reduce our material consumption.
Decoupling
By Timothée Parrique, Uneven Earth
Is economic growth compatible with ecological sustainability? To answer this question, we need to talk about decoupling. The term ‘decoupling’ refers to the possibility of detaching economic growth from environmental pressures.
Decoupling is Dead! Long Live Degrowth!
By Timothée Parrique, Degrowth.de
The validity of the green growth discourse relies on the assumption of an absolute, permanent, global, large and fast enough decoupling of Gross Domestic Product from all critical environmental pressures. Problem is: there is no empirical evidence for such a decoupling having ever happened.
How the Light Gets In
By Tim Jackson, Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity
It’s probably fitting that Michael Liebreich’s The Secret of Eternal Growth was published so close to Halloween. It’s so full of outlandish bogeymen, it sits perfectly alongside the ghouls and the ghosts of the trick-or-treat season.
Instead of Decoupling, we need Recoupling
By Gunnar Rundgren, Garden Earth
The path to meaning – and real sustainability - is the opposite; it is through recoupling with nature. Instead of denying that we are an integral part of nature in which we swim, live, mate, laugh, cry and die, we need to embrace that fact.