Remembering Richard Heinberg: Why I made degrowth art in his memory
The messages and body of work that Richard leaves behind encourage us all to keep striving, creating, and living well within our planet’s limits.
degrowth
‘Inner Degrowth’: An engineer on why the energy crisis and our inner emptiness are the same problem
Marcos Rupérez Cerqueda spent years as an engineer on green hydrogen projects in Spain, installing electrolysers and fuel cells, before the numbers made him stop believing in a technical fix. In this Q&A, he discusses this journey and his new book.
A future of ‘fewer and less’ may be unavoidable. But how do we get there humanely?
With age, I’ve become more aware of the world’s complexity but also better equipped to come to simple, albeit painful, conclusions: We need to replace fantasies of endless growth with ideas about managing the contraction.
Why degrowth movements need perspectives from Central and Eastern Europe
In many ways, Central and Eastern Europe is not a newcomer to degrowth. It helped shape some of its foundational ideas.
‘Studies in Happiness’: What Japan can teach us about thriving beyond economic growth
While degrowth in Europe is often framed as a deliberate choice, Japan’s version is distinctive – and instructive. Japan offers a rare set of living experiments in how communities can actually function, and even thrive, without growth as the organizing goal.
Beyond the supermarket: What Greece’s alternative food networks teach us about degrowth
Thessaloniki’s grassroots food networks offer a glimpse of what food systems organized around care and democracy, rather than profit and endless growth, can look like.
The rush for critical minerals is repeating an ongoing history Indigenous communities know well
All land was Indigenous once. Now, over half of the world’s ‘green’ metal projects are on Indigenous territories, from lithium-driven ecosystem collapse in the Andes to more than 100 proposed lithium mines across the US.
It’s the end of growth as we know it
Beyond living standards, economic growth has shaped how societies cope with shocks and distribute gains. As growth weakens, these less visible functions may prove just as consequential as its economic effects.
Debates on degrowth: What drives us to keep growing?
Economic growth does not increase our well-being. It drives environmental damage and will inevitably slow as we hit resource limits. Yet many countries, companies, and individuals remain fiercely attached to growth. This article uses systemic analysis and System Dynamics diagrams to explore why we keep pursuing more, despite what we know.
We have entered the age of consequences for climate and energy inaction: An interview with Richard Heinberg
In the final part of this three-part interview series, Richard Heinberg reflects on decades of ignored warnings about energy descent and economic collapse, calling for a voluntary relocalization of economics and politics.
Food, energy and collapse: The missing realities in today’s climate discourse
A critique of contemporary food and energy analysis, this essay argues that many proposed solutions to food insecurity and fossil fuel dependence remain trapped within the assumptions of growth and technological complexity. Instead, it calls for a more honest reckoning with ecological limits, inequality and the possibility of a lower-energy, more localized future.
Transition Towns are key to degrowth, but current movements remain too reformist
The Transition Towns movement has helped popularize local resilience, but current movements stop short of the structural change required. In a world of overlapping crises, it calls for more radical forms of economic relocalization and material simplicity.
