Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Most importantly, we need to shift our personal and societal imaginaries of ‘the good life’ from that of ever-increasing consumption and material wealth to cherishing sufficiency, fulfilling basic needs, and respecting a vivid and vibrant web of life.
Degrowth is about redefining how things work in the current unsustainable system, focusing on the values of cooperation and sharing, as well as social and environmental justice.
This week’s Frankly adds a third perspective to the ‘growth critical’ conversation – that modern society has a metabolism and momentum and will grow – in non-green ways – until we can’t.
Even after two days of binge reading, I still have trouble believing that the last IPCC report “Mitigation of climate change” is real. The document is packed with powerful statements with radical implications and might represent nothing short of a watershed in the history of climate politics.
Returning to the Great Resignation mentioned at the opening of this piece, it is clear that deep discontent with work, production and our relationship to our own finite time have never been more relevant.
Lebanon’s recession shows outlines that could heal the metabolic rift between economy and ecology. It calls for new ways of living, manufacturing, growing food, transportation, and every other aspect of our existence. This is the prosperous way forward.
All paths forward come back to the fact that democracy is not a spectator sport. The worst – but unfortunately not all – of the climate crisis is avoidable, but doing so will require system change with urgency.
On December 8, President Joe Biden signed an executive order to spearhead his administration’s efforts to combat climate change. What does this order actually promise to accomplish? How does that compare with what other nations are doing? Is any of it enough to avert global calamity?
Traditional/original AT, based on communal social arrangements, hand-crafted from local, natural materials that cultures have used since centuries mostly for subsistence purposes, satisfies practically all of the principles of deep sustainability.
The only effective way to control carbon emissions, as well as related problems of pollution and biodiversity loss, is to address “overshoot,” the unconstrained use of energy and material resources well beyond planetary limits, particularly in the richer parts of the world.
The only real long-range solution to climate change centers on reining in human physical, social, and economic power dramatically, but in ways that preserve human dignity, autonomy, and solidarity.
‘Let’s always ask ourselves: Can I do without? Can I do less? Can I make it easier? And by the way, why do I have to do that? And couldn’t I do with what already exists?’
