There’s Only One Way to Avoid Climate Catastrophe: ‘De-growing’ our Economy

By Jason Hickel, P2P Foundation

Here’s the hard bit. It’s just not possible to achieve emissions reductions of 8-10 per cent per year by decarbonising the economy. In fact, there is a strong scientific consensus that emissions reductions of this rate are only feasible if we stop our mad pursuit of economic growth and do something totally unprecedented: begin to scale down our annual production and consumption. This is what ecologists call ‘planned de-growth’.

What Happened when Degrowth was Discussed in the Catalan Parliament?

By Antonio Turiel, Steady-State Manchester

The MP Sergi Saladié (a university professor when not in parliament) presented an “interpelation1” on degrowth to the vice-president and minister for the economy in Catalonia, Sr. Oriol Junqueras, currently president of The Republican Left of Catalonia (ERC: Esquerra Republicana de Catalunya). It is the first time that a motion of this type has been discussed in a national parliament in Spain, and this makes it an event of great importance.

Puerto Rico: A Potential Experiment in Degrowth?

By Erik Assadourian, Resilience.org

I’m sure that some will criticize the insensitivity of the timing of this essay. How can you talk about Puerto Rico, climate change, and degrowth at this tragic time? But what time is better than now? There are only going to be more disasters and more tragic times ahead. And if after each one we spend billions on rebuilding costly infrastructure, the resulting carbon emissions are going to contribute to disasters elsewhere in the future.

A Political Party Argues for Degrowth

By Mark Burton, Steady-State Manchester

If with possible independence or increased autonomy, Catalonia were to pursue degrowth, then the kind of regional policies we have been promoting would be relevant there too (and we have also learned from innovations there, not least from what the Barcelona in Common city government is attempting).

Three Paths

By Erik Lindberg, Resilence.org

Let us openly and loudly declare our commitment to our own eventual material poverty, and in this declaration find moral and spiritual wealth. Let us begin to proclaim the unthinkable and think it every day.

Book Release: History of the Future of Economic Growth

By Iris Borowy, Matthias Schmelzer, Degrowth.de

The future of economic growth is one of the decisive challenges of the twenty-first century. Though beginning at different times in different places, during the last two centuries, overall global economic growth has profoundly transformed life of humans and of the rest of nature.

Commoning: A Different Way of Living and Acting Together

By Johannes Euler, Leslie Gauditz, Degrowth.de

Commons are products and resources that are created, cared for and used in a shared way in a great variety of forms. The term has increasingly come into use again over the past decades – “again“ because commons as concept and praxis are ancient and exist worldwide.

Digitalization, Efficiency and the Rebound Effect

By Tilman Santarius, Degrowth.de

Debates about the so-called rebound effect go back to William Stanley Jevons’ work in the 19th century, although they had been forgotten for too long. Rebound effects occur if a reduction of inputs per unit of output (efficiency) generates an absolute increase in output (growth).

Carework as Commons: Towards a Feminist Degrowth Agenda

By Bengi Akbulut, Degrowth.de

The debates around post-growth transitions to just socio-ecological futures – while undoubtedly variegated – all emphasize that such a transition will involve a fundamental change in the way we organize economic relations and processes.

Degrowth In Movement(s) – A Dialogue Between Alternatives

By Christiane Kliemann, Degrowth.de

Finally it is done: all texts from the project “Degrowth in Movement(s)” to be published in English are now available online. Representatives from diff…

De-[Constructing] Growth: Decoupling Profits from Unsustainable Production*

By Nicholas A. Ashford, Degrowth.de

While not offering a critique of the degrowth discourse, I throw some light on the debate by offering a deeper and more useful conceptualization that avoids the negative connotations of, and resistance to, “degrowth”

Radical Ecological Democracy: Some More Reflections from the South on Degrowth

By Ashish Kothari, Degrowth.de

There is no doubt that as a species we have to downsize if we are to respect the limits; not only for ourselves but —just as importantly— for the millions of other species that co-inhabit the earth with us. It is timely, therefore, to talk of degrowth in the context of humanity as a whole, and most certainly in the context of the Global North which is overconsuming and overdumping.