By Anne B. Ryan, Feasta
In the past, we did not need to make a big deal of enough; it was built into our lives in many ways. Our language recognised it in phrases like ‘enough is as good as a feast’, and ‘waste not, want not’. But in modern life the sense of enough is badly underdeveloped; in affluent societies we have largely forgotten the wisdom captured in the old sayings.
By Katharine Trebeck, Open Democracy
This frankness and the positioning of human need delivery in the context of a planet burning up before our eyes make this rich book required reading for anyone who wants to break out of siloed thinking, who wants to understand the enormity of the task at hand, and who wants to be reminded of what the purpose of the economy should ultimately be.
By Caroline Whyte, Feasta
To get back to Thunberg: while I would say it’s highly likely that some of her success comes from her connections, some of it may well be down to her own skills, and some may also be down to fortunate timing.
By Herman Daly, Local Futures
We believe that growth is the costless, win-win solution to all problems, or at least the necessary precondition for any solution. This is growthism.
By Peter A. Victor, Resilience.org
The opening chapters of this updated, revised, and expanded second edition Managing without Growth tell how the recent idea of economic growth emerged from the idea of progress, itself only a few hundred years old.
By Rob Macquarie, Positive Money blog
Nowhere in Escaping Growth Dependency is it assumed that ending fractional reserve banking is the only option for positive change. But the report does claim that monetary reform is often overlooked as a viable area of work for the ecological project.
By Richard Heinberg, Ensia
The end of growth will come one day, perhaps very soon, whether we’re ready or not. If we plan for and manage it, we could well wind up with greater well-being.
By Jason Hickel, Center for Economic and Policy Research
So yes, let’s dramatically increase clean stuff and reduce dirty stuff (in terms of their share of total economic activity), and let’s do this with massive public investment. Here we agree. But there’s no reason to nonetheless keep increasing aggregate economic activity forever.
By Christine Corlet Walker, The Conversation
At COP24 environmental movements have an opportunity to use their platform to highlight the relationship between economic growth and environmental impact, and even to discuss radical alternative futures that are not dependent on a growth-based economy.
By Brian Davey, Feasta
Although the effects of climate change seem to be near to apocalyptic over the long term, over the short term taking signficant action to cut emissions also appears to be a tremendous challenge.