Green growth vs degrowth: are we missing the point?
By Beth Stratford, Open Democracy
So, let us reach a truce and build a mass movement to take on the real enemies of environmental justice. The stakes are too high to do anything else.
Tag: green growth
Eco-productivism: Ecological transition is a political issue
By Louison Cahen-Fourot, Degrowth.de
No one would deny that it is possible to make capitalism greener, nor that it should be urgently done. Yet the proposal of eco-productivism remains short-sighted.
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.
Is the Green Deal a card shuffle trick?
By Gunnar Rundgren, Garden Earth
Neither empirical evidence not the application of green technologies or practices discussed in this article support that economic growth can be combined with reduced resource demands.
What If Preventing Collapse Isn’t Profitable?
By Richard Heinberg, Common Dreams
You see, the real downside of the green-profit narrative has been that it created the assumption in many people’s minds that the solution to climate change and other environmental dilemmas is technical, and that policy makers and industrialists will implement it for us, so that the way we live doesn’t need to change in any fundamental way.
The Bizarre Blindspot in “Planet of the Humans”
By Craig Collins, Resilience.org
So, was the film "Planet of the Humans" a hit job on the environmental movement disguised by the filmmakers' phony claim to care about Mother Earth? Or was it an honest, get real, exposé of its assertion that, "The takeover of the environmental movement by capitalism is now complete"?
Pulling Out the Tablecloth
By Dougald Hine, Bella Caledonia
The need for economic growth is a social construct, not a law of nature, but this construct is the tablecloth on which our current society has been arranged. The question we face, as the 2020s come around, is whether we can pull the tablecloth out fast enough without smashing all the plates and glasses?
False Hopes for a Green New Deal
By Rufus Jordana, Open Democracy
The Green New Deal pivots on a central lie of continued growth, promising this growth and employment whilst pretending it can magic away the environmental and humanitarian consequences. The result of this is that on all three counts – infinite growth, reliance on fossil fuels, and colonial resource extraction – the Green New Deal is unable to challenge the prevailing order.
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.
Here’s a Simple Solution to the Growth/De-Growth Debate
By Jason Hickel, Jason Hickel blog
So here’s what we can do. Let’s not waste time speculating. Let’s impose a legal limit on annual resource use and waste – something that de-growthers have been demanding for a long time – and tighten that limit year-on-year until we are back down to planetary boundaries.
Why Growth Can’t Be Green
By Jason Hickel, Jason Hickel blog
Ultimately, bringing our civilization back within planetary boundaries is going to require that we liberate ourselves from our dependence on economic growth—starting with rich nations. This might sound scarier than it really is.
An Ecosocialist Reply to a Defender of ‘Green Capitalism’
By Stan Cox, Green Social Thought
The common goal of both the private and public sectors is rapid, sustained GDP growth, so the only climate actions that companies or governments are willing to take are those that will not risk slowing wealth accumulation.