Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
The answers to the global inflation crisis are blindingly obvious and have been frantically waving at us from over the road for years. We have it in our power to create systems of production and work that offer everybody a nice life while averting environmental apocalypse. What’s not to like?
As seafaring colonizers divvied up the world and justified their actions using the Doctrine of Discovery, the era of land-grabbing imperialism led to outrageous exploitation of Indigenous peoples and ecosystems.
The book Disaster Preparedness and Climate Change in Cuba: Adaptation and Management (2021) traced the highly successful source of the island nation’s efforts to the way it put human welfare above property.
The impacts of ‘dangerous exponentials’ – that even some in the finance world now seems to accept might be unsustainable – are an issue that the environment movement has failed to address.
The purpose of this article is to raise general awareness about cap-and-ration as an option. If there is to be any chance of its implementation, the plan will require the initial buy-in of environmental organizations, then the general public, and finally policy makers.
If we are honest, it’s not the term “degrowth” that people don’t like, it’s what it means: we must reduce our material footprint so that we are no longer living as though we have two, three, four or five planet earths.
For a better future, we ultimately need to put technology back into its place, and favor democratically determined, diverse forms of development that are shaped by human and ecological priorities—not by the gimmicky fetishes of a handful of billionaires.
Somehow, we need to build a consensus of willingness to face hard trade-offs even as our leaders delay or outright refuse to take responsible action.
What if, in trying to heal ourselves, we also begin to heal the planet? Because, in a wonderful turn of events, it turns out that what is good for us, is good for the planet too.
The end of growth and the ensuing long decline, which is already well underway in overdeveloped societies, will punch an enormous hole in the collective consciousness of the West.
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.
We have found that among climate scientists and politicians, advocacy for a direct fossil fuel phase-out with adaptation through resource allocation and rationing, is very rare indeed. That’s why we found the Oireachtas hearing so encouraging.
