Today, Wednesday 2nd August 2023, is Earth Overshoot Day. For the remainder of the year, we will be stealing from future generations

Erin

Ryan

<h2>Awe and wonder</h2>
Today, Wednesday 2nd August 2023, is <a href="https://www.overshootday.org/">Earth Overshoot Day</a>. That is, the day in which &ldquo;humanity&rsquo;s demand for ecological resources and services in a given year exceeds what Earth can regenerate in that year&rdquo;. For the remainder of the year, we will be stealing from future generations.
With this in mind, it is worth considering how might our response to our ecological crises, which extend far beyond climate change, be different if we were filled with awe and wonder for the Natural World? And if, by doing so, we respected the rights and sentience of the rest of the (more-than-human) Living World?
For starters, we might not displace Our Kin (often given the more clinical term of &lsquo;biodiversity&rsquo;) from their homes, even though they might sit on valuable minerals or metals simply because it&rsquo;s not our land to do with what we wish, but rather for us to share, nurture and protect. That basic decency dictates that acres upon acres of land that are home to 2,000-year-old trees should remain untouched simply because the trees themselves would rather live than be killed so that they can be turned into toilet paper, wood chips or any other dead commodity. We may not value whales at <a href="https://www.science.org/content/article/here-s-how-much-whale-worth-economists">US$2 million</a> because of the tourism they bring, the ecosystems they help maintain and the carbon they store, but instead recognise that their life is invaluable to them and therefore to us too. If the dominant culture held these values we wouldn&rsquo;t be in an ecological crisis in the first place. Dismayingly, we don&rsquo;t even grant these rights to all <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2023/02/01/1152893248/red-cobalt-congo-drc-mining-siddharth-kara">humans</a> yet, let alone more-than-humans, which shows you the extent of the work to be done.
If you are unsure why we would grant Nature such rights, consider that trees communicate. They do so via &ldquo;<a href="https://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/the-whispering-trees-180968084/#:~:text=Trees%20share%20water%20and%20nutrients,Scientists%20call%20these%20mycorrhizal%20networks.">pheromones and other scent signals</a>&rdquo; released into the air to warn of an impending threat, allowing at-risk trees to release chemicals to proactively defend themselves against the threat. Similarly, tiny fungal threads (mycelium) - which are much thinner than a human hair - form an underground &ldquo;<a href="https://www.nationalforests.org/blog/underground-mycorrhizal-network">mycorrhizal network</a>&rdquo; which connects individual trees together to share water, nitrogen, carbon and other minerals. It is through this <a href="https://www.nationalforests.org/blog/underground-mycorrhizal-network">process</a> that weaker trees receive the nutrients they need to thrive. Individual members of a forest are communicating all the time. It may not be in the ways in which we communicate, but they are communicating to enhance all of life, nonetheless. Consider how nut trees &lsquo;<a href="https://orionmagazine.org/article/pecan-trees-indigenous-land-rights/">mast fruit</a>&rsquo; (an irregular cycle of boom-or-bust fruiting), in a synchronized fashion:
&ldquo;<a href="https://orionmagazine.org/article/pecan-trees-indigenous-land-rights/">If one tree fruits</a>, they all fruit &mdash; there are no soloists. Not one tree in a grove, but the whole grove; not one grove in the forest, but every grove; all across the county and all across the state. The trees act not as individuals, but somehow as a collective&rdquo;.
There&rsquo;s so much we don&rsquo;t understand about the rest of the Living World yet. How can we show such little appreciation for all that it is capable of?
<h2>We are Nature</h2>
Our disconnection from Nature is immense. It is so immense that we don&rsquo;t even realize how immense it is. Most people can identify multiple times more corporate logos than trees in their local area. Many people could not forage for food in their nearest nature reserve, if they even have access to a nature reserve. Many have never even planted a seed in the ground. Despite the many proven benefits of being in &lsquo;Nature&rsquo;, we overwhelmingly spend more time indoors, or traveling between buildings, than we do outside each day. Even the very concept of &lsquo;Nature&rsquo; being a separate place to &lsquo;spend time in&rsquo; is symptomatic of our disconnection.
Rather than being separate from Nature, we are in fact indistinguishable from her. We have trillions of bacteria across hundreds of species performing essential services on our skin and in our guts. Several times a day we rely on calories converted from the sun&rsquo;s energy through the process of photosynthesis, and fresh water from the water cycle to survive. How might we value these life-giving processes differently if we had to grow our own food and collect our own water rather than visit a supermarket or turn on the tap? Supermarkets and water infrastructure are only possible due to industrialization and the burning of fossil fuels, and their very presence makes us even more disconnected from Nature. A self-perpetuating cycle if you will.
The actor, William Shatner, recently <a href="https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/william-shatner-space-boldly-go-excerpt-1235395113/">described</a> his trip into space on Jeff Bezos&rsquo; Blue Origin as having filled him with &ldquo;overwhelming sadness&rdquo;. He explained that:
<blockquote>
&ldquo;[E]very day, we are confronted with the knowledge of further destruction of Earth at our hands: the extinction of animal species, of flora and fauna . . . things that took five billion years to evolve, and suddenly we will never see them again because of the interference of mankind. It filled me with dread. My trip to space was supposed to be a celebration; instead, it felt like a funeral.&rdquo;
</blockquote>
We shouldn&rsquo;t need to leave Earth to understand that we must not only respect, but revere, the things that make life possible, on this, the only planet known to sustain life. Looking after our soil, Our Kin, keeping the air and water clean and the climate stable should be our highest priority, not the latest GDP or stock market figures.
<h2>We need to fall in love with Earth</h2>
The approach that we must move towards is not a &lsquo;solution&rsquo; in our current understanding of the word. It is not a new piece of technology or an offset or another way to continue business-as-usual. It is not prioritizing our way of life over that of Our Kin (for example, the fact that skyscrapers kill more birds than wind turbines is a case against skyscrapers, not a case for causing even more harm). It is a direction, a (re)learning of how to feel and communicate with Nature again. It is rooted in how we can (re)establish a connection &amp; right-relationship with Earth and all the sentient beings who inhabit her, human and more-than-human.
It is about (re)animating life back into life, instead of viewing the world as something mechanized; objects that are here for us to manipulate and extract for strictly our own (human) gain. It is to learn from and protect the languages and the lifeways of the people who have been here since time immemorial with systems in place that have maintained a regenerative way of living. It is falling back in love with the Planet and taking care of her. It is looking around and feeling the depth of the pain and destruction that we as a species have caused on this Planet, and for all that our children and their children will never see. It is grieving for what we have done and all that we are still disconnected from. And through this grieving, entering into gratitude again for the very thing that gives us life.
As Thich Nhat Hahn says:
<blockquote>
&ldquo;There&rsquo;s a revolution that needs to happen and it starts from inside each one of us. We need to wake up and fall in love with the Earth. Our personal and collective happiness and survival depends on it.&rdquo;
</blockquote>
Are you ready to embody the change you wish to see in the world? That change is not through thoughts and words, it is through a felt sense. It is through the heart. Only when you truly love someone will you be able to protect her with every bit of your being. And protecting our Earth - and the life that inhabits her - couldn&rsquo;t be any more urgent.
illuminem Voices is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of leading Sustainability &amp; Energy writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.

We need to fall back in love with Earth

Public corporations exist to generate returns for their shareholders. They are not going to voluntarily reduce their profit or size: every time they are faced with making a choice between profits and the climate, they will choose profit

<h2>Capitalism won&rsquo;t save us</h2>
The seemingly impossible happened last Friday. The outgoing Energy Editor at the Financial Times, Derek Brower, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/erin-remblance_degrowth-activity-7080608324680880128-X_Jd?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=member_desktop&amp;lipi=urn%3Ali%3Apage%3Ad_flagship3_feed%3BesvXozynTqezWpgQwteD1Q%3D%3D" target="_self">declared</a> that &ldquo;Capitalism won&rsquo;t deliver the energy transition fast enough &hellip; this isn&rsquo;t a task for your favourite ESG-focused portfolio manager or the tech bros&hellip;. Governments, not BlackRock, will have to lead this new Marshall Plan&hellip;. Massive deficit spending will be necessary, not a new ETF&rdquo;.
The honesty expressed in these words, from a flagship capitalist publication, was welcome precisely because so many of us - even in the climate movement - seem confused as to how we bring about the massive societal transformation we need. The clear-eyed view expressed by Brower encourages us to apply pressure in the right places: governments, not corporations.
There is an oft-used phrase that comes to mind whenever I see corporations put profit ahead of climate goals: &ldquo;the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result&rdquo;. An example of this was last month when the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/jun/14/shell-drops-target-to-cut-oil-production-as-ceo-guns-for-higher-profits">CEO of Shell</a> dropped the company&rsquo;s (already underwhelming) targets to reduce oil production every year for the remainder of the decade, in favour of aiming for higher profits. The very idea that the ability of the planet to sustain life rests on companies making and upholding environmental pledges is fraught, to begin with.
Public corporations are a legal structure that exists to generate returns for their shareholders. They are not going to voluntarily reduce their profit or size: every time they are faced with making a choice between profits and the climate, they will choose profit. If we want greenhouse gas emissions to reduce, we will need far greater <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMnt6Xv0Y-Y">democracy</a> at all levels of governance resulting in reduced power of corporations, or even <a href="https://www.currentaffairs.org/2021/11/what-would-it-look-like-if-we-treated-climate-change-as-an-actual-emergency">de-privatising</a> them, not simply hoping they will &lsquo;do the right thing&rsquo;. They won't, they literally can't.
<h2>Corporations can&rsquo;t be &lsquo;greened&rsquo;</h2>
This quote by Environmental Activist and Writer, <a href="https://maxwilbert.substack.com/">Max Wilbert</a> in <a href="https://greendreamer.com/podcast/bright-green-lies">this</a> Green Dreamer podcast eloquently describes the futileness of people deferring their power as citizens in favour of hoping corporations will revert from being the problem to being a part of the solution:
<blockquote>
"In the original days of the environmental movement, it was based on confrontation with the nuclear industry, with the pesticide industry, with these multinational corporations and governments that have just been laying waste to our planet. And over the years, you can see this increasing collaboration.
And you can understand the rationale. You can understand why people feel the need to do that &ndash; because they feel like they can get inside the system and somehow make it less destructive. I can understand that impulse, but it hasn't actually worked. Everything is getting worse. Every indicator of ecological health is headed in the wrong direction. And so, if there was ever a time to sort of draw a firm line of morality and say, we can't do this &ldquo;green&rdquo; consumerism thing, we can't try to &ldquo;green&rdquo; capitalism, we can't try to &ldquo;green&rdquo; this industrial society that's laying waste to life on this planet and destroying any chance of a liveable future for our children or grandchildren. We can't reason with a system that has shown itself incapable of making morally righteous decisions. And there are many reasons for this.
Maybe you've read or seen the movie, &ldquo;The Corporation&rdquo;. Joel Bakan did this classic sociological analysis of a corporation and said that, you know, they're treated as persons under the law. So, let's psychoanalyze them like they are people. And what he found was that they're sociopaths. If you actually look at typical corporate behaviour in the world today and you think of them as a person, they're sociopathic. They have no conscience. They make decisions that harm other people repeatedly. They have no sense of remorse for their actions. They lie repeatedly. And so on. These are the actions of a sociopath. And these are the institutions that are in charge of our culture, that are running the show.
And we all know as well that the individuals within these corporations are largely replaceable. So even if you get a CEO who has an epiphany and says, I don't want to be a part of destroying the planet anymore, they're going to get fired and the board of directors is going to put somebody in their place who will run the machine, who will keep the death machine moving forward. So, these are really challenging realizations. It's not easy, but I think we need to grapple with these things. We need to get through that reality in order to actually come to grips with these problems and start moving towards real solutions. So many people get hung up on these earlier stages and don't really have the courage or the analysis to challenge these things.&hellip; This is all madness. Our society is driving life itself off a cliff.&rdquo;
</blockquote>
It's helpful here to remember that 68% of executives in the US admitted that their company was guilty of <a href="https://www.fastcompany.com/90740501/68-of-u-s-execs-admit-their-companies-are-guilty-of-greenwashing">greenwashing</a> (58% of executives globally) and that <a href="https://grist.org/business-technology/none-of-the-worlds-top-industries-would-be-profitable-if-they-paid-for-the-natural-capital-they-use/">none</a> of the world&rsquo;s top industries would be profitable if they paid for the natural capital they use. It is for this very reason that these industries invest a lot of resources in ensuring regulations are not enacted that would mean that they must pay for the true cost of their activities - it would literally threaten their survival. Additionally, industry groups have lobbied on behalf of corporations for decades, centuries even, to embed high-carbon infrastructure into society (see <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mMnt6Xv0Y-Y">here</a>, <a href="https://scribepublications.com.au/books-authors/books/crimes-against-nature-9781922310705">here</a> and <a href="https://www.bloomsbury.com/au/silent-coup-9781350269989/">here</a>). They now benefit prodigiously from the status quo that they mercilessly created and they will do everything in their power to maintain their advantage.
<h2>&ldquo;We. Must. Urgently. Dismantle. Capitalism.&rdquo;</h2>
These are the five words that Degrowth Academic and author of <a href="https://www.seuil.com/ouvrage/ralentir-ou-perir-timothee-parrique/9782021508093">Ralentir ou P&eacute;rir</a> (Slow Down or Perish), <a href="https://timotheeparrique.com/">Timothee Parrique</a>, used to begin his <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8neC-wtMbDY">keynote speech</a> at the <a href="https://www.changenow.world/join_changenow_2023/">Change Now</a> conference held in Paris in May of this year.
We must urgently dismantle <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/erin-remblance_degrowth-rebiz-activity-7037674581834289153-gA0F?utm_source=share&amp;utm_medium=member_desktop">capitalism</a> because, if we accept - which many are starting to - that &lsquo;green growth&rsquo; isn&rsquo;t possible (see <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332500379_Is_Green_Growth_Possible">here</a>, <a href="https://gaiageld.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/decoupling_debunked_evidence_and_argumen.pdf">here</a> and <a href="https://illuminem.com/illuminemvoices/green-growth-is-a-form-of-climate-denial">here</a>), and that <a href="https://degrowth.org/definition-2/">degrowth</a> is needed to avoid <a href="https://www.anu.edu.au/news/all-news/tipping-points-push-earth-towards-hothouse-climate">catastrophic warming</a>, then we must also accept that we cannot degrow our economies while maintaining capitalism as our dominant economic system. The old paradigm of &lsquo;doing less harm&rsquo; while essentially leaving everything the same no longer applies. It&rsquo;s untenable to reduce the size of the economy and permanently remove growth altogether &ndash; which for years has been used as an excuse to avoid addressing inequality directly &ndash; without removing the structures that created inequality in the first place. As Ecological Economist, Dan O&rsquo;Neill <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sT6jBcWPqU">stated</a> at the <a href="https://www.beyond-growth-2023.eu/">EU Beyond Growth</a> conference held in Brussels in May 2023: &ldquo;If growth is a substitute for equality, then greater equality is also a substitute for growth and a much better choice for the environment and for society.&rdquo;
Furthermore, we are currently living as if we have <a href="https://www.overshootday.org/">1.7 planet Earths</a>. Reducing environmental harm so that we are back within the <a href="https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries.html">limits of the planet</a> &ndash; acknowledging that many people in the Global South are not currently meeting their needs and will need greater access to materials and energy - will require democratic decision-making to determine which activities cease, and which ones remain. Businesses aren&rsquo;t going to voluntarily close their operations en masse because they have an unsustainable business model. Social pressure will be required to bring in regulations against harmful activities and to offer alternative employment to the people who currently work in these industries.
To achieve this transition, the first step is to decouple well-being from economic growth via:
<ul>
<li>Providing <a href="https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog/2023/3/18/universal-public-services">universal basic services</a> (education, healthcare, public transport, housing, food and quotas of energy, water and internet);</li>
<li>A reduction in the working week to 3-4 days so that the remaining jobs can be shared;</li>
<li>A federally funded <a href="https://sustainable-prosperity.net.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/08/The-Case-for-a-Job-Guarantee-Report-August-2022.pdf">Job Guarantee</a> so that anyone who wants to work can do so;</li>
<li>A minimum basic income for those who are unable or unwilling to work.</li>
</ul>
Once these are in place then we can democratically begin to reduce the industries that are causing environmental harm, such as coal, gas, oil, aviation, SUVs, single-use plastics, armaments, over-sized new house builds, etc while ramping up socially and ecologically necessary production: for example, solar, wind, ecosystem restoration, home insulation, electrifying buildings and improved public and active transport networks. If we understand that green growth is not a possibility, we must be honest with ourselves about what it will take. And it will not and cannot be achieved by the private sector.
<h2>What can we do instead? </h2>
What can we do that would be more effective than trying to get organisations of a certain legal structure to &mdash; against all the available evidence and in stark contrast to their entire reason for being &mdash;&nbsp; find a moral conscience?
First, we will need to move beyond the notion that we are merely consumers (i.e. focused on how we do/don&rsquo;t spend our money) or merely &lsquo;human resources&rsquo; (i.e. focused on how we do/don&rsquo;t earn our money) and find our power as <a href="https://www.jonalexander.net/">citizens</a>. By this, I mean acknowledging that we are all a part of the current system, but that doesn&rsquo;t prevent us from trying to change it, and using our energies to influence, organise, help change the narrative and shift the <a href="https://illuminem.com/illuminemvoices/how-does-degrowth-apply-to-our-minds">dominant culture</a>. We will need to create space for political candidates to campaign on a platform that actually centres people and the planet and not just capital accumulation.
This could be any of a number of things including <a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/what-the-rest-of-the-world-knows/2020/11/03/how-social-change-happens">chatting with our mates</a> about the systemic changes we need, forging ties with <a href="https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1653743870453116930?s=46&amp;t=eoi37_UjXlyk1Cf-Oei1yQ">labour unions</a>, organising general strikes, partaking in civil disobedience and direct action, using our voices in person and on traditional and social media, holding town hall events, building local <a href="https://cooperationjackson.org/">economic democracy</a>, running for parliament, supporting someone who has science-aligned policies to run for parliament, creating community gardens and sharing libraries and other initiatives that shift the culture towards sufficiency rather than consumption, working towards <a href="https://newint.org/features/2021/08/09/money-ultimate-decolonizer-fjf">full decolonisation</a>, and so many more.
Second, the proposed solutions to our ecological crises must match the scale of the problems we face, with our eyes always on the desired outcome. The time for incrementalism and &ldquo;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ycgOV72Sris">pissing around at the margins of the problem</a>&rdquo; are long gone. We need to do what we can to precipitate a &lsquo;<a href="https://www.rifs-potsdam.de/en/news/social-tipping-points-spotlight#:~:text=Social%20tipping%20points%20are%20moments%20in%20dynamic%20systems%20where%20a,and%20laws%20come%20into%20play.">social tipping point</a>&rsquo; whereby the status quo flips and systemic change is inevitable.
Environmental Journalist, <a href="https://www.monbiot.com/">George Monbiot</a> talks about this theory of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/14/cop26-last-hope-survival-climate-civil-disobedience#:~:text=1%20year%20old-,After%20the%20failure%20of%20Cop26%2C%20there%27s%20only,last%20hope%20for%20our%20survival&amp;text=Now%20it%27s%20a%20straight,too%20late%20for%20incremental%20change.">change</a>:
<blockquote>
&ldquo;There&rsquo;s an aspect of human nature that is simultaneously terrible and hopeful: most people side with the status quo, whatever it may be. A critical threshold is reached when a certain proportion of the population change their views. Other people sense that the wind has changed, and tack around to catch it. There are plenty of tipping points in recent history: the remarkably swift reduction in smoking; the rapid shift, in nations such as the UK and Ireland, away from homophobia; the #MeToo movement, which, in a matter of weeks, greatly reduced the social tolerance of sexual abuse and everyday sexism.
But where does the tipping point lie? Researchers whose work was published <a style="font-family: Inter, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', serif;" href="https://www.science.org/doi/abs/10.1126/science.aas8827">in Science in 2018</a> discovered that a critical threshold was passed when the size of a committed minority reached roughly 25% of the population. At this point, social conventions suddenly flip. Between 72% and 100% of the people in the experiments swung round, destroying apparently stable social norms. As the paper notes, a large body of work suggests that &ldquo;the power of small groups comes not from their authority or wealth, but from their commitment to the cause&rdquo;.&rdquo;
</blockquote>
And how does George suggest we reach these social tipping points? He explains <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/sep/26/economic-growth-fossil-fuels-habit-oil-industry">here</a>:
<blockquote>
&ldquo;So what do we do? We talk. As the <a href="https://thinkprogress.org/the-most-important-thing-you-can-do-to-fight-global-warming-b0cbe1fdf775/">climate writer Joe Romm argued</a> in ThinkProgress this year, a crucial factor in the remarkable shift in attitudes towards LGBT people was the determination of activists to break the silence. They overcame social embarrassment to broach issues that other people found uncomfortable. We need, Romm argues, to do the same for climate breakdown. A <a href="http://climatecommunication.yale.edu/publications/climate-change-american-mind-march-2018/">recent survey suggests</a> that 65% of Americans rarely or never discuss it with friends or family, while only one in five hear people they know mention the subject at least once a month. Like the media, we subconsciously invest great psychological effort into not discussing an issue that threatens almost every aspect of our lives.
Let&rsquo;s be embarrassing. Let&rsquo;s break the silence, however uncomfortable it makes us and others feel. Let&rsquo;s talk about the great unmentionables: not just climate breakdown, but also growth and consumerism. Let&rsquo;s create the political space in which well-intentioned parties can act. Let us talk a better world into being.&rdquo;
</blockquote>
None of the above requires us to demand, hope, plead, wish, or pray that big polluting companies will suddenly find a conscience and do &lsquo;the right thing&rsquo;. Quite the opposite, it empowers us to demand systemic change in whatever way we can until the &ldquo;<a href="https://mfidev.uchicago.edu/about/tribute/mfquotes.shtml">politically impossible becomes the politically inevitable</a>&rdquo;.
We&rsquo;ve tried &lsquo;greening&rsquo; corporations for long enough, it&rsquo;s time to try a different approach. One that might actually work.
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illuminem Voices is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of leading Sustainability &amp; Energy writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.
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Corporations can't be greened

Tackling the most popular arguments in favour of green growth and against degrowth

Lately, I've been reading some of the same old arguments against degrowth. These anti-degrowth arguments all tend to be similar in their lack of understanding of what the term means, their clutching at growth for reasons that can be debunked, and their irrational and science-denying attachment to business as usual dressed up as 'green growth'.
At this stage, it's probably wise to define the term degrowth, which isn't as hard to do as people tend to make out. My research into the topic leads me to define degrowth in two ways:
<ol>
<li>Degrowth is a planned and democratic reduction in energy and material throughput in&nbsp;<a href="https://goodlife.leeds.ac.uk/national-snapshots/countries/">over-consuming</a>&nbsp;nations to move back within the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries.html">planetary boundaries</a>&nbsp;while improving societal wellbeing and global equity.</li>
<li>The 'de' in degrowth can also mean 'away from' and degrowth can be seen as a "decolonisation of the imaginary and implementation of other possible worlds" (Serge Latouche,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&amp;rls=en&amp;q=pluriverse&amp;ie=UTF-8&amp;oe=UTF-8">Pluriverse</a>). Degrowth is about moving away from growth being the be-all and end-all for the decisions we make, and moving to other, better ways of being which are more aligned with the wellbeing of people and the planet.</li>
</ol>
In this piece, I want to dispel some of the more common arguments both in favour of green growth, as well as against degrowth.
<h2>GDP is a terrible metric, so why &lsquo;green&rsquo; it?</h2>
It's widely agreed that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth is a terrible metric for measuring the well-being of a nation. Robert F Kennedy summed it up well in 1968 in <a href="https://www.jfklibrary.org/learn/about-jfk/the-kennedy-family/robert-f-kennedy/robert-f-kennedy-speeches/remarks-at-the-university-of-kansas-march-18-1968">this</a>&nbsp;speech including the key insight that GDP &ldquo;measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile". Simon Kuznets, who is credited with developing the GDP metric, warned that "[t]he welfare of a nation can scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income as defined by the GDP".
So, if GDP growth is a terrible metric, why are people trying to keep it, but make it 'green'? It doesn't make sense until you realise that - as Jason Hickel says in his book,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.jasonhickel.org/less-is-more">Less is More</a>, &ldquo;GDP growth is, ultimately, an indicator of the welfare of capitalism. That we have all come to see it as a proxy for the welfare of humans represents and extraordinary ideological coup.&rdquo; The people who are in favour of green growth typically have vested interests in the status quo and do not want it to change.
<h2 class="reader-text-block__paragraph">Growth can&rsquo;t be greened</h2>
People who want us to believe that growth can be greened tend to use the same old tired&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/MaxCRoser/status/1660962428589416448?s=20">charts</a> which show growth and emissions going in different directions (or even the more obscure GDP/capita and CO2 emissions/capita). In these charts greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are the only form of pollution that is being considered (even though there are 5 other planetary boundaries we are transgressing, including biodiversity loss), there is no consideration of pace (is the decoupling fast enough to keep warming at 1.5 degrees?), no scaling up to see what is happening at a global level (after all, that&rsquo;s all the atmosphere cares about), past performance is assumed to be a good indicator of future performance (decoupling gets harder and harder as time goes on) and no acknowledgment that everything is easier to achieve without growth - or even better, a reduction - and boy would it be helpful to make the task easier rather than harder right now. As&nbsp;<a href="https://www.linkedin.com/feed/update/urn:li:share:7071038696136847360">Timoth&eacute;e Parrique</a>&nbsp;says in&nbsp;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rojLAkVhWas">this</a> brilliant speech, the task is to decouple well-being from environmental harm, not GDP from emissions.&nbsp;
<h2 class="reader-text-block__paragraph">Growth hasn&rsquo;t lifted the majority of the world out of poverty (nor can it)</h2>
The notion that economic growth is responsible for lifting most of the world's population out of poverty and therefore we&nbsp;need growth, is not supported in the data. Eighty-five percent of the world's population currently live on less than US$5/day, a figure which accounts for purchasing price parity, ie. what US$5 will buy someone in the US. It's a cruelly low bar, especially when you consider that over-consuming nations have a poverty line around the US$30 mark: what we consider poverty for people in the Global South is far more extreme than what we consider poverty for people in the Global North. For more issues with the notion that we need economic growth to solve poverty, this quote from Jason Hickel's book,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.jasonhickel.org/the-divide">The Divide</a>, is illuminating:
<blockquote>
"Right now, the main strategy for eliminating poverty is to increase global GDP growth. The idea that the yields of growth will gradually trickle down to improve the lives of the world&rsquo;s poorest people. But all the data we have shows quite clearly that GDP growth doesn&rsquo;t really benefit the poor. While global GDP per capita has grown by 45 per cent since 1990, the number of people living on less than $5 a day has increased by more than 370 million. Why does growth not help reduce poverty? Because the yields of growth are very unevenly distributed. The poorest 60 per cent of humanity receive only 5 per cent of all new income generated by global growth. The other 95 per cent of the new income goes to the richest 40 per cent of people. And that&rsquo;s under best-case-scenario conditions. Given this distribution ratio, Woodward [author of a study into growth and poverty] calculates that it will take more than 100 years to eradicate absolute poverty at $1.25 a day. At the more accurate level of $5 a day, eradicating poverty will take 207 years. This is the best we can expect from the business-as-usual trajectory of the development industry. And keep in mind that Woodward&rsquo;s methodology is not able to capture the poorest 1 per cent of the world&rsquo;s population, who will still remain in poverty even at the end of this period. That&rsquo;s 90 million people who will remain in poverty for ever&hellip;.
</blockquote>
<blockquote>
As if the epochal timelines here aren&rsquo;t disappointing enough, it gets worse. To eradicate poverty at $5 a day, global GDP would have to increase to 175 times its present size. In other words, we need to extract, produce and consume 175 times more commodities than we presently do. It is worth pausing for a second to think about what this means. Even if such outlandish growth were possible, the consequences would be disastrous. We would quickly chew through our planet&rsquo;s ecosystems, destroying the forests, the soils and, most importantly, the climate. As Woodward puts it: &lsquo;There is simply no way this can be achieved without triggering truly catastrophic climate change &ndash; which, apart from anything else, would obliterate any potential gains from poverty reduction.&rsquo; It&rsquo;s a farcical proposition &ndash; a cruel joke played at the expense of the poor. And, as it to add insult to injury, achieving this level of growth would mean driving global per capita income up to $1.3 million. In other words, the average income would have to be $1.3 million per year simply so that the poorest two-thirds of humanity could earn $5 per day. This gives us a sense of just how deeply inequality is baked into our economic system."&nbsp;
</blockquote>
<h2 class="reader-text-block__paragraph">&ldquo;The pace of renewable energy roll-out means that we don&rsquo;t need degrowth&rdquo;</h2>
The fact that there is progress in deploying renewable energy in various parts of the world is seen as a reason to maintain business as usual, a sort of dismissive "look, some stuff is being done, no need to get too radical". But this approach is removed from the science. We need to be moving much quicker. The quicker we get to zero emissions:
<ol>
<li class="reader-text-block__paragraph">the less we need to rely on speculative technologies and technologies that do not yet exist at the scale required, which are (highly irresponsible if you ask me), in the majority of the IPCC pathways to net-zero.</li>
<li class="reader-text-block__paragraph">the lower we keep warming. Current policies put us at <a style="font-family: Inter, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', serif;" href="https://climateactiontracker.org/global/temperatures/#:~:text=Current%20policies%20presently%20in%20place,C%20above%20pre%2Dindustrial%20levels.">2.7 degrees</a>&nbsp;of warming this century. Surely no one thinks that's an acceptable level of warming. Just because we're doing&nbsp;something, doesn't mean we are doing&nbsp;enough,&nbsp;nor does it mean it&rsquo;s happening&nbsp;fast&nbsp;enough. Furthermore, the reality is that the&nbsp;<a style="font-family: Inter, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, 'Segoe UI', Roboto, Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, 'Apple Color Emoji', 'Segoe UI Emoji', 'Segoe UI Symbol', serif;" href="https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement">target</a>&nbsp;of &ldquo;holding the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2&deg;C above pre-industrial levels&rdquo; is a political target. A target based on the science would likely have been much closer to zero increase in warming vs pre-industrial levels.</li>
</ol>
<h2 class="reader-text-block__paragraph">We need growth to free up capital for decarbonisation</h2>
It's generally claimed that we need growth to free up capital for investment in new technology and the deployment of existing technologies. This is the mainstream assumption around how money is deployed, but it is entirely removed from the reality of how money is created. Currency-issuing nations can never run out of money: anything they can afford, they can do. They do not need to rely on the largesse of corporations or wealthy citizens, nor do they require growth to be able to invest, they can simply &hellip; invest.&nbsp;
<h2 class="reader-text-block__paragraph">Degrowth plays into the hands of climate deniers</h2>
The idea that degrowth plays into the hands of climate deniers is a convenient deflection, but I could also argue that "green growth" is the new form of climate denial. But now, instead of denying the science, people are denying the mitigation required to align with the science-based targets. The outcomes are exactly the same: business as usual continues and the world keeps warming all while we waste the most precious non-renewable resource we have: time.
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This article is also published on the <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/green-growth-form-climate-denial-erin-remblance%3FtrackingId=pmCaBpkjRuahlRA6feqHOQ%253D%253D/?trackingId=pmCaBpkjRuahlRA6feqHOQ%3D%3D" target="_blank" rel="noopener">author's blog</a>. illuminem Voices is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of leading Sustainability &amp; Energy writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.
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Green growth is a form of climate denial

The concept of degrowth is powerful because it is clear that we need systemic change to avoid ecological collapse: business as usual with a “green tinge” isn’t going to be enough. It is also true that individual change drives cultural change which can be the key to unlocking political change leading to fundamental change.

As an Australian, it troubles me that if the whole world lived like us, we would need <a href="https://www.overshootday.org/how-many-earths-or-countries-do-we-need/">4.5 planet Earths</a>. Thanks to <a href="https://goodlife.leeds.ac.uk/national-snapshots/countries/">over-consuming</a> nations like mine, worldwide we are living as if we have 1.75 planet Earths, a figure that has increased from 1 (that is, living within our means) since <a href="https://www.overshootday.org/newsroom/past-earth-overshoot-days/">1970</a>. What this boils down to is that those of us in the global north are taking from both countries in the global south and future generations to fuel our lifestyles today. The ‘<a href="https://www.overshootday.org/">Earth Overshoot</a>’ research is supported by the work of the late Earth System Scientist, Professor Will Steffen, who brought to our attention <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Acceleration">The Great Acceleration</a>, whereby “<a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/01/150115142223.htm">[a]fter</a> 1950 we can see that major Earth System changes became directly linked to changes largely related to the global economic system.” Steffen is referring to our growth-based economies, and while three percent economic growth each year might sound small, it means that within 24 years we will be consuming twice as many resources as today, and within 100 years 19 times as many. As economist Kenneth Boulding said: “[a]nyone who believes that exponential growth can go on forever in a finite world is either a madman or an economist.”
For this reason, I am a big proponent of degrowth in over-consuming nations in order to fit back within <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/08/weve-crossed-the-land-use-change-planetary-boundary-but-solutions-await/">planetary boundaries</a>. For anyone not familiar with the term, degrowth is a planned, democratic reduction in material and energy use in high-income nations while improving the well-being of people in those nations. It is more than this though. While very often the focus of degrowth is on how life can be better in a smaller economy, <a href="https://radicalecologicaldemocracy.org/pluriverse/">Federico Demaria and Serge Latouche</a> argue that “[t]he point of degrowth is to escape from a society that is absorbed by the fetishism of growth…. It implies decolonization of the imaginary and the implementation of other possible worlds”. In this respect, the former definition of degrowth applies only to over-consuming nations, while the latter definition applies to all nations, and to all people. It is this second definition of degrowth to which this essay relates.
The concept of degrowth is powerful because it is clear that we need systemic change to avoid ecological collapse: business as usual with a “<a href="https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2023/1/29/greening-ourselves-to-extinction">green tinge</a>” isn’t going to be enough. It is also true that individual change drives cultural change which can be the key to unlocking political change leading to fundamental change. On this point, I find it fascinating to consider how “<a href="https://www.boell.de/en/2013/12/09/mental-infrastructures-how-growth-entered-world-and-our-souls">growth has entered our minds and souls</a>”, and how an awareness of these “<a href="https://www.boell.de/en/2013/12/09/mental-infrastructures-how-growth-entered-world-and-our-souls">mental infrastructures of growth</a>” might free us from growthism and help unlock the cultural changes that will bring about the necessary systemic changes.
With this in mind, here are a couple of points to consider in relation to how growth may be enshrined in the psychological structure of our collective minds, largely based on the work of <a href="https://www.boell.de/en/2013/12/09/mental-infrastructures-how-growth-entered-world-and-our-souls">Harald Welzer</a>:
<ul><li>Our dreams for the future are centred around it being better than today, in the sense of ‘more’ (e.g., a bigger house, a larger salary, more travel).</li></ul>
<ul><li>We see ourselves as something to continually develop and optimise, our lives are seen as a process of creating biographies or filling curriculum vitae.</li></ul>
<ul><li>While we used to see paid labour as drudgery and something we did until we had met our needs, now we view it as noble, esteemed even, to be sought out and with no end. Sadly, this cultural 180° turnaround becomes a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/feb/01/top-five-regrets-of-the-dying">regret</a> of many as they are dying.</li></ul>
<ul><li>Similarly, society views ‘hard-work’ as virtuous and thus ‘hard-work’ entitles those who undertake it to whatever their heart desires without limit or consideration of the harm caused, their purchases being the fruits of their labour.</li></ul>
<ul><li>We typically live by the rhythms of the industrial workday via a standardised worldwide time regime, unaware that there is a natural rhythm of time (for example, consider that in 2023 there will be 13 moons but only 12 calendar months or that, on the whole, our pace of work is unchanged by the seasons).</li></ul>
<ul><li>It is a collective belief that we should be able to own parcels of land, excluding others from that land. An example of this is that home (and correspondingly land) ownership in Australia is described as the ‘<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Dream">Great Australian Dream</a>’, a term derived from the ‘<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Dream">American Dream</a>’ of the same nature.</li></ul>
In various ways, these - and probably many more aspects of our modern day lives - relate back to the surpluses created by industrialisation (enabling the future to have more than today, a concept that is “<a href="https://www.boell.de/en/2013/12/09/mental-infrastructures-how-growth-entered-world-and-our-souls">historically quite recent</a>”), the enclosure of the commons (the very foundation of growth-dependent <a href="https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1515977488110915587?s=20&amp;t=3LN6SUR8RU-dzuPslmcCEQ">capitalism</a>) and the subsequent imperative to work to have our needs met (rather than simply being able to directly meet our needs). Our ability to recognise and unpick these ‘mental infrastructures’ - that is, the worldview that influences all of our actions - will be key to throwing off the shackles of growth and unlocking a culture of sufficiency, whereby we recognise when we have ‘enough’ in a material sense and from then on meet our “<a href="https://donellameadows.org/archives/what-does-sustainability-mean/">nonmaterial needs nonmaterially</a>”, increasing our sense of wellbeing and contentment.
The work of Antonio Gramsci on cultural hegemony is relevant in unlocking a culture of sufficiency. <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@michael_mezz/video/7124736291253669162">Michael Mezz</a> describes Gramsci’s theory on how the ruling class maintains power via a cultural form of dominance:
<blockquote>“…the ruling class creates an ideology in which its own values become common sense for the rest of society and Gramsci argued that the role of the state is to maintain institutions such as media and the education system that educate the masses on the cultural ideology of the ruling class. The goal of that education being that the working class develop a sense of freedom and a good life that serves the purposes of the people in power. In other words, the working class starts to value things like innovation and productivity and economic growth that doesn’t actually serve them.”</blockquote>
Gramsci tells us that the way to <a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@michael_mezz/video/7130287436558585130">overcome</a> cultural hegemony is by creating a new culture that is not based on the values of the ruling class. A counter-culture, if you like.
So, what are the counter-hegemonic narratives that we can begin to embrace? What would a mind and soul not infiltrated by growth look like? There is much to learn from indigenous cultures on this topic. As Jeff Sparrow highlights in his book, <a href="https://scribepublications.com.au/books-authors/books/crimes-against-nature-9781922310705">Crimes Against Nature</a>, First Nation Australians found paid labour to be antithetical to their egalitarian lifestyles:
<blockquote>“Today, we take the wages system for granted. It appears normal, almost eternal, since we can barely conceive of an alternative. It did not seem normal to pre-colonial people. In Australia, as elsewhere in the world, they found capitalist practices utterly horrifying…. Indigenous people, accustomed to an egalitarian ethos and to work carried out for the collective good, saw the authority exerted by employers as tyranny. As late as 1888, a churchman complained of the difficulty he had in persuading Indigenous people that one man was innately better than another, that a certain individual, by virtue of his possessions, mandated obedience from his fellows…. Indigenous people did not despise wage labour primarily because of the effort that it entailed. Rather, they thought the work demanded by capitalists stripped life of its humanity.”</blockquote>
Furthermore, First Nations people lived with the rhythms of nature, not the industrial workday, and there was no private land ownership, they had the wisdom to know that “… you are undone if you once forget that the fruits of the earth belong to us all, and the earth itself to nobody” (Jean-Jacques Rousseau).
There are many examples of counter-hegemonic narratives arising more recently too. The following list is skewed more towards examples from the global North because the global North represents the vast majority of the over-consumption and is therefore where cultural change is most needed. Such examples include:
<ul><li>Those people, like the <a href="https://www.futuresteading.com.au/">Futuresteaders</a> and others who practice <a href="http://simplicitycollective.com/start-here/what-is-voluntary-simplicity-2">voluntary simplicity</a> and <a href="https://www.slowfood.com/reinventing-a-society-of-frugal-abundance/">frugal abundance</a>, who appreciate the simple things in life, and find happiness in what they have rather than what they want. Seeking only ‘enough’ and not ‘more’ represents an affront to the dominant culture of dreams of the future being materially greater than today. This point is relevant only to those whose needs are already met. Of course, those who are living in conditions of deprivation should have access to ‘more’, until they too have ‘enough’.</li></ul>
<ul><li>People who choose to spend their time doing work that is traditionally undervalued and lacking in both career trajectory and pay increases, but is socially valuable, forgoing future surpluses (<a href="https://www.resilience.org/stories/2016-12-14/degrowth-is-punk-as-f-ck/">think</a> of the stay-at-home parents, childcare workers, teachers, nurses, carers, small farmers, those who work part-time voluntarily, and those who volunteer their time to worthy but under-funded causes).</li></ul>
<ul><li>The move towards <a href="https://www.theminimalists.com/">minimalism</a> which seeks to value time and non-material items over ‘the grind’ and the accumulation of things as a reward for hard work. The <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiny-house_movement">Tiny House Movement</a> shows us that it is possible to enjoy living with less, including the freedom of a smaller mortgage.</li></ul>
<ul><li>The <a href="https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/international/world-news/lying-flat-is-justice-chinese-millennials-are-chilling-and-beijing-isnt-happy-about-it/articleshow/84164663.cms">tang ping</a> (lying flat) movement in China and <a href="https://time.com/6208115/quiet-quitting-companies-response/">quiet quitting</a> in the U.S.A. are taking back our right to be humans, not simply workers who devote more time than they would like to paid labour.</li></ul>
<ul><li>Anyone advocating for <a href="https://sustainable-prosperity.net.au/job-guarantee/">job guarantees</a>, enabling anyone who wants to work to do so. Job guarantees seek to remove the artificial scarcity of employment we see today, where the threat of joblessness looms ever large and we constantly need to better ourselves so that we can compete for work. Those who advocate for a <a href="https://basicincomeaustralia.com/">Universal Basic Income</a> – an unconditional liveable wage for all – are fighting to remove the need for waged employment at all.</li></ul>
<ul><li>People organising for the community rather than the individual are prioritising others over their own interests, giving up the opportunity to build their own CVs in favour of the greater good, and there are some wonderful examples of such union building <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2023/jan/06/ministers-losing-the-argument-over-rail-strikes-says-mick-lynch">here</a>, <a href="https://www.npr.org/2022/04/02/1090353185/amazon-union-chris-smalls-organizer-staten-island">here</a> and <a href="https://inthesetimes.com/article/providence-cafe-coop-union-labor-workers-rhode-island">here</a>.</li></ul>
<ul><li>The move towards a <a href="https://www.4dayweek.com/">4-day work week</a> challenges the dominant narrative that more time at work is better.</li></ul>
<ul><li>The <a href="https://thenapministry.com/">Nap Ministry</a> and the related manifesto <a href="https://thenapministry.com/">Rest Is Resistance</a> empowers us to value rest over productivity.</li></ul>
<ul><li>The many activists calling out the harm caused by the carbon-intensive lifestyles revered by the dominant culture, such as Greta Thunberg (who beautifully articulated in her book, <a href="https://www.penguin.com.au/books/the-climate-book-9780241547472">The Climate Book</a>, that “we all have a responsibility to find quick ways of making that [extremely high-emitting] lifestyle socially unacceptable”), activists who <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/05/climate-activists-storm-amsterdam-airport-and-block-private-jets">block private jets</a>, people promoting going <a href="https://flightfree.co.uk/">flight free</a>, and those seeking to <a href="https://twitter.com/fietsprofessor?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">reduce the dominance</a> of cars on our streets. For these people, simply having the means to live a materially intensive lifestyle - regardless of the hard work involved in acquiring those means - isn’t enough to justify the harm it causes.</li></ul>
<ul><li>The locals of the Greek Island Ikaria, who do things in their own time, not that of the industrial workday. <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X22001474">This</a> fascinating paper describes “people arriving to appointments in ‘Ikarian time’, that is, a ‘few hours late’ or shopkeepers telling bewildered tourists that ‘the shop will open when it is time to open’”.</li></ul>
<ul><li><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Housing_cooperative">Co-operative housing</a>, <a href="https://grounded.org.au/">community land trusts</a> and Vienna’s enviable form of <a href="https://www.politico.eu/article/vienna-social-housing-architecture-austria-stigma/">social housing</a> show us that there are other ways of providing a community’s housing and land needs that don’t rely on private ownership.</li></ul>
There are, of course, many other wonderful counter-culture examples beyond this short list - this is merely scratching the surface - but the point is that we need to advance these, and those of the same theme, until they become the leading narrative.
Unpicking the dominant, growth-based worldview will mean closely analysing the stories we have been told (and who those stories might serve), and bravely and <a href="https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&amp;rls=en&amp;sxsrf=AJOqlzVUi82sG0XvyGry_JX3Dh1ExhmcfQ:1675641482843&amp;q=courageously&amp;spell=1&amp;sa=X&amp;ved=2ahUKEwiog-z6yv_8AhUyEbcAHQc4AA8QkeECKAB6BAgHEAE">courageously</a> assessing whether all of this growth really does bring us ‘<a href="https://illuminem.com/illuminemvoices/9ad07369-50a3-49ce-af5f-029ad9df965a">the good life</a>’. We will likely find that we can achieve ‘a good life’ (that is, harmony with ourselves, our community, and the physical world) by living simpler but more meaningful lives. Perhaps we will even come to realise the very wise words of English writer, Alan Watts: “the meaning of life is just to be alive. It is so plain and so obvious and so simple. And yet, everybody rushes around in a great panic as if it were necessary to achieve something beyond themselves”. The way that growth manifests in our minds, our thoughts, our dreams, and our souls is important to consider because if we can create a culture of sufficiency, we will have found the key to systemic change and avoiding ecological catastrophe. I’m sure we can all agree that this is a worthy task indeed.

A shorter version of this piece was originally published in the <a href="https://thehopefulrealist.com/author/thehopefulrealist/">Hopeful Realist</a> newsletter. illuminem Voices is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of leading Sustainability &amp; Energy writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.
<h6>Photo by <a href="https://www.pexels.com/photo/group-of-people-holding-arms-461049/">Pixabay</a>​ on <a href="https://www.pexels.com/">Pexels</a>​ </h6>

How does degrowth apply to our minds?

Today’s dominant culture considers endless economic growth as a necessary component of “the good life”, but is this really the case? For economic growth to be providing “the good life”, one must be on the receiving end of the perceived benefits of that economic growth in the first place. Unfortunately, between 1995 and 2021, global economic growth was staggeringly unequally distributed, with the wealthiest 1% capturing 38% of total wealth growth while the bottom 50% captured only 2.3% of overall wealth growth.

Jennifer Harvey

Degrowth: the path to a better life

World leaders have in the past reacted to global emergencies such as the World War II and the COVID 19 pandemic with all urgency and seriousness. With the response to these emergency situations in mind, and at the conclusion of COP27, it is particularly disheartening to see that leaders still aren’t taking climate change – the greatest threat humanity has ever faced - seriously.

<h1>We’re getting lip-service</h1>
When the USA mobilised for World War II everything changed. American industry essentially stopped what it had been doing and instead turned their efforts to building tanks, planes and armaments. Private car manufacture <a href="https://teachinghistory.org/history-content/ask-a-historian/24088">ceased</a> for 3 years. Millions of students, retirees, housewives and unemployed entered the active labour force. Essential goods were rationed and sacrificing certain items became the <a href="https://www.nps.gov/subjects/worldwarii/mobilization.htm">norm</a>. CEOs who refused to assist with the wartime effort were forcibly <a href="https://www.lawfareblog.com/remembering-montgomery-ward-seizure-fdr-and-war-production-powers">removed</a> by order of the government.
Similarly, during the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic governments around the world implemented policies previously considered impossible: closing schools, restricting movement, implementing lockdowns, mandating work-from-home for those who were able to and ordering the closure of non-essential businesses where people were likely to gather and increase the risk of transmission of the virus. In unprecedented times the unprecedented becomes not just possible, but necessary.
With the response to these emergency situations in mind, and at the conclusion of COP27, it is particularly disheartening to see that leaders still aren’t taking climate change – the greatest threat humanity has ever faced - seriously. This has been the case for decades and will continue to be the case until leaders make commitments - and implement them - to reduce fossil fuel use effective immediately, with <a href="https://www.currentaffairs.org/2021/11/what-would-it-look-like-if-we-treated-climate-change-as-an-actual-emergency">binding annual targets</a> and “in a <a href="https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1589917172239073281?s=12&amp;t=Bh0a4xTZtxIohFJdily1ZA">fair</a>, just and scientifically informed way” until we reach zero emissions, roughly by the middle of next decade.
The facade of action comprised of goals set in the future - for someone else to deal with - based on technology that either <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/10/18/the-hope-at-the-heart-of-the-apocalyptic-climate-change-report/">isn’t feasible</a> at scale, or <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/16/half-of-emissions-cuts-will-come-from-future-tech-says-john-kerry">doesn’t yet exist</a>, is pure lip-service. But the figures don’t lie: greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions are now <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev-environ-012220-011104">60% higher</a> than they were when the Rio Earth Summit was held in 1992. As UN General Secretary <a href="https://twitter.com/antonioguterres/status/1589574435719483392?s=20&amp;t=HDq0tBZXD9eR8aY41m2qWg">António Guterres</a> has said “[w]e are on a highway to climate hell with our foot on the accelerator.”
How different could our predicament look if we dared to ask “how close to zero can we keep warming and how fast can we get there?” instead of prioritising <a href="https://www.openmindmag.org/articles/bad-math-is-steering-us-toward-climate-catastrophe">flawed mathematical models</a> that favour inaction and uphold the status quo. How much brighter would the future be if we, like we have done for other events, treated climate change as a genuine emergency, and did all we could to avoid catastrophic warming?
<h1>Why aren’t we doing what’s needed?</h1>
Reducing fossil fuel use in a meaningful way is unthinkable in our current economic system. Over the last two decades the only time there has been a significant global reduction in GHG emissions was 2009, during the global financial crisis, and 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic (see chart 1), two events that are associated with recession and hardship. Under this economic system we can have ‘prosperity’ (real or perceived, associated with economic growth) or we can have reduced emissions, but we can’t have both.
<img src="https://illuminem.b-cdn.net/articlebody/d549baa5130626bc8f54f9ecd0bcd3cf8c051e1e.png" alt="Figure 1: Globally, CO2 emissions continue to rise year on year, with very few exceptions, 2009 and 2020 being the only years in the last two decades that emissions have fallen, both associated with economic downturn.">
The relentless growth in emissions means that all of the renewable energy deployed to date has not displaced fossil fuel use (see chart 2), it has simply added to our energy mix, and consequently has not led to a year-on-year reduction in GHGs. The focus on renewable energy deployment is misplaced. We need to focus on winding down fossil fuel use.
<img src="https://illuminem.b-cdn.net/articlebody/f7b2ddd3df2a6d89481a1fd3d2f6a75399241ce3.png" alt="Figure 2: global primary energy use continues to grow, hindering our ability to roll-out renewable energy in order to achieve the science-based targets for 1.5C, or even 2C, of warming.">
What can we learn from those two years in which global emissions dropped? Globally, ‘green-growth’ has never, not for one year, happened even in the <a href="https://environment-analyst.com/global/107463/expert-opinion-avoiding-carbon-tunnel-vision">narrow</a> sense of the term which relates specifically to GHG emissions, our other ecological crises ignored. Reduction in economic activity - that is production and consumption - is necessary if we are to see global reductions in GHG emissions, particularly of the magnitude needed to keep warming “well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels” as per the <a href="https://unfccc.int/sites/default/files/english_paris_agreement.pdf">Paris Agreement</a>. Scientists believe that 2°C of warming will activate tipping points in the Earth’s System that will lead to ‘<a href="https://johnmenadue.com/will-steffen-a-fundamental-re-think-of-the-climate-change-challenge/">Hothouse Earth</a>’: 2°C is not just a politically ‘nice’ target, it could well be the difference between a habitable planet and an uninhabitable one.
Reducing energy use as much as possible (<a href="https://phys.org/news/2021-06-decent-standards-global-energy.html">ideally by 50% by 2050</a>) will have the added benefit of making a renewable roll-out much more feasible. Conversely, continuing to grow the economy (and hence energy use) while trying to decarbonise the energy grid is, to quote economic anthropologist, <a href="https://amp-cnn-com.cdn.ampproject.org/c/s/amp.cnn.com/cnn/2022/11/13/economy/degrowth-climate-cop27/index.html">Jason Hickel</a>, “like running down an escalator that’s accelerating against you”.
Because we have spent the last several decades growing our emissions rather than reducing them, we are now in a position where we do not have the luxury of time. Thirty years ago it would have been enough to stop new fossil fuel projects, but it isn’t enough anymore. We urgently need to bend the emissions curve and the trajectory needs to be steep. We need to stop fossil fuel use.
<img src="https://illuminem.b-cdn.net/articlebody/4511d5d8acc8c90f03b1d4b7bbc35a6d059e097e.png" alt="Figure 3: the emissions reductions needed to keep warming below 1.5C are much steeper now than if we had started the process decades ago.">
<h1>What can we do differently?</h1>
With this in mind, the question then becomes ‘how can we reduce economic activity in nations that are exceeding their <a href="https://goodlife.leeds.ac.uk/national-snapshots/countries/">fair share</a> of the planetary boundaries, including climate change, while ensuring we meet the needs of all? How do we <a href="https://www.jasonhickel.org/less-is-more">design a system</a> so that we do not have to trade off ‘prosperity’ for emissions reductions? First of all, we need to nationalise the energy industries, so that the reduced energy that is available under the binding annual target goes where it will most contribute to human wellbeing and not where it is most profitable. Then we need to scale down the industries causing the most harm to nature but providing the least benefit to humanity: excess consumer goods, advertising, single use plastics, red meat, paper goods and food oils driving deforestation, over-sized new housing builds, aviation (especially private jets), SUVs, speculative finance, armaments etc.
We need to reduce the working week to 4 days to share the remaining jobs around, and provide a federal jobs guarantee to ensure work is available for everyone, with a minimum basic income for those unable or unwilling to work. We need to provide universal services to all: high quality healthcare, public transport, and education, beautiful and abundant parks, libraries and other shared facilities, and quotas of water, electricity and internet. We need to end planned obsolescence, move from ownership to sharing, adjust the way we provide finance, address income and wealth inequality and provide a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Debt_jubilee">debt jubilee</a>. Fundamentally we need a cultural shift to admiring “sufficiency” and living within the means of the planet, rather than idolising excess wealth and planet harming behaviours.
<h1>A clear choice but social will is needed</h1>
We’ve known for decades that GDP isn’t a useful measure of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy%27s_remarks_at_the_University_of_Kansas">wellbeing</a> (indeed GDP and wellbeing have been <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genuine_progress_indicator">decoupled</a> in wealthy nations for decades), we’ve known for just as long that there are <a href="https://www.clubofrome.org/publication/the-limits-to-growth/">limits to growth</a>, and that if we continue to ignore those limits we risk the collapse of civilisation as we know it. There is empirical <a href="https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1528326668644933632?s=20&amp;t=abts4On-iDzPB-EFjePJZQ">evidence</a> that demonstrates that GDP/capita <a href="https://www.jasonhickel.org/blog">isn’t linked</a> to social outcomes, rather the level of universal services provided. Given this, why do we persist with this destructive and harmful economic system? In a nutshell, because it enables the <a href="https://wir2022.wid.world/">rich to get richer</a>, and through the process of <a href="https://www.thoughtco.com/cultural-hegemony-3026121">cultural hegemony</a> we’ve been led to believe growth is in our best interests too. For the vast majority of us, this is <a href="https://wir2022.wid.world/">not the case</a>.
Given all that is at stake, there is an obvious path to take here. How do we morally justify being able to reach zero emissions significantly earlier because energy use has been halved, but not taking it?
There might be a morally obvious path here, but for now we lack the social will to get there. The <a href="https://twitter.com/georgemonbiot/status/1590281768090816512?s=12&amp;amp;t=-ux2IPvRmx5lNnwW2MODPA">answer</a> lies in growing the number of people who care in ever increasing concentric circles – as opposed to watering down our not-negotiable needs (by virtue of the laws of nature being fixed) in a misplaced desire to appeal to those who are furthest away from us ideologically. Engaging people in this way will enable us to reach a ‘<a href="https://www.yesmagazine.org/issue/what-the-rest-of-the-world-knows/2020/11/03/how-social-change-happens">social tipping point</a>’ where action becomes inevitable. Whatever you do, you have a role to play in activating this social tipping point so that we are finally taking climate change seriously. What will you do to raise awareness of the urgent changes we need and how we can bring them about?
Illuminem Voices is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of leading Sustainability &amp; Energy writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.

We are still not taking climate change seriously

Excerpts from Bright Green Lies: How the Environmental Movement Lost Its Way and What We Can Do About It by Derrick Jensen, Lierre Keith and Max Wilbert.

Let’s stop trying to save industrial civilisation

"I agree with the concept of degrowth, but isn’t there a better term for it?"
We get this question a lot from people who fear that the term “degrowth” sounds too negative in a world where economic growth is almost universally considered positive. They worry the perception that degrowth must be negative will stop many people from embracing the term, the concept, and, subsequently, degrowth-aligned behaviors and policies.


<h2>In search of alternatives</h2>
I agree with the concept of degrowth, but isn&rsquo;t there a better term for it?
We get this question a lot from people who fear that the term &ldquo;degrowth&rdquo; sounds too negative in a world where economic growth is almost universally considered positive. They worry the perception that degrowth must be negative will stop many people from embracing the term, the concept, and, subsequently, degrowth-aligned behaviors and policies.
In considering the question, it&rsquo;s important to not resort to reductionism (all good versus all bad). Degrowth is defined by downscaling and increasing, just in different ways than the currently dominant economic growth framework. While our current system requires perpetual upscaling of production and consumption, it comes at immense cost both to the <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/books/3989-the-future-is-degrowth">environment</a> and to billions of <a href="https://www.jasonhickel.org/the-divide">people</a> around the world &ndash; their labour exploited and, in the case of the global south, their natural resources appropriated in a continuous flow of <a href="https://www.jasonhickel.org/the-divide">wealth transfer</a> to the global north. In contrast, degrowth aims to downscale production and consumption in wealthy nations and increase human and ecological well-being and global equity. The focus on what grows and on who that growth benefits is the essential difference between the two frameworks.
Well then, why not rebrand degrowth according to its positives?
Many people have already done work in that direction, with alternative conceptual terms such as &lsquo;well-being economy&rsquo; or &lsquo;regenerative economy&rsquo;. While it&rsquo;s true these terms draw attention to the positive aspects of leaving a growth-dependent economic model, they also shy away from naming the hard choices that need to be made in order to get those positives (i.e. degrowth). Though the choices we need to make will not always be easy, and won&rsquo;t be welcomed by everyone, we cannot take our focus off the task at hand: those of us in wealthy nations are living as if we have <a href="https://www.overshootday.org/newsroom/country-overshoot-days/">2, 3, 4 or 5</a> planet Earths, and we need to rein it in. We must degrow our material footprint, energy included, until we are back within the planetary boundaries -- of which we are already <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/04/freshwater-planetary-boundary-considerably-transgressed-new-research/">transgressing</a> 6 of 9, including climate change and biodiversity loss. Just as a&nbsp;doctor shouldn't attempt to dilute or obscure the diagnosis they deliver to a patient -- they should be clear and forthcoming with the facts of the matter -- we too must be explicit with our&nbsp;message: wealthy nations need to use less of the Earth&rsquo;s resources in order to survive, and we can only&nbsp;do that by abandoning economic growth.
But growth is a good thing, right? After all, everything in nature grows.
Yes, everything in nature grows, however nothing in nature grows forever (except for cancer, and even that stops growing when it kills its host). Yet, this is where we find ourselves with our current growth-based economy. There is no end in sight: just exponential growth forever. At no point in a growth-dependent economic model are we planning, or even allowed, to say, &ldquo;okay, we&rsquo;ve reached the optimal size now, let&rsquo;s embrace a steady-state economy&rdquo;. If that were the case, we would have left growth-based economics behind nearly five decades ago, when we were still within the planetary boundaries.
Our natural resources are a key input into economic growth, as demonstrated by the chart below, which shows that Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and material footprint are tightly coupled. The more our economy grows, the more of our natural environment it devours. This compounding GDP growth ultimately means exponential growth and therefore the rate at which we are harming the planet is <a href="https://twitter.com/jasonhickel/status/1231525551816482816?s=20&amp;t=2m5tZ-4ipQ_oVHpql67I9Q">accelerating</a>. Furthermore, the natural world is a crucial source of carbon drawdown and of course, biodiversity: to solve our ecological crises we need to be <a href="https://www.brightgreenlies.com/">expanding</a> the footprint of our natural environment, not reducing it. Continuing to grow the economies of wealthy nations is in direct contrast to this aim.
<img style="display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;" src="https://illuminem.b-cdn.net/articlebody/d2c9b178581455d256f8616be957bd6f1ea43588.png" alt="Figure 1: As GDP grows so does material footprint. Chart shows change in global material footprint compared to change in global GDP (constant 2010 USD), 1990-2013" />
<h6><a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332500379_Is_Green_Growth_Possible">Image:</a> As GDP grows so does material footprint. Chart shows change in global material footprint compared to change in global GDP (constant 2010 USD), 1990-2013.</h6>
What about green growth? Surely that enables us to grow our economy forever?
No, unfortunately not. All the <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332500379_Is_Green_Growth_Possible">evidence</a> indicates that green growth is not possible, and certainly not within the small window we have left to reduce emissions if we are to avoid catastrophic warming.
<h2>Both-and versus either-or</h2>
The fact that the term &lsquo;degrowth&rsquo; isn&rsquo;t immediately embraced by some people doesn&rsquo;t mean it&rsquo;s not effective. We are asking people to abandon a long-held belief, and it will take some getting used to. The word &lsquo;degrowth&rsquo; is disruptive to the point of being confrontational and isn&rsquo;t easily absorbed into the status quo, reflecting the urgent and unequivocal transformational change and paradigm shift that we need. Degrowth is anti-racist, anti-colonial and anti-imperialist, challenging the global north&rsquo;s implicit assumption that it can continue its materialist and consumerist ways infinitely, to the detriment of a huge swath of humanity in the global south. There is an integrity in being upfront about what is required if we are to avoid the worst impacts of climate change -- to all of humanity -- acknowledging that many people are suffering now, and &lsquo;<a href="https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/net-zero-coalition">net-zero 2050</a>&rsquo; is <a href="https://www.rosalux.de/en/news/id/46631/its-a-very-western-vision-of-the-world#:~:text=It%E2%80%99s%20a%20very%20Western%20vision%20of%20the%20world,like%20that.%20This%20is%20the%20world%20we%20inherited.">too far away</a> for them. The term &lsquo;degrowth&rsquo; is honest, not trying to sugar coat the severity of the situation with fairy tales of <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/may/16/half-of-emissions-cuts-will-come-from-future-tech-says-john-kerry">technology</a> and <a href="https://www.unep.org/explore-topics/green-economy">green growth</a>, or solutions that aren&rsquo;t <a href="https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/10/18/the-hope-at-the-heart-of-the-apocalyptic-climate-change-report/">workable</a>, or not likely to be <a href="https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/resources/what-is-carbon-capture-and-storage/">viable</a>. Because of that honesty, &lsquo;degrowth&rsquo; gets noticed.
Psychologically, it points to our need to be open to the challenges that lie ahead, and to be ready to take serious and resilient action in the face of huge personal and societal revolution. Drastic change is coming in our lives, and many of us are grieving as we come to acknowledge our own &lsquo;sunk&rsquo; investment in our careers, lifestyles or dreams for the future that simply won&rsquo;t materialise -- not because of degrowth, but because we have failed to act on the science of climate change for decades. Degrowth helps us contextualize why this came about and helps us to face the facts with the urgency and commitment required: active degrowth in the present or passive <a href="https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-06-08/collapse-of-civilisation-is-the-most-likely-outcome-top-climate-scientists/">collapse</a> in the near future.
Some people even welcome the word with relief. In Japan, philosopher and economic historian Professor Kohei Saito wrote a book about democratic "degrowth communism&rdquo; and despite expectations that the work would be ignored or shunned (due to having degrowth in the title), it has been a runaway bestseller, with already half a million copies sold and bookshops unable to keep up with demand. An <a href="https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/marx-in-the-anthropocene/D58765916F0CB624FCCBB61F50879376">English version</a> of the book, titled Marx in the Anthropocene: Towards the Idea of Degrowth Communism, is available in November 2022. Those purchasing books like Saito&rsquo;s, especially young people, are hungry for post-capitalist ideas.
Linked to this, and very practically speaking, the degrowth movement has a long <a href="https://degrowth.info/about/history-of-degrowth#:~:text=What%20we%20today%20call%20the%20degrowth%20movement%20started,It%20was%20reprinted%20twice%2C%205%2C000%20magazines%20were%20sold">history</a> of academic and social research and contribution to draw from. It was first called degrowth in 1972 (&ldquo;d&eacute;croissance&rdquo;), the same year <a href="https://www.clubofrome.org/publication/the-limits-to-growth/">Limits to Growth</a> was published, and the modern iteration of the degrowth movement has been around for the last 20 years. Conferences on the topic have been taking place around the world for 14 years, and many books and academic papers have been published with degrowth in the title. You can get a <a href="https://master.degrowth.org/online-masters/">master&rsquo;s degree</a> in degrowth, degrowth is named in the latest IPCC AR6 WGII report <a href="https://timotheeparrique.com/degrowth-in-the-ipcc-ar6-wgii/">15 times</a>, and it is listed as a pathway to a sustainable future in the latest <a href="https://zenodo.org/record/6832427#.YtKu4kxuIRM">IPBES</a> Values Assessment report. If we want political leaders to embrace this framework and to use it in policymaking, we need to use the term adopted in the existing research, literature and policy proposals.
Thus, it&rsquo;s a &lsquo;both-and&rsquo; situation rather than an &lsquo;either-or&rsquo; scenario: degrowth as a term both challenges our preconditioned assumptions and offers practical and inspirational reframing for the future.
<h2>Solving the right variable</h2>
Seeking to change the name of the degrowth movement would be trying to solve the wrong variable, at a moment when we have no time to waste in superficial rebranding efforts. As we said above, the problem that needs solving is that most people currently believe economic growth to be both good and necessary (and just needs to be &lsquo;greener&rsquo;, despite all the evidence that &ldquo;green growth&rdquo; is an <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332500379_Is_Green_Growth_Possible">impossibility</a>). We doubt there's any one term which would both appeal to this bias and drastically challenge and transform it in the timeframe needed.
Solving the right variable would see our collective efforts invested in ensuring that the notion that &ldquo;eternal growth is good&rdquo; is dispelled as quickly and as thoroughly as possible. We need people in wealthy nations to understand how harmful further economic growth is: that by continuing to grow GDP, limiting global warming below 2&ordm;C will be an impossibility. Such a temperature rise could activate tipping points in the Earth&rsquo;s system that would generate additional warming regardless of what action we take at that point. This would lead to a new, and perilous, climate state that climate scientist Professor Will Steffen describes as &lsquo;<a href="https://johnmenadue.com/will-steffen-a-fundamental-re-think-of-the-climate-change-challenge/">Hothouse Earth</a>&rsquo;: an Earth that is virtually uninhabitable for humans.
Therefore, we don&rsquo;t need to change the name &lsquo;degrowth&rsquo;. What we need is for more of us in wealthy nations to intuitively associate the term &lsquo;economic growth&rsquo; with &lsquo;collapse&rsquo;.
<h2>Let&rsquo;s focus on the real issues</h2>
It can&rsquo;t be emphasised enough that infinite growth on a finite planet is causing ecological overshoot. Just one consequence of that overshoot -- climate change -- could make much of the planet uninhabitable, likely in the next generation&rsquo;s, if not our own, lifetimes. Those of us in wealthy nations can live happy, healthy lives without economic growth, and indeed with far less material throughput, but continuing with business as usual will lead to <a href="https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-06-08/collapse-of-civilisation-is-the-most-likely-outcome-top-climate-scientists/">collapse</a>.
If we can&rsquo;t convince people in wealthy nations to heed these well-established realities, then we have much bigger problems than simply the name of the movement that is our best chance of avoiding catastrophe.
illuminem Voices is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of leading Energy &amp; Sustainability writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.

Degrowth: no, let’s not call it something else

After nine long years of an increasingly far-right, climate change denying Liberal National Party coalition (LNP) government, the citizens of Australia voted for change. There were many reasons for change, beyond a lack of action on climate change, including countless rorts, sexism, corruption, lack of leadership, poor planning during the pandemic, a lack of accountability and transparency and a long list of other scandals, and Australians were rightly fed-up.

How change happens: lessons from Australia’s bombshell election

It is impossible to overstate how much we need everyone’s voice right now. This is the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced and it is happening in our lifetimes. Collectively, how we spend our time on this magnificent planet is of monumental consequence. I promise you: you’ll never regret doing all you can to help stop climate change, but there may well come a time that you wish you’d done more.

<h2>Introduction</h2>
A climate <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-00874-1?error=cookies_not_supported&amp;code=4d576ae5-da26-41b9-ae72-d307823292cd#:~:text=Net-zero%20commitments%20could%20limit%20warming%20to%20below%202,but%20only%20if%20backed%20up%20by%20short-term%20policies.">study</a> was published in the online journal Nature earlier this month, which was reported in the <a href="https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/global-warming-limit-of-2-degrees-still-possible-if-paris-agreement-pledges-are-met-say-researchers-20220412-p5acwl.html">mainstream</a> press with positive headlines such as &ldquo;2 degrees still possible&rdquo;. The study states that the combined revised targets - not policies - of all the signatories to the Paris Agreement means that we have a 50% chance of keeping warming below 2&deg;C versus pre-industrial times. I&rsquo;m not a betting person, but given what is at stake, those sound like terrible odds. Furthermore, as I&lsquo;ll outline below, the evidence suggests that we will activate a &lsquo;global tipping point&rsquo; before we reach 2&deg;C of warming, a point of no return in which the natural world will contribute to warming in such a way that it will no longer matter what we do, the Earth will be 3&deg;C warmer than pre-industrial times before the end of this century, and <a href="https://theconversation.com/our-climate-projections-for-2500-show-an-earth-that-is-alien-to-humans-167744">several degrees</a> warmer again after that. Scientists state that this is an <a href="https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-06-08/collapse-of-civilisation-is-the-most-likely-outcome-top-climate-scientists/">existential</a> risk to humanity. These new and improved targets, which are not yet supported by policies, are still too little and still too late.
<h2>Highlights</h2>
In this <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mn3WQGS9wOI">talk</a> for Scientist Rebellion Australia, climate scientist, Professor Will Steffen highlights the individual tipping points that are likely to be triggered before the year 2050, including:
<ul>
<li>The Arctic: Steffen advises that there is &ldquo;no time left&rdquo;, we have <a href="https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/583115-climate-tipping-points-the-arctic-is-a-bellwether-for-irreversible/">lost the frozen Arctic</a>.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>West Antarctic sea ice: we could lose this &ldquo;within ten years&rdquo;, and if so, sea levels will eventually rise three metres because of it.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Amazon rainforest: the current projection is that we have &ldquo;five to ten years&rdquo; before the rainforest tips into a new state, that of a savannah.</li>
</ul>
<ul>
<li>Greenland ice sheet: we could lose this in &ldquo;20 to 25 years&rdquo;, and if so, sea levels will eventually rise seven metres because of it.</li>
</ul>
If these ecological points tip, Professor Steffen believes a global cascade &ldquo;is very likely&rdquo;, leading to what he terms a &ldquo;<a href="https://johnmenadue.com/will-steffen-a-fundamental-re-think-of-the-climate-change-challenge/">hothouse Earth</a>&rdquo;: an Earth that is virtually uninhabitable for humans.
<h2>The IPCC report</h2>
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change&rsquo;s (IPCC&rsquo;s) 2021 <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_Headline_Statements.pdf">Sixth Assessment Report</a> is consistent with Steffen&rsquo;s analysis, stating that catastrophic events &ndash; collapse of major ice sheets, rapid temperature increases &ndash; &ldquo;cannot be ruled out and are part of risk assessment&rdquo;. In the talk above, Steffen reminds us that &ldquo;the current rates of CO2 and temperature change are almost unprecedented in the entire 4.5-billion-year geological past&rdquo;, that 3&deg;C of warming is &ldquo;catastrophic&rdquo; and it will mean that we &ldquo;are likely to see the collapse of the globalised society that we live in today&rdquo;. Finally, he makes it clear that &ldquo;as the science improves, tipping elements appear to be vulnerable at lower temperatures&rdquo;: the more we learn, the closer the threat appears to be. He is clear that we are in a climate emergency and have been for some time.
<img src="https://illuminem.b-cdn.net/articlebody/3328aa291a8decf01222162fe4fc49994242ebbe.jpg" alt="Figure 1: Global temperature change over the last 2000 years, showing range of IPCC projections to year 2100. Professor Will Steffen describes this as &ldquo;extraordinary&rdquo; and says it will probably surpass the temperature changes that were a result of the meteor striking Earth, causing the dinosaurs to go extinct around 65 million years ago.
" />
The word &lsquo;<a href="https://www.lexico.com/en/definition/emergency">emergency</a>&rsquo; is defined as &ldquo;a serious, unexpected, and often dangerous situation requiring immediate action&rdquo;. Sadly, the world&rsquo;s response to the climate emergency is akin to setting a date in the future to put out a house fire or calling for an ambulance to the scene of a car accident and telling them to arrive by the end of the month. Wholly inadequate and incompatible with avoiding the worst outcomes. Limits such as 1.5 or 2&deg;C and &lsquo;net-zero by 2050&rsquo; are not equal to the scale of the threat: there is a very real risk a global tipping cascade could be triggered before both 2&deg;C of warming and the year 2050. As environmental journalist George Monbiot <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/09/earths-tipping-points-closer-current-climate-plans-wont-work-global-heating">states</a>: &ldquo;[if] Earth systems tip as a result of global heating, there will be little difference between taking inadequate action and taking no action at all&rdquo;. Don&rsquo;t be mistaken, this is not a call to do nothing at all, but a call to implement policies that are actually going to prevent warming, not make us feel good about &lsquo;trying&rsquo; all the while not doing nearly enough.
<h2>The way forward</h2>
We need to decarbonise with urgency, which will require <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/oct/20/us-war-footing-1941-climate-emergency-earth-pearl-harbor">war-like mobilisation</a> starting now and completed as quickly as possible - quite the opposite to the &lsquo;carbon budgets&rsquo; and &lsquo;targets set in the future for someone else to achieve&rsquo; that we are currently being placated with. We have already squandered three decades to not only inaction, but actively making the situation worse by increasing our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, which are now <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-environ-012220-011104">60% higher</a> than they were in 1990. Gone is our chance to decarbonise slowly. We have only one option now: to rapidly reduce our GHG emissions whilst ensuring that the needs of all are met in the process.
In many ways it is a race against tipping points. Can we reach a global <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/nov/14/cop26-last-hope-survival-climate-civil-disobedience">social tipping point</a> and the subsequent meaningful action that such a movement would unleash in time to avoid activating a global ecological tipping point? Can we get enough people to actively care before it&rsquo;s too late? We will know when we have triggered the social tipping point because we will begin to see genuine climate action, as outlined in <a href="https://www.currentaffairs.org/2021/11/what-would-it-look-like-if-we-treated-climate-change-as-an-actual-emergency/?s=09">this</a> article by economic anthropologist, Professor Jason Hickel. Genuine climate action in wealthy nations starts by nationalising the energy industry - removing the profit motive that has derailed climate action for many decades - and ensuring energy goes where it is needed most as we wind down fossil fuels until they are virtually eliminated by the mid-2030s. Until governments do this they are simply continuing to give us lip service, as they have done for the last three decades.
The social tipping point is a challenge, I can attest to that. Getting people to care about the world we leave to our children &ndash; indeed the world we, ourselves, will experience in just a couple of decades - is much harder than it should be. Many people <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/02/27/why-facts-dont-change-our-minds">don&rsquo;t change their minds</a> based on very clear and very well-established facts. There are all sorts of reasons why people prefer to pretend that climate change is not real, or that we are doing enough, or it is for someone else to worry about while they go on with their everyday business. Furthermore, gaining momentum for a social movement is difficult because of decades long <a href="https://whistleblower.org/general/climate-science-watch/exxonmobil-and-climate-change-a-story-of-denial-delay-and-delusion-told-in-forms-10-k-1993-2000/">corporate campaigns</a> to seed denial, <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/23/big-oil-coined-carbon-footprints-to-blame-us-for-their-greed-keep-them-on-the-hook">deflect</a> attention and delay action. In many countries climate change has been politicised due to corporate lobbying, rendering it a taboo topic, when what we really need to be doing is speaking about it as much as we can, to whoever we can. When we talk about climate change we may not always change hearts and minds, but we may plant seeds that will be watered as the momentum grows.
It is much later, and much more urgent than you think. We are in a climate emergency and the time for incrementalism has long passed. According to the <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/2022/02/28/pr-wgii-ar6/">IPCC</a>:
<blockquote>
The scientific evidence is unequivocal: climate change is a threat to human wellbeing and the health of the planet. Any further delay in concerted global action will miss a brief and rapidly closing window to secure a liveable future.
</blockquote>
It is impossible to overstate how much we need everyone&rsquo;s voice right now. This is the greatest challenge humanity has ever faced and it is happening in our lifetimes. Collectively, how we spend our time on this magnificent planet is of monumental consequence. I promise you: you&rsquo;ll never regret doing all you can to help stop climate change, but there may well come a time that you wish you&rsquo;d done more.
illuminem Voices is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of leading Energy &amp; Sustainability writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.

Climate action: the time for incrementalism is over

There is a mistaken belief that degrowing a wealthy economy means that people will suffer. There is, implicit in this stance, a notion that our growth-based economy is necessary to ensure we are meeting everyone’s needs. That changing this system is not desirable, or even possible: infinite growth on our finite our planet is our only option. It shows just how significantly our collective minds have been ‘capitalised', and how our current economic framework restricts our thinking. 

I often hear <a href="https://degrowth.info/degrowth#:~:text=Degrowth%20is%20an%20idea%20that,human%20exploitation%20and%20environmental%20destruction.&amp;text=Degrowth%20means%20transforming%20societies%20to,for%20all%20within%20planetary%20boundaries.">degrowth</a> conflated with <a href="https://www.rba.gov.au/education/resources/explainers/recession.html">recession</a>, <a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/austerity.asp#:~:text=What%20Is%20Austerity%3F%20The%20term%20austerity%20refers%20to,payments%20on%20its%20obligations%20becomes%20a%20real%20possibility.">austerity</a> or some version thereof. The result is a mistaken belief that degrowing a wealthy economy means that people will suffer. There is, implicit in this stance, a notion that our growth-based economy is necessary to ensure we are meeting everyone’s needs. That changing this system is not desirable, or even possible: infinite growth on our finite planet is our only option. It shows just how significantly our collective minds have been ‘<a href="https://illuminem.com/energyvoices/69ad319b-21a9-45c5-a5e1-aa9c7c23edf0">capitalised</a>&#x27;, and how our current economic framework restricts our thinking. Furthermore, the immense blind spot this perspective has to the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/30/capitalism-is-killing-the-planet-its-time-to-stop-buying-into-our-own-destruction">harm</a> capitalism has caused, and continues to cause, to <a href="https://file.scirp.org/pdf/SM_2013042913121031.pdf">indigenous peoples</a>, people in the <a href="https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/05/coronavirus-global-south-pandemic-food-production-farmers">global south</a> and even to a large number of people from <a href="https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2018/11/why-rich-countries-are-seeing-more-poverty">wealthy nations</a> is excruciating to witness.
Degrowth is not recession. It is not “<a href="https://www.rba.gov.au/education/resources/explainers/recession.html">a period</a> of reduced output and a significant increase in the unemployment rate”. On the contrary, degrowth is planned and aims to ensure the wellbeing of citizens via the provision of services such as healthcare, education, public transport, housing, quotas of necessary services such as electricity, water and internet as well as a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Job_guarantee">federal job guarantee</a> and a <a href="https://link.springer.com/book/10.1057/9781137031594">basic income guarantee</a> for those who are unable or unwilling to work.
Degrowth is not austerity. It is not “<a href="https://www.investopedia.com/terms/a/austerity.asp#:~:text=What%20Is%20Austerity%3F%20The%20term%20austerity%20refers%20to,payments%20on%20its%20obligations%20becomes%20a%20real%20possibility.">a set</a> of economic policies that a government implements in order to control public sector debt”. On the contrary, many degrowth proponents understand that the deficit is a <a href="https://stephaniekelton.com/book/">myth</a> and that the biggest constraints currency-issuing governments face aren’t financial but physical. For example, our ability to roll out renewable energy quickly enough, producing enough food to feed the population as the planet warms, electrifying and insulating homes and buildings as we wind down fossil fuels. Degrowth aims to ensure the needs of all are met as we work within these physical and non-negotiable constraints.
Degrowth is a deliberate set of strategies to reduce the material footprint, including energy use, of wealthy nations. The concept of Degrowth applies only to those nations with lifestyles that require more than <a href="https://www.overshootday.org/newsroom/country-overshoot-days/">one planet</a> and it recognises that millions of people will need to increase their material footprint if they are to live a life of dignity, providing space for them to do so while, globally, we remain within the <a href="https://scitechdaily.com/earths-safe-planetary-boundary-for-pollutants-including-plastics-exceeded/">planetary boundaries</a>. Degrowth is a rebuke of ‘growth for growth’s sake’ – an extremely inefficient way to alleviate poverty which is causing tremendous environmental harm - and instead it puts people and the planet firmly at the heart of the economy. Degrowth is recognition that, despite decades of scientists around the world sounding the alarm and dozens of global leadership meetings, continued economic growth is the reason why greenhouse gas emissions are now 60% higher than they were in 1990.  We now run the very real risk of activating <a href="https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-06-08/collapse-of-civilisation-is-the-most-likely-outcome-top-climate-scientists/">global tipping points</a> that will take warming out of our hands, rendering much of the planet uninhabitable by the end of this century.
The term “Degrowth” does have a negative connotation for some, presumably those that are unaware of the ecological crisis, or those who are concerned about such people embracing the concept. But, for those who are aware of the urgency with which we must act if we are to avoid activating catastrophic tipping points, the concept of Degrowth can hit like a breath of fresh air: pure relief that there may be a way to avoid some of the worst outcomes of a warming planet. This is because the future doesn’t look like today. There is no path to continuing to grow the economy and the material footprint that cannot be <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/29/green-growth-economic-activity-environment">decoupled</a> from that economy and everything will be ok. Whichever direction we choose, “the <a href="https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/full/10.1146/annurev-environ-012220-011104#_i26">future</a> will be a radical departure from the present”. The best science is telling us that we either implement planned degrowth or we face a very real risk of <a href="https://www.resilience.org/stories/2020-06-08/collapse-of-civilisation-is-the-most-likely-outcome-top-climate-scientists/">ecological</a> and <a href="https://www.currentaffairs.org/2021/11/what-would-it-look-like-if-we-treated-climate-change-as-an-actual-emergency">societal</a> collapse.
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 <a href="https://www.overshootday.org/newsroom/country-overshoot-days/">planet earths</a>. The lifestyles of wealthy nations are not sustainable - we are transgressing <a href="https://www-tandfonline-com.ezproxy.library.wur.nl/doi/full/10.1080/14747731.2021.1940070">seven</a> of the nine <a href="https://scitechdaily.com/earths-safe-planetary-boundary-for-pollutants-including-plastics-exceeded/">planetary boundaries</a> already, of which climate change and biodiversity loss are only two. We’ve been consuming ecological resources and services that, if distributed fairly, should belong to people in other nations and to future generations, including our own children. It’s a huge failure of leadership that we’ve been able to live outside of the planetary boundaries for so long – not to mention the fact that further economic growth continues to be the mission of every major government around the world. We must face into this issue and not simply pretend it isn’t happening. Changing the term won’t change what we need to do, and we cannot take our focus off what needs to be done: we are living beyond the means of the planet and it’s time to reign it in.
The good news is that by actively degrowing wealthy economies we can focus on the things in life that matter, for example: family, friendships, learning, creativity, nature, physical activity and rest. The things that actually do make us happier, because more and more “stuff” does not. We will wind down polluting industries, optimise our finite resources so that they are being used to meet needs and not wants (or merely thrown away), reduce waste via the elimination of planned obsolescence, focus on “usage” rather than “ownership” and increase the resources devoted to recycling. We will begin to live in harmony with the planet, and not actively against it.
Ultimately, if we are genuinely concerned about people suffering we cannot justify continuing to grow the economies of wealthy nations any longer. Billions of people are already suffering under this economic system, and climate change will only exacerbate this further. That is because there is no path to <a href="https://www.currentaffairs.org/2021/11/what-would-it-look-like-if-we-treated-climate-change-as-an-actual-emergency">reducing</a> fossil fuel use each year in wealthy nations to achieve the science-based climate change <a href="https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/">targets</a> while continuing to increase our <a href="https://www.jasonhickel.org/less-is-more">energy use</a>. We must deploy ‘<a href="https://twitter.com/jksteinberger/status/1415189267542904833?s=21">demand-side</a>’ solutions as well as <a href="https://twitter.com/jksteinberger/status/1415189267542904833?s=21">supply-side</a> solutions if we are to achieve the seemingly impossible task ahead of us. It can be a bitter pill to swallow for those who have embraced - and likely benefited from - growth-based economics, but we must acknowledge that it’s time to change our economic system and degrow the economies of wealthy nations. The very future of human civilisation depends on it.
 Energy Voices is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of leading Energy &amp; Sustainability writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.

Degrowth is not recession. Nor is it austerity.

Emissions continue to rise. Governments are failing us. A ‘global tipping point’ could be activated in as little as five years. Why aren’t we doing more to solve the greatest threat humanity has ever faced?

Decapitalising our minds: the key to addressing climate change

We face a crisis of both people and the planet that requires our urgent attention. But there is hope.

Degrowth economy: let’s address the people and planetary crises

For all the talk of renewable energy, electric vehicles and plant-based diets, there’s a gaping hole in the way we’re trying to solve accelerating climate change. We will not stay below 2°C of warming while pursuing economic growth — yet barely anyone talks about it.

For all the talk of renewable energy, electric vehicles and plant-based diets, there&rsquo;s a gaping hole in the way we&rsquo;re trying to solve accelerating climate change. We will not stay below 2&deg;C of warming while pursuing economic growth &mdash; yet barely anyone talks about it.
Since the end of World War II, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth has been the metric of human prosperity in Western nations, the idea being that if the productivity of the economy increases so will the wellbeing of the people within that economy. And for a while, that was the case. But since the 1970s, increases in GDP have, on average, failed to translate into increases in <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genuine_progress_indicator">wellbeing</a> and happiness.
It is not surprising. Research has shown that once a certain GDP threshold, or level of wellbeing, has been met people gain little from consuming more &ldquo;stuff&rdquo; &mdash; a necessary requirement for continuous GDP growth.
<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy">Robert F Kennedy</a> eloquently summed up the inadequacy of GDP as a metric of wellbeing at a <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_F._Kennedy%27s_remarks_at_the_University_of_Kansas">speech</a> he gave in 1968:
<blockquote>...the gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country, it measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.</blockquote>
What&rsquo;s more, GDP has never been and can&rsquo;t be decoupled from material footprint, including energy. This means we cannot roll out renewable energy fast enough to meet the objectives of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Agreement">Paris Agreement</a> &ndash; to keep warming below 2&deg;C &ndash; if we continue growing our economy. Three percent growth every year for the rest of this decade is 30% growth by 2030.
Achieving a <a href="https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/aim-high-go-fast-why-emissions-must-plummet-climate-council-report-210421.pdf">75% reduction</a> on 2005 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions by 2030 is a Herculean effort already, let alone if the economy is 30% bigger by that time. And surely, given the urgency with which we must decarbonise, reducing energy demand must be a part of the mix, even if it means reducing GDP.
There are nearly 8 billion people in the world today, but they haven&rsquo;t all <a href="https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/carbon-emissions-richest-1-percent-more-double-emissions-poorest-half-humanity">contributed equally</a> to the climate crisis. Between 1990 and 2015, the world&rsquo;s wealthiest 1% were responsible for double the greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions of the poorest 50%. Over that same period, the wealthiest 10% of the world&rsquo;s population were responsible for 52% of the world&rsquo;s GHG emissions, while the poorest 50% were responsible for only 7% of the world&rsquo;s GHG emissions.
We are already breaching four [1] of the nine <a href="https://www.stockholmresilience.org/research/planetary-boundaries/the-nine-planetary-boundaries.html">planetary boundaries</a>, including biodiversity and climate change. On 29 July, we reached <a href="https://www.overshootday.org/">Earth Overshoot Day</a>, which means that globally we have already consumed all of the ecological resources and services that can be regenerated in a year &mdash; for the remainder of the year, we will be taking from future generations. If the whole world lived like Australians and North Americans, we would need four planet Earths. This is not sustainable.
But the real heart-starter is the power of exponential growth and how quickly it can consume resources. Three per cent growth each year means a doubling every 23 years. An economy that doubles 64 times &ndash; taking 1,472 years &ndash; will be 9,223,372,036,854,780,000 times larger than its original size. To help understand the magnitude of this number, consider that this is more than the estimated number of <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2012/09/17/161096233/which-is-greater-the-number-of-sand-grains-on-earth-or-stars-in-the-sky">grains of sand</a> on the planet. We will, at some point, accept that growth cannot go on forever. The sooner we do so, the less damage we will cause.
Furthermore, exponential growth can really creep up on you. When we are utilising half of Earth&rsquo;s capacity, we are only one doubling away from being at full capacity. If we are already breaching planetary boundaries, how can we handle another doubling and possibly another doubling after that? Either we implement planned <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Degrowth">degrowth</a> &ndash; actively reducing the size of the economy in developed nations &ndash; or we risk collapse.
Degrowing our economy to fit back within the planetary boundaries will also allow people living below satisfactory standards of human wellbeing to improve their living conditions. Data from <a href="https://ourworldindata.org/energy-access#:~:text=work%20on%20Energy-,Summary,to%20clean%20fuels%20for%20cooking.">2016</a> showed that 940 million people still didn&rsquo;t have access to electricity and 3 billion people didn&rsquo;t have access to clean fuels for cooking. These people don&rsquo;t even own a washing machine, let alone a car and they certainly aren&rsquo;t flying anywhere. Degrowth is not only necessary to solve the climate crisis, it&rsquo;s the only way to address widening inequality across the globe.
What could life in a <a href="https://theconversation.com/life-in-a-degrowth-economy-and-why-you-might-actually-enjoy-it-32224">degrowth economy</a> look like? It would involve shorter working weeks and less commuting, giving us more time to do things we enjoy. Less individual ownership and more sharing. Less debt and more services provided by the Government. A focus on community and connection rather than individualism and perpetually trying to find happiness through our next purchase, holiday or experience.
In a degrowth economy, environmentally destructive and resource-intensive industries would be scaled back and more people would be working in jobs that benefited one another and the planet, putting more meaning and purpose into our lives. We would value different things in a degrowth economy and define success differently. A degrowth economy does not need to mean a degrowth lifestyle, indeed we could be richer for it.
It&rsquo;s probably tempting to define a degrowth economy as socialism, but it&rsquo;s a false binary that an economic system is either capitalist or socialist. All economies are a mix of both, often with other bits of &ldquo;isms&rdquo; thrown in for good measure. Let&rsquo;s use our imaginations and contemplate what life could look like if we focused on the things that really matter and not simply the amount of growth in our economy.
The reasoning for degrowth is sound and the need to implement it urgent. But how do we get from this harmful system that is based on evermore resource extraction to this beautiful place where we will be living in harmony with nature and not against it? Where the wellbeing of people and planet is front and centre of decision making?
This is where we come in. We need to shift the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overton_window">Overton window</a> of politically safe topics to campaign on and ensure our representatives know that we want to have a habitable planet for our children. They need to know we cannot achieve that while blindly pursuing economic growth.&nbsp;It is us, the voters, who determine what our elected officials focus on. Each of us can write to our MPs and tell them that we want to actively degrow our economy to fit back within planetary boundaries by reducing sectors of the economy that add little to planetary and societal wellbeing, but significantly to climate change. If we are serious about tackling climate change, degrowth must be on the agenda.
In the end, the economy is a man-made construct. It can be changed. The laws of nature, however, cannot. It would be tragic to look back and think we gave it all up because we weren&rsquo;t brave enough to challenge the insane notion of endless growth on a finite planet with the urgency it deserves.
This article is also published on <a href="https://independentaustralia.net/politics/politics-display/degrowth-economy-the-climate-solution-no-one-is-talking-about,15362#disqus_thread">Independent Australia</a>. Energy Voices is a democratic space presenting the thoughts and opinions of leading Energy &amp; Sustainability writers, their opinions do not necessarily represent those of illuminem.
<h3>Footnote</h3>
[1] Editorial note: As of 4th June 2022, <a href="https://news.mongabay.com/2022/04/freshwater-planetary-boundary-considerably-transgressed-new-research/">6 planetary boundaries</a> have now been breached, with a 7th, ocean acidification, <a href="https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14747731.2021.1940070">being peer-reviewed</a> as also transgressed.

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Erin Remblance

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