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.

Erin

Jennifer Harvey

Degrowth: The Path to a Better Life

Climate has historically felt like something “out there” for many of us, unrelated to our sense of identity and not included in our personal narrative as anything more than a backdrop for the “real story” of our lives. Now that climate is knocking at each of our life’s doors, refusing to remain in the background, many of us are unsure how to respond. We wonder whether we should integrate climate into our life story and sense of self, and if so, how.

<h1>When climate knocks, we need resources to respond</h1>
<p>Climate has historically felt like something “out there” for many of us, unrelated to our sense of identity and not included in our personal narrative as anything more than a backdrop for the “real story” of our lives. Now that climate is knocking at each of our life’s doors, refusing to remain in the background, many of us are unsure how to respond. We wonder whether we should integrate climate into our life story and sense of self, and if so, how.</p>
<p>Some of our reaction to climate’s knock depends on our culture, personality and values system – for example, how much we know about, enjoy being in and connecting with the natural world, how much empathy and concern we feel for humanity and other sentient beings, and how much we care about matters of justice and fairness. Our reaction also depends on our capacity for growth, our available resources, and our current degree of physical and social safety. Those of us who are in a secure situation, with plenty of time and energy, internal and external resources, and ample social support have a different array of options from those of us who are completely overwhelmed, lacking in resources, and with no safety net to rely on.</p>
<p>If we are overstretched mentally, emotionally, financially and socially – a situation many of us currently find ourselves in – it’s likely we’ll experience climate’s knock at our door as a threat (even beyond the fact that the climate emergency in itself is existentially threatening). And when something threatens us, it’s often difficult for us to imagine welcoming it generously into our lives, integrating it into our sense of self and forming a reciprocal and generative relationship with it.</p>
<h1>If it feels like a threat, we might fight, flee, freeze or fawn</h1>
<p>Without the inner and outer resources to deal with them, real or perceived threats cause us to fight, run, freeze or superficially pretend to respond while actually avoiding the seriousness of the matter. These well-known reactions are traditionally called the <a href="https://www.hricdubai.com/trauma-response-the-4fs/">Four F’s of Trauma</a> in psychological literature: “fight, flight, freeze, fawn”.</p>
<p>How can we know whether we are engaging in one of the four F’s of trauma in response to climate’s knock? Here are some signs:</p>
<p><strong>Fighting</strong> could show up as attacking others for bringing up climate-related issues and concerns with us, or shaming people in our life or social networks who make lifestyle choices to better integrate climate into their lives (i.e. eating less meat, going vegan, or participating in activism). It could also show up as “fighting truths” about the changes we need to make, i.e. refusing to do what we know we need to do.</p>
<p><strong>Fleeing</strong> could show up as changing the subject whenever climate comes up, or distracting ourselves from thinking about it at all (i.e. avoiding informing ourselves about climate or creating dramas that consciously or unconsciously keep our attention away from climate issues). Similarly, it can also show up as “fleeing truths” about the changes we need to make, i.e. running in the opposite direction of what we know we need to do.</p>
<p><strong>Freezing</strong> could look like going numb and becoming stuck in a space of chronic indecision. We neither engage with climate nor deny it – we’re perpetually in limbo. Maybe we’re still functioning well enough in our daily life, but when it comes to thinking about climate, we dissociate from it to some degree. Our ability to move forward and access our power for integration is, for the time being, on pause.</p>
<p><strong>Fawning</strong> could look like engaging with climate on the surface level (i.e. recycling or posting about climate change on social media) but never actually developing a deeper relationship with or letting it into our sense of self. It could also take the form of virtue-signaling or trying to reassure ourselves that we are nature lovers or that we are “doing the right thing” by taking external action, while internally avoiding more authentic personal and emotional involvement.</p>
<h1>Most of us have a complex combination of reactions</h1>
<p>When confronted with new elements to integrate into our sense of self, many of us find different parts of ourselves reacting in different ways. While some parts may be curious, open and eager to take action, other parts may still be fighting, fleeing, freezing or fawning. This is quite logical, as psychologically we are all composed of many different parts – for example, our professional self, our family self, parts of ourselves living in the past, parts of ourselves dreaming about the future, and so on. All these psychological parts integrate into what we call our psychological “self”. When our “self” is functioning optimally, our various parts are in harmony and working in the same direction. When our self is in turmoil or in transition, our different parts struggle to communicate, find common ground and move forward as a coherent psychological system.</p>
<p>As it relates to climate, our parts’ reactions depend on the roles we inhabit in the world and which aspects of ourselves which feel threatened by climate integration. For example, we may find that a part of us which has been feeling disconnected from nature is ready to jump all in and integrate climate into our lives. However, our professional self may still be fighting the idea because jumping all in threatens our safety – i.e. leaving a job where we know we are harming the planet, but where we are comfortable and paid well. The future-oriented family part within us may be open and curious because that part wants to be a good parent and give a hopeful future to our children. Yet our present-oriented family part may still be in a state of “freeze”, for fear of the consequences of asking our children to give up their current lifestyle of comfort.</p>
<h1>“Parts work” can help us create a coherent way forward</h1>
<p>To help us find coherence among the various parts within, “parts work”* can be a very useful tool. The principle of doing “parts work” is acknowledging and dialoguing together with the different parts of ourselves, as we would with members of our work team or with our partner and children. When we notice and get curious about our parts’ reactions, feelings and needs, we see them not as conflicting, disconnected or lost fragments, but as integral parts of our coherent psychological self-system – as our “inner family”.</p>
<p>As I mentioned above, if we look within, we may find parts who are already motivated to integrate climate into our identity. These parts can serve as an inspiration and resource for stuck parts still engaging in fight, flight, freeze or fawn. It’s important to remember that stuck parts are usually trying to protect our inner psychological system from being overwhelmed by difficult emotions. Climate is a complex phenomenon, so it makes sense that opening ourselves to a relationship with it awakens correspondingly complex and challenging emotions within – eco-grief, eco-anxiety, anger, panic, sadness, rage, shame, or guilt, to name a few.</p>
<p>What those stuck parts are telling us is that they need more safety and resources in order to be able to fully welcome a relationship to the climate. Some of that safety comes from the more resourced parts within, but it comes from our social circles as well. Personal transformation is not only an individual process, but also a community process. We become who we are in the context of the people we are with and how we interact with them. Connecting with others through climate-aware therapy, climate coaching, climate circles and other forms of climate-specific support can provide important social safety for us to get to know and learn from our “inner family”. Seeing others dialogue with and find coherence in their own “inner families” as they work toward climate integration supports and mirrors our process, and vice versa.</p>
<h1>Opening the door to a lifelong dialog with climate</h1>
<p>It’s worth noting that all integration work – in our relationship with the climate and in any area of our lives – is not a “holy grail” we find at one moment in time and then the work is done. The climate integration process, just like with integration of our family, our careers or our friendships into our sense of self, is an ongoing, lifelong dialog. As long as the relationship is alive, we continue to listen, adjust, negotiate, learn and transform together.</p>
<p>Climate’s knock is an invitation into that dialog. How would you like to open the door?</p>
<p>                                 ---------------------------------------------------</p>
<h1>Questions for reflection &amp; further resources</h1>
<p>Below I’ve included a series of reflection questions and extra resources to guide you as you explore climate integration for yourself. You may want to write your feelings and insights in your journal and talk about them with a willing family member or friend, within your therapy or with others in your extended community. As you inquire within, the <a href="https://www.avanmuijen.com/watercolor-emotion-wheel">emotions wheel</a> can be a helpful resource for finding the right words to describe your parts’ complex emotional responses. A <a href="https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2013/12/30/258313116/mapping-emotions-on-the-body-love-makes-us-warm-all-over">body-emotions map</a> can also help you identify where your parts’ emotions are expressed in your body, especially for those of us who are used to “being in our head” much of the time.</p>
<h2>Reflection questions</h2>
<p>Are there parts of me who are eager to integrate climate into my identity and life story?</p>
<ul><li>How does that eagerness show up in my body, mind and behaviors?</li></ul>
<ul><li>Do I have enough social support, resources, and safety to act on that motivation in a meaningful way right now? If not, what resources and support do I need to feel safe and supported in order to take the actions I feel called to take?</li></ul>
<p>Are there parts of me who are fighting, fleeing, freezing and/or fawning in response to climate?</p>
<ul><li>How does this fighting, fleeing, freezing and/or fawning show up in my body, mind, and behaviors?</li></ul>
<ul><li>If I ask these parts what they need to feel safe to engage with climate, what do they tell me?</li></ul>
<ul><li>Are there actions I can take in response to what I learn about their needs?</li></ul>
<p>Are there other emotions I’m feeling in response to climate’s knock at my door? (You could use the emotions wheel to explore the possibilities)</p>
<ul><li>How do these emotions show up in my body, mind, and behaviors?</li></ul>
<ul><li>Is there any support I currently need to be able to act authentically from these emotions?</li></ul>
<p>When I envision climate as an integral part of my identity, do I see a motivating vision of my present and future, given what I can control?</p>
<ul><li>If not, what could I change about that vision in order to make it motivating and encouraging?</li></ul>
<p>What values, resources, skills, competencies, life experiences and personality and character traits do I bring to my relationship with climate?</p>
<ul><li>How would I be inspired to use those resources in building a meaningful relationship with climate?</li></ul>
<p>Once I am feeling sufficiently safe and resourced with my climate integration process, how might I feel called to support others who are still missing the social or other resources they need to open up to climate integration?</p>
<h2>Additional resources for exploration</h2>
<ul><li><a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC3uglLppK7Pw0vda6gZ_N9Q">I Heart Earth</a> is a project featuring public talks with experts and activists on the theme of integrating climate into our sense of self</li></ul>
<ul><li><a href="https://www.goodgriefnetwork.org/">Good Grief Network</a> is an excellent resource for safely processing eco-grief and other difficult emotions that arise in our climate integration, in the context of community</li></ul>
<ul><li><a href="https://www.climatepsychologists.com/">Climate Psychologists</a> is an excellent resource (their new book too) for all things climate psychology</li></ul>
<ul><li><a href="https://www.climateandmind.org/">Climate and Mind</a> is a repository of information and resources on climate psychology</li></ul>
<ul><li><a href="https://workthatreconnects.org/">The Work That Reconnects</a> is a powerful framework for climate integration – I recommend the work of <a href="https://gwynethjones.coach/">Gwyneth Jones</a> on this topic</li></ul>
<p>* The most well-known “parts works” approach comes from <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internal_Family_Systems_Model">Internal Family Systems Therapy</a>, which works with specific parts, but here I refer to the concept more generally.</p>
<p><em>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.</em></p>


Climate Knocking at Our Door: How to Integrate Climate into Our Sense of Self

"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.


<h1>In search of alternatives</h1>
<p><em>I agree with the concept of degrowth, but isn’t there a better term for it?</em></p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>In considering the question, it’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 – 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.</p>
<p><em>Well then, why not rebrand degrowth according to its positives?</em></p>
<p>Many people have already done work in that direction, with alternative conceptual terms such as ‘well-being economy’ or ‘regenerative economy’. While it’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’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 doctor shouldn&#x27;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 message: wealthy nations need to use less of the Earth’s resources in order to survive, and we can only do that by abandoning economic growth.</p>
<p><em>But growth is a good thing, right? After all, everything in nature grows.</em></p>
<p>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, “okay, we’ve reached the optimal size now, let’s embrace a steady-state economy”. 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.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<img 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>
<p><em>What about green growth? Surely that enables us to grow our economy forever?</em></p>
<p>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.</p>
<h1>Both-and versus Either-or</h1>
<p>The fact that the term ‘degrowth’ isn’t immediately embraced by some people doesn’t mean it’s not effective. We are asking people to abandon a long-held belief, and it will take some getting used to. The word ‘degrowth’ is disruptive to the point of being confrontational and isn’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’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 ‘<a href="https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/net-zero-coalition">net-zero 2050</a>’ 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 ‘degrowth’ 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’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, ‘degrowth’ gets noticed.</p>
<p>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 ‘sunk’ investment in our careers, lifestyles or dreams for the future that simply won’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.</p>
<p>Some people even welcome the word with relief. In Japan, philosopher and economic historian Professor Kohei Saito wrote a book about democratic &quot;degrowth communism” 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’s, especially young people, are hungry for post-capitalist ideas.</p>
<p>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 (“décroissance”), 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’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.</p>
<p>Thus, it’s a ‘both-and’ situation rather than an ‘either-or’ scenario: degrowth as a term both challenges our preconditioned assumptions and offers practical and inspirational reframing for the future.</p>
<h1>Solving the right variable</h1>
<p>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 ‘greener’, despite all the evidence that “green growth” is an <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/332500379_Is_Green_Growth_Possible">impossibility</a>). We doubt there&#x27;s any one term which would both appeal to this bias and drastically challenge and transform it in the timeframe needed.</p>
<p>Solving the right variable would see our collective efforts invested in ensuring that the notion that “eternal growth is good” 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 2ºC will be an impossibility. Such a temperature rise could activate tipping points in the Earth’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 ‘<a href="https://johnmenadue.com/will-steffen-a-fundamental-re-think-of-the-climate-change-challenge/">Hothouse Earth</a>’: an Earth that is virtually uninhabitable for humans.</p>
<p>Therefore, we don’t need to change the name ‘degrowth’. What we need is for more of us in wealthy nations to intuitively associate the term ‘economic growth’ with ‘collapse’.</p>
<h1>Let’s focus on the real issues</h1>
<p>It can’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’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>.</p>
<p>If we can’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.</p>
<p><em>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.</em></p>


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Jennifer Harvey Sallin

Jennifer Harvey Sallin

Degrowth: The Path to a Better Life

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