11–20 of 82 posts
There's an unspoken fallacy here. The case for degrowth is imperfect, but it's better than the case for infinite growth, which is effectively the current paradigm.
What about a third option, where we neither grow nor shrink? False dichotomies, anyone?
Most importantly degrowth is a loosing position in the popularity contest, that is democracy.
Selling carbon net neutral to negative ways of hedonism are the only way out.
There's an unspoken fallacy here. The case for degrowth is imperfect, but it's better than the case for infinite growth, which is effectively the current paradigm.
But perhaps the planet isn't actually what we want to save, contrary to the headline?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
What about a third option, where we neither grow nor shrink? False dichotomies, anyone?
A system without at least some noise is effectively impossible. A system of this complexity is bound to have quite a lot of noise to contend with.
There's an unspoken fallacy here. The case for degrowth is imperfect, but it's better than the case for infinite growth, which is effectively the current paradigm.
You can almost certainly solve climate change with degrowth, the plantet can probably handle ten billion people living stone age lifestyles, it is just a question of how much we have to give up. But the not really part is the important one, you are not going to convince people to reduce their living standards significantly. If the required amount of degrowth means going back to the living standard from a couple of decades ago or more, that is not going to happen before the surface of the Earth is a deserted wasteland and people really feel the need.
I guess the best you can do is maintaining the current living standard and put future growth into making that living standard less environmental impactful instead of further raising the living standard.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
A system without at least some noise is effectively impossible. A system of this complexity is bound to have quite a lot of noise to contend with.
Neither grow nor shrink on average - it's quite possible for a noisy system to be stable.
What we are observing being anything other than noise is highly unlikely.
There's an unspoken fallacy here. The case for degrowth is imperfect, but it's better than the case for infinite growth, which is effectively the current paradigm.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Billion_Americans
PV is dirt cheap, battery materials are cheap and exist in abundance. All that's limited is the ROI for fossil industries, and they will fight tooth and nail to get the most out of their investments. Most importantly degrowth is a loosing position in the popularity contest, that is democracy. Selling carbon net neutral to negative ways of hedonism are the only way out.
There's an unspoken fallacy here. The case for degrowth is imperfect, but it's better than the case for infinite growth, which is effectively the current paradigm.
With the risk of wading into very controversial political territory. I think it's incredible that people have been told for 2 decades that the number of humans that exist is too many, that people should not have kids (it's so hard!, and expensive, treat yourself!), and so forth. But on the other hand, our society is designed in a way that: if it's not growing; it's disasterous. Which meant that our societies, thinkin…
Why? We could all just forever keep doing what we are doing today, nothing bad would happen. With a few caveats. We are depleting non-renewable resources and the population size is changing, that would eventually cause problems if not addressed. Also living standards are very unequal, in reality you could not convince the poorer people to not try to become richer.
There's an unspoken fallacy here. The case for degrowth is imperfect, but it's better than the case for infinite growth, which is effectively the current paradigm.
Could we solve climate change if we just accepted being dramatically poorer, forever? As I’ve written before, the answer is 1) no, not really [...] You can almost certainly solve climate change with degrowth, the plantet can probably handle ten billion people living stone age lifestyles, it is just a question of how much we have to give up. But the not really part is the important one, you are not going to convince p…
Not sure if that’s true. The claim is that wealth inequality and standards of living are not distributed evenly. A very small percentage of people on Earth emit much more carbon than the rest. Enough of a difference, perhaps, that the argument that we’d all be living in stone huts is a bit ridiculous if we were to focus on degrowth.
What I find hard to digest about all of this is that the foundations of economics is based on a lot of shady hand-waving and pontificating. How we base our society and planning for our future on such a weak discipline is tiring.