Library

Misc • 2019

When green growth is not enough

In recent years, the concept of green economic growth, i.e. the expansion of the economy without an accompanying increase in environmental harm, has gained political acceptance. However, the idea that this policy alone is enough to deal with the environmental challenges we face appears to be founded on little to no scientific basis. META, the news channel of the European Environmental...

Misc • 2019

Desacoplamiento de la realidad

By: Iñigo Capellán-Pérez

La validez de la narrativa del crecimiento verde queda muy tocada tras la publicación de un nuevo detallado y riguroso informe científico. El tiempo se agota y la piedra angular de la propuesta del establishment no se ha demostrado como viable en ninguna circunstancia de forma relevante. El Diario, July 8th 2019, Opinión y Blogs

Scientific paper • 2019

Unlocking wise digital techno-futures: Contributions from the Degrowth community

By: Christian Kerschner, Melf-Hinrich Ehlers, Mario Pansera

Many of the benefits anticipated from technology in the 1960s remain unrealized today. Alongside the optimism that drives technological development, more sceptical views that regard the promises of technology with reflection, mistrust, and even hostility, have emerged within Western societies. One such group is the Degrowth community, a heterogenous group of researchers and activists who...

Misc • 2019

Chile woke up from its neoliberal nightmare

By: Constanza Hepp

Chile despertó, “Chile woke up” reads the main slogan used in the massive protests that have brought Chile to a halt. People flooded the streets demanding deep structural changes in enormous, mainly peaceful protests, the biggest one of which took place on 10/25 gathering more than one million people.

Scientific paper • 2019

Tourism and degrowth: an emerging agenda for research and praxis

By: Robert Fletcher, Asunción Blanco-Romero, Macià Blázquez-Salom, Ivan Murray Mas

Abstract: This article outlines a conceptual framework and research agenda for exploring the relationship between tourism and degrowth. Rapid and uneven expansion of tourism as a response to the 2008 economic crisis has proceeded in parallel with the rise of social discontent concerning so-called “overtourism.” Despite decades of concerted global effort to achieve sustainable development,...

Misc • 2019

Strategies for social-ecological transformation

By: Nathan Barlow

Reflections on organising next year’s degrowth conference, which will explore strategies for social and ecological transformation.

Misc • 2019

Towards a Political Economy of Degrowth

By: Ekaterina Chertkovskaya, Alexander Paulsson, Stefania Barca

Since the 1970s, the degrowth idea has been proposed by scholars, public intellectuals and activists as a powerful call to reject the obsession of neoliberal capitalism with economic growth, an obsession which continues apace despite the global ecological crisis and rising inequalities. In the past decade, degrowth has gained momentum and become an umbrella term for various social movements...

Misc • 2019

The fight against the elimination of fossil fuel subsidies in Ecuador: Lessons for environmental and social justice

By: Diana Vela Almeida

On October 1st, Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno announced a series of economic measures for the country, including the elimination of gasoline and diesel subsidies and the liberalization of their prices, as part of an agreement with the International Monetary Fund (IMF). These measures led to the eruption of massive nationwide protests for eleven consecutive days,

Scientific paper • 2019

Climate Change and the Polanyian Counter-movement: Carbon Markets or Degrowth?

By: Ryan Gunderson, Diana Stuart, Brian Petersen

Abstract: In the midst of a wave of market expansion, carbon markets have been proposed as the best way to address global climate change. While some argue that carbon markets represent a modern example of a Polanyian counter-movement to the environmental crisis, we adopt a structural interpretation of Polanyi to refute this claim. Carbon markets represent a further expansion of markets that...

Misc • 2019

The neoliberal fuel to the anti-gender movement

By: Elena Zacharenko

If progressives want to fight the movement against so-called ‘gender ideology’, they need to break with neoliberalism

Scientific paper • 2019

A critically modern ecological economics for the Anthropocene

By: Jon D. Erickson, Michael B. Wironen

Ecological economics recognizes economic activity as a biophysical process mediated by social systems and ultimately subject to the constraints of a finite earth system. The Anthropocene discourse appears as validation of the central concerns of ecological economics yet throws into relief its limits as a normative transdiscipline oriented toward social transformation. We review ecological...

Scientific paper • 2019

The state in the transformation to a sustainable postgrowth economy

By: Max Koch

The limits of the environmental state in the context of the provision of economic growth are addressed by applying materialist state theory, state-rescaling approaches and the degrowth/postgrowth literature. I compare state roles in a capitalist growth economy and in a postgrowth economy geared towards bio-physical parameters such as matter and energy throughput and the provision of...

Misc • 2019

Towards a Political Economy of Degrowth

By: Ekaterina Chertkovskaya, Alexander Paulsson, Stefania Barca

Since the 1970s, the degrowth idea has been proposed by scholars, public intellectuals and activists as a powerful call to reject the obsession of neoliberal capitalism with economic growth, an obsession which continues apace despite the global ecological crisis and rising inequalities. In the past decade, degrowth has gained momentum and become an umbrella term for various social movements...

Misc • 2019

Degrowth and the Green New Deal

By: Gareth Dale

Radical action on climate change is at last on the agenda. The emphasis is on urgency and action and - for XR notably - ‘truth.’ Questions of long-term strategy are less clear, but strategy platforms have been advanced. Foremost among them are the Green New Deal (GND) and degrowth. This article provides a comparison and sketches lines of convergence

Misc • 2019

A Green New Deal for an ecological economy. Introducing a series of proposals for a truly transformative GND

By: Sam Bliss, Leah Temper

This essay is the first in a series of articles that aim to inform the GND through the lens of ecological economics. The series will feature short position papers by students of the Economics for the Anthropocene program, a three-university collaboration to train graduate students in ecological economics, as well as by other invited experts. These short articles will focus on thematic issues...

Misc • 2019

L’économie de la nature

By: Alain Deneault

L’expression «économie de la nature» a surgi dans le vocabulaire des sciences au XVIIIe siècle bien avant que le néologisme «écologie» ne s’impose à nous, plus d’un siècle et demi plus tard. Chez Carl von Linné, Gilbert White ou Charles Darwin, l’économie de la nature désigne l’organisation des relations entre les espèces au vu du climat, du territoire et de leur évolution. Cette économie pense...

Misc • 2019

Trade governance will make or break the Green New Deal. How the GND could, should, must redefine “protectionism” and transform international trade

By: Shaun Sellers

"A climate policy must change the way that the global economy works if it is to be successful, but if a policy is effective enough to disrupt global trade, it will violate global trade rules."

Misc • 2019

A Green New Deal for an ecological economy

By: Sam Bliss, Leah Temper

Introducing a series of proposals for a truly transformative GND

Misc • 2019

Support degrowth.info

By: International Editorial Team of Degrowth.info

We live in troubling times that require bold ideas and transformative solutions. For many ‘degrowth’ has become the beacon of hope that shines through the darkness, illuminating our path forward. With your help, ‘degrowth.info’ will make this light shine as bright as possible. Please support our efforts via our crowdfunding campaign.

Scientific paper • 2019

Unraveling the claims for (and against) green growth

By: Tim Jackson, Peter A. Victor

Can the global economy grow indefinitely, decoupled from the Earth's limitations? Science 22 Nov 2019, Vol. 366, Issue 6468, pp. 950-951