Library

Scientific paper • 2014

Grassroots Movements and Urban Development - the Cases of Kitakyushu, Japan and Leipzig -

Abstract: As a result of the “shrinking” societies in Germany and Japan, cities and regions are facing different challenges. While metropolitan areas like Berlin and Tokyo are growing quickly, intermediate cities like Leipzig and Kitakyushu can only keep their population or grow slowly. After a process of deindustrialisation, these cities still carry dozens of empty buildings and vacant spaces....

Scientific paper • 2014

A spatial Anthropology of the Changing Use of Urban Spaces in Tokyo, Japan

By: Heide Imai

Abstract: Cities like Tokyo face recently new, complex urban challenges. However, responses to the changing urban space are often reflected in the emergence of new cultural revivals or the forging of unknown, hybrid subcultures, which can be understood when studying the diverse ways people (re-) interpret small urban places in relationship to their changing lifestyles. This paper will discuss...

Scientific paper • 2014

Analysis of Change- Intercultural Design Exchange Germany and Japan - Approaching the Question of Future Living

By: Heide Imai, Anthusa Loeffler

Abstract: This is the topic this paper wants to discuss in the context of Tokyo, which is characterized by Roland Barthes as a city without a center. After the enormous growth in the second half of the twentieth century of Tokyo, we have to discuss the De-growth and the chance for future living at different examples found in Japan and Germany. In summary, this paper focuses on the question in...

Scientific paper • 2014

Reducing Energy Dependence at Urban Scale as an Aspect of Degrowth

By: Andrea Immendoerfer, Markus Winkelmann, Oliver Parodi, Collette Waitz

energy technologies, renewable energy, energy efficiency, sufficiency, neighbourhoods, rebound

Scientific paper • 2014

Energy use in the Spanish Agri-food System (1960-2010). On possible courses for economic degrowth

By: Juan Infante-Amate, Eduardo Aguilera, Manuel González de Molina

Abstract: The main purpose of this work is to quantify energy consumption in the agri-food chain in Spain. The years 1960, 1985 and 2010 are analysed, giving an overview of the important changes that have occurred in the sector. Consumption of different forms of energy is estimated (final, primary, distinguishing between direct and indirect consumption and between renewables and...

Scientific paper • 2014

Ecological citizen in the midst of right to the city movements in Turkey

By: Mine Islar

Abstract: Social movements, as powerful channels of political expression and mobilization, have become global phenomena with potential to reshape societies and politics around the world. The purpose of this paper is to produce an interdisciplinary study of right to the city movements by analyzing the re-politicization of the citizens engaged in Turkey’s Gezi movement. The paper aims at...

Scientific paper • 2014

Governance of sustainability transformation: Transformative environmental policy

By: Lisa Graaf, Holger Bär, Klaus Jacob

Abstract: In this paper we develop a concept of transformative environmental policy as a complementary field of environmental policy, which addresses ongoing processes of societal change and utilizes them for achieving environmental sustainability. In our view, transformative environmental policies are not replacing other environmental policies that protect natural resources or reduce emissions...

Scientific paper • 2014

Pathways towards an environmentally sustainable economy: Explaining the differences

By: Karen Jeffrey

Abstract: As well as presenting an opportunity to understand where commonalities exist between degrowth advocates and others calling for a transition to an environmentally sustainable economic system, this analysis will highlight the causes of disagreement in views of how an environmentally sustainable economy might be achieved. Our NETGREEN research identifies the trail of logic that shapes...

Scientific paper • 2014

ALTERNATIVE STRATEGIES IN DEALING WITH WASTE IN A WORLD OF FINITE RESOURCES

By: Helena Jeronimo

Abstract: Waste reveals a great deal about values and how we live, the economy that produces it, and our notions of development. An economy driven by the compulsion to make and consume have formed a world in which the lifetime of “durable” products tends to be shortened to that of “consumables,” while nonrenewable natural resource stocks are consumed like renewable production flows. This paper...

Scientific paper • 2014

Meteorological Considerations in Energy and Livelihood from Strange Attractors of Wind

By: Matt Ji

Abstract: Renewable energy has some challenges due to its variability and incompatibility with the modern electricity grid. However, novel methods of extracting valuable fractal behavior of wind speeds show very powerful spatially and temporally correlated features. Further investigation shows that energy can be quite readily quantified given this approach and its implications are deep reaching...

Scientific paper • 2014

"Die Wahrheit ist dem Menschen zumutbar"

By: Bruno Kern

Scientific paper • 2014

Green Capitalism: The God that failed, by Richard Smith

By: Bruno Kern

Abstract: The article shows, how the oroject of a green capitalism of green technology, green taxes, eco-conscious shopping, profit seeking with environmental goals and the like clerly failed. Maximizing profit and saving the planet are inherently in conflict and cannot be systematically aligned. The possibilities for "dematerializing" production are severely limited. The only way to prevent...

Scientific paper • 2014

Attitudes towards technology: dominant technological optimism and challenges for the degrowth alternative

By: Christian Kerschner, Melf-Hinrich Ehlers

Abstract: The way our society sees and relates itself to technology is crucial for the debate on economic degrowth. Latouche and others have recognized this and propose, a highly critical if not pessimist attitude. A position which goes back to Georgescu-Roegen but more importantly to Ivan Illich and those authors which describe technological systems as autonomous social systems; most...

Scientific paper • 2014

The relevance of the phenomenon of Peak-Oil for the Degrowth paradigm

By: Christian Kerschner

Abstract: This paper is part of an effort to compile a vocabulary for Degrowth. Such a collection of concepts for the paradigm is important for the creation of a common language and knowledge base. This article is the first one, which tries to offer a universal definition of resource peaks and explains de main basics behind such phenomena. Peak-Oil is one of the most central elements in the...

Scientific paper • 2014

Non-renewable energy entitlement scheme for Europe

By: Veronika Kiss

Abstract: Non-renewable energy entitlement scheme for Europe – a policy tool to fit our consumption within planetary limits Special Session: REDUCTIONS: Reducing Environmental Degradation & Unsustainable Consumption Trends & Impacts On Nature & Society The non-renewable energy entitlement scheme is a means to achieve an absolute reduction of nonrenewable energy use at EU level with...

Scientific paper • 2014

The Resource Cap Coalition - Advocating for policy tools, which set limits to unsustainable consumption and production

By: Veronika Kiss

Abstract: The Resource Cap Coalition - Advocating for policy tools, which set limits to unsustainable consumption and production Special Session: Respecting planetary boundaries while enhancing the well-being of all Today we face growing global competition over resources and price increase, which hits the poorest the most mainly in impoverished countries, but also in the rich. Policy efforts...

Scientific paper • 2014

Prelude to a Critique of Ecological Economy

By: Helmut Knolle

Ecological Economics, History of economic theory, Recycling, Climate protection, Steady-state economy

Scientific paper • 2014

Nothing but Growth for Shrinking Cities? Urban Planning and its Influencing Factors in Poland

By: Bettina Knoop

shrinking cities; urban planning; deindustrialization; demographic change

Scientific paper • 2014

Let´s share!

By: Charlotte Knorr

Abstract: The Sharing Economy represents a social and also a media phenomenon, which indicates that people are sharing goods of any kind (material and immaterial) on the Internet for further using, distributing, splitting up, giving away or even sell. This phenomenon is currently experiencing in the media a veritable boom, both in the so-called Social Media (Web 2.0) as well as in the press...

Scientific paper • 2014

Let them Eat War: Climate Change, Food Insecurity and Conflict

By: Sören Köpke

Abstract: Climate change is increasingly framed as a security concern. Proponents of the environmental security discourse warn that dwindling water resources, loss of arable land and grazing grounds will cause hunger and conflict. These resource-related conflicts will arise in the most vulnerable parts of the Global South. However, this discourse is blind to the political economy of a...