Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
It will not help you make friends among politicians if you make an argument about the inevitability of degrowth because politicians and senior civil servants and journalists are almost without exception true believers in the faith of growth.
Despite my ambivalence about the demands of UK Extinction Rebellion I am really impressed by the way it has shot the climate emergency and bio-diversity collapse up the political agenda and into the public imagination.
Unfortunately there appears to be little recognition that such a Green New Deal must address a much bigger set of issues than merely climate change.
A conversation between Emanuele Di Francesco and Tim Jackson, discussing post-growth concepts of a circular economy, the limits of labour productivity and the dynamics of inequality.
In my view, the most glaring omission in the GND is its lack of any challenge to consumerism and our current obsession with economic growth.
It is time for us baby boomers to honestly acknowledge what we did and didn’t do with the gifts given to us by our forebears and be clear about our legacy with which we have saddled the next and succeeding generations.
This episode of Crazy Town focuses on the limits to growth, including the growth imperatives built into our economic institutions, and explores how the economy could make a shift toward sustainability. Along the way, Asher, Rob, and Jason take some potshots at Ronnie and his cohort of math-challenged wishful thinkers.
We must hold ourselves accountable for our actions before it is too late to prevent catastrophic collapse. When the water runs out we have no one to blame but ourselves.
An ecologically feasible Green Deal would involve resource and energy caps, at source, effectively the equitable rationing of commodities (goods and services). Doing this would also incentivise the transition to less ecologically and resource intense offerings across the market, so long as emitting activities are not thereby driven underground.
How do we define “good” or “excellence” without imposing an ideology or world-view on others who have their own? Who judges and according to what standards? If such a reconciliation is impossible, will we be required to make a difficult choice? Or is there no real choice at all?
By “conservative” I am not referring to anything resembling Republicans or European “center-right” parties, or positions yet further to the right on the liberal-conservative continuum as it is commonly understood today.
Money just isn’t the appropriate frame when we’re talking about the planet. Climate change is a special problem that traditional economic analyses aren’t built to handle.
