degrowth

By Alex Jensen - CounterPunch, December 2, 2016

In 2015, a major study of 24 indicators of human activity and environmental decline titled ‘The Great Acceleration’ concluded that, “The last 60 years have without doubt seen the most profound transformation of the human relationship with the natural world in the history of humankind”.[1] We have all seen aspects of these trends, but to look at the study’s 24 graphs together is to apprehend, at a glance, the totality of the monstrous scale and speed of modern economic activity. According to lead author W. Steffen, “It is difficult to overestimate the scale and speed of change. In a single lifetime humanity has become a planetary-scale geological force.”[2]

Every indicator of intensity and scale of economic activity — from global trade and investment to water and fertilizer use, from pollution of every sort to destruction of environments and biodiversity — has shot up, precipitously, beginning around 1950. The graphs for every such trend point skyward still.

The Great Acceleration is manifest everywhere, including many areas not covered in the study. It is impossible to directly, humanly appreciate the ghastly scale of change. Only statistics can do that. For example:

• Humans now extract and move more physical material than all natural processes combined. Global material extraction has grown by more than 90 percent over the past 30 years, reaching almost 70 billion tons today.[3]
• In this century “global economic output expanded roughly 20-fold, resulting in a jump in demand for different resources of anywhere between 600 and 2,000 percent”.[4]
• For more than 50 years, global production of plastic has continued to rise.[5] Today, around 300 million tons of plastic are produced globally each year. “About two thirds of this is for packaging; globally, this translates to 170 million tons of plastic largely created to be disposed of after one use.”[6]
• The global sale of packaged foods has jumped more than 90 percent over the last decade, with 2012 sales topping $2.2 trillion.[7]
• “In the last 50 years, a staggering 140 million hectares… has been taken over by four industrial crops: soya bean, oil palm, rapeseed and sugar cane. These crops don’t feed people. They are grown to feed the agro-industrial complex.”[8]

Not only are the scale and speed of materials extraction, production, consumption and waste ballooning, but so too the scale and pace of the movement of materials through global trade. For instance, trade volumes in physical terms have increased by a factor of 2.5 over the past 30 years. In 2009, 2.3 billion tons of raw materials and products were traded around the globe.[9] Maritime traffic on the world’s oceans has increased four-fold over the past 20 years, causing more water, air and noise pollution on the open seas.[10]

By Roger Annis - CounterPunch, September 14, 2016

Capitalism has run so amok, producing so much waste and life-destroying pollution, that scientists now say that Earth has entered an entirely new epoch: The Anthropocene

On September 5 in Cape Town, South Africa, members of the ‘Working Group on the Anthropocene’ presented findings of their research to the annual International Geological Congress. A research paper by the group of 35 scientists, commissioned by the Congress, was published in January of this year, concluding that a new, “functionally and stratigraphically distinct” unit of geologic time has begun.

Scientists term the new epoch ‘The Anthropocene’, meaning that human activity has become the dominant influence on climate and the environment. Earth’s biosphere has been so thoroughly altered by human activity that changes are now permanently inscribed in the rock and fossil record, just as earlier events such as asteroid impacts and the evolution of multi-celled life forms left their records.

The Anthropocene succeeds The Holocene, an epoch of approximately 12,000 years which was marked by relative climate stability. During the Holocene, average global temperatures varied by no more than one degree Celsius. Here are two articles reporting on what the scientists have reported:

* The Anthropocene epoch: Scientists declare dawn of human-influenced age, by Damian Carrington, The Guardian, August 29, 2016

“… The current epoch, the Holocene, is the 12,000 years of stable climate since the last ice age during which all human civilisation developed. But the striking acceleration since the mid-20th century of carbon dioxide emissions and sea level rise, the global mass extinction of species, and the transformation of land by deforestation and development mark the end of that slice of geological time, the experts argue. The Earth is so profoundly changed that the Holocene must give way to the Anthropocene.”

* Expert panel: The Anthropocene epoch has definitely begun, by Ian Angus, in Climate and Capitalism, Aug 29, 2016

“… changes to the Earth System that characterize the potential Anthropocene Epoch include marked acceleration to rates of erosion and sedimentation, large-scale chemical perturbations to the cycles of carbon, nitrogen, phosphorus and other elements, the inception of significant change to global climate and sea level, and biotic changes such as unprecedented levels of species invasions across the Earth. Many of these changes are geologically long-lasting, and some are effectively irreversible.”

A 12-minute interview with author Ian Angus on the findings and recommendations of the Working Group on the Anthropocene was broadcast on The Real News Network on September 4; watch or read it here.

By Alberto Acosta; Translated by Dana Brablec - Alternautas, June 4, 2016

Marx said that revolutions are the locomotive of world history. But perhaps things are very different. It may be that revolutions are the act by which the human race travelling in the train applies the emergency brake.

Walter Benjamin (1892-1940)

Mainstream thinking – embedded within capitalist globalisation – leads us to accept the impossibility to imagine an economy that does not promote growth, as much as a world without oil, mining and agribusiness is impossible. Within this mainstream thinking, we can find people from every political stance, from neoliberals to socialists.

Reality, however, is that we must overcome such views, that is the great task of this moment. On the one hand, we must rethink the question of economic growth, and free ourselves from its shackles before we enter into a global socio-environmental debacle with unforeseeable consequences. On the other, it is increasingly urgent to move from an extractivist perspective focused on the demands of capital, towards a view that prioritises a dignified life to its fullest extent and enables the construction of structurally democratic societies. This task puts the capacity of critical thinking to test, as well as the capacities of our societies, states, and that of social and political organisations to engage in innovative and creative thinking.

Closing the door to this debate would entail closing the door on democracy itself.

By Flor Avelino, et. al. - Transformative Social Innovation (TRANSIT), September 2015

There are numerous social innovation networks and initiatives worldwide with the ambition to contribute to transformative change towards more sustainable, resilient and just societies. Many of these have a specific vision on the economy and relate to alternative visions of a ‘New Economy’. This paper highlights four prominent strands of new economy thinking in state-of-the-art discussions: degrowth, collaborative economy, solidarity economy, and social entrepreneurship.

Taking a perspective of transformative social innovation, the paper draws on case studies of 12 social innovation initiatives to analyse how these relate to new economies and to transitions toward new economic arrangements. The 12 cases are analysed in terms of a) how they relate to narratives of change on new economies, b) how they renew social relations, and c) how their new economy arrangements hold potential to challenge established institutional constellations in the existing economy.

Read the text (PDF).

By Béla Galgóczi - European Trade Union Institute, 2015

Our planetary limits demand a radical transition from the energy-intensive economic model based on the extraction of finite resources, which has been dominant since the first industrial revolution, to a model that is both sustainable and equitable.

Unfortunately however, energy transformation in Europe has, after a promising start, fallen hostage to austerity and to the main philosophy underpinning the crisis management policies in which overall competitiveness is reduced to the much narrower concept of cost-competitiveness. Regulatory uncertainty, design failures built into incentive systems, and unjust distribution of the costs, have also contributed to the reversal of progress in energy transformation currently observable across Europe.

In this book three country case studies highlight the different facets of these conflicts, while additional light is thrown on the situation by an account of the lack of progress in achieving energy efficiency.

By way of conclusion, a mapping of the main conflicts and obstacles to progress will be of help in formulating policy recommendations. Ambitious climate and energy policy targets should be regarded not as a burden on the economy but rather as investment targets able to pave the way to higher employment and sustainable growth. It is high time for this perception to be recognised and implemented in the context of Europe’s new Investment Plan, thereby enabling clean energy investment to come to form its central pillar. A shift in this direction will require an overhaul of the regulatory and incentive systems to ensure that the need for just burden-sharing is adequately taken into account.

Read the report (Link).

By J David Hughes - Post Carbon Institute, October 2014

In recent years Americans have been hearing that the United States is poised to regain its role as the world’s premier oil and natural gas producer, thanks to the widespread use of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”). This “shale revolution,” we’re told, will fundamentally change the U.S. energy picture for decades to come—leading to energy independence, a rebirth of U.S. manufacturing, and a surplus supply of both oil and natural gas that can be exported to allies around the world. This promise of oil and natural gas abundance is influencing climate policy, foreign policy, and investments in alternative energy sources.

The primary source for these rosy expectations of future production is the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE). Each year the DOE’s Energy Information Administration (EIA) releases its Annual Energy Outlook (AEO), which provides a range of forecasts for energy production, consumption, and prices.

The 2014 AEO reference case projects U.S. crude oil production to rise to 9.6 million barrels of oil per day (MMbbl/d) in 2019 and slowly decline to 7.5 MMbbl/d by 2040, while natural gas production is projected to grow for at least the next 25 years and hit 37.5 trillion cubic feet per year in 2040. Tight oil (shale oil) and shale gas serve as the foundation for these optimistic forecasts.

This report provides an extensive analysis of actual production data from the top seven tight oil and seven shale gas plays in the U.S. (These plays account for 89% of current tight oil production and 88% of current shale gas production, and serve as the primary sources of future production in the EIA’s forecasts—82% of forecast tight oil and 88% of forecast shale gas production through 2040.) It concludes that the current boom in domestic oil and gas production is unsustainable at the rates projected by the EIA, and that the EIA’s tight oil and shale gas forecasts to 2040 are extremely optimistic. What this means is that the country's current energy policy—which is largely based on the expectation of domestic oil and natural gas abundance far into the future—is badly misguided and is setting the country up for a painful, costly, and unexpected shock when the boom ends.

Joachim Spangenberg interviewed by Felicitas Sommer - EJOLT, July 1, 2014

Disclaimer: The views expressed here are not the official position of the IWW (or even the IWW’s EUC) and do not necessarily represent the views of anyone but the author’s.

For “Scharf-links”, a German online newspaper, Dr. Joachim Spangenberg , co-chair of EJOLT’s steering committee, spoke about the activities of EJOLT and the link between Environmental Justice and Degrowth, looking forward to the Degrowth meeting in Leipzig in the first week in September 2014 where EJOLT will be present. In the interview he explains that justice is a core element of any Degrowth process. Without justice, Degrowth won’t work.

[?] Dr. Spangenberg, for many people at EJOLT the Degrowth movement of the global North largely corresponds to the environmental justice movement of the global South…

[!] On our EJOLT map of environmental conflicts (www.ejatlas.org) it is not only possible to identify which regions are affected and which industries are causing conflicts, but also where perpetrators are coming from. These companies are primarily mining companies or other manufacturing industries, private ones as well as state owned ones. Apart from very few exceptions these companies are based in industrial countries, especially in Europe and the U.S. The victims of conflicts, in contrast, are mostly from countries of the global South. In these countries each month 2-3 leaders of environmental movements are being murdered. For them protection of the environment in is not a matter of goodwill but it is a matter of life and death.

[?] Who allows or fosters such developments, governments or corporations?

[!] State-owned energy companies in OECD-countries contribute 200 billion per year to state revenues. Many states are financially dependent on these companies and also on the taxes from private resource companies.

Many of the private companies are stock exchange-listed companies. The goal of high share prices collides with ambitious environmental targets. For example, to reach the 2 degree Celsius target two-thirds of remaining fossil fuels would have to stay in the ground. If this target were actually enforced, stock prices of the world’s largest corporations would collapse–their market value is based on the amount of resources they own, as these are considered the basis of future profits. Anything that reduces expected profits will lower the companies’ market value and this applies to laws protecting the environment, labour rights or indigenous people’s rights as well.

Australia‘s largest mining company, for example, would lose 50% of its market value if it had to re-classify 2/3 of its fossil fuel reserves as „unburnable fuels“. Mining and oil companies, but also the waste industry, do everything in their power to avert more stringent laws, more ambitious political targets and more effective sanctioning. Yet, with the Renewable Energies Law (EEG) in Germany it became apparent that big companies do not necessarily have the upper hand – RWE has lost 80% of its market value. However, the tough fight over renewable energies continues, also with the aid of the German Federal Government, to safeguard as much of the market value as possible.