For the case of degrowth, economic anthropologist, Jason Hickel, defines the argument "a planned reduction of energy and resource use designed to bring the economy back into balance with the living world in a way that reduces inequality and improves human well-being." Hickel's view is to reduce resource and energy consumption, which will make it easier to rapidly transition to renewable energy. This economy would be one that could improve people's livelihoods despite a reduction in activity. Degrowth seeks to scale down ecologically destructive and less necessary production like S.U.V.s and beef while expanding more important sectors like health care and education. Also, the economy would enact policies like shortening the workweek and shifting workers out of declining industries.
Critics of degrowth wonder whether it offers the correct prescription of reaching carbon neutrality on a shorter timetable. It is important for the degrowth movement to not portray to rich countries that the climate movement can only be achievable if they stop eating meat or driving nice cars because the movement will collapse. New York magazine's Eric Levitz agrees that nothing short of a dictatorship could affect this massive transformation. Even though degrowth has no mass appeal, it allows us to wonder if G.D.P growth is the best indicator of human progress.
If this issue is either all or nothing for the politicians or the economists, "doughnut economics" could be an alternative. This view says that 21st century economies should abandon growth and make it their to reach the sweet spot- or the doughnut- between the "social foundation," where everyone has what they need to have a good life. Amsterdam's city government imposed this type of economy during the first wave of the pandemic last year to prioritize its residents' welfare and happiness over G.D.P. growth. Even though the U.S. has never embraced any type of degrowth policy, policies like universal basic services and shorter working hours could help solve the problem of America's addiction to fossil fuels.
2 comments:
I think I can relate myself with the growth people. I recently watched a Kurzgesagt video (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yiw6_JakZFc) that talks about how only reducing greenhouse gases emissions is not enough to end climate change. It is a great video to watch, truly. I believe it is necessary to make innovative technological improvements and transition to greener sources of energy to actually make a difference. It is also necessary to take good thoughtful decisions, for example, the EU's phasing out of Nuclear Power is contradictory to the aims of moving towards green power, over some concerns of nuclear disasters, like one in Fukushima in 2011, and Chernobyl. Proper construction and maintenance of infrastructure would eliminate disasters from occurring or at least reduce the effects of them.
As Aadarsha mentioned above, reducing greenhouse gas emissions is not enough to end climate change. It has recently become popular to use reusable straws and to protest plastic cups and certain types of lids from Starbucks. Lots of "save the turtles". However, these small changes do virtually nothing when it comes to changing climate change (not saying it's not bad to do these things and use reusable items). People debate about going to renewable energy, however they don't consider where that renewable energy is being "created". Those factories still need to have a source of energy in order to create the renewable energy and most of those factories are not using "clean" resources to create the renewable energy. Thus, is "clean" energy actually clean? Is it any better than using fossil fuels? These are all things we need to consider as well.
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