We’ve lived so long under the spell of hierarchy—from god-kings to feudal lords to party bosses—that only recently have we awakened to see not only that “regular” citizens have the capacity for self-governance, but that without their engagement our huge global crises cannot be addressed. The changes needed for human society simply to survive, let alone thrive, are so profound that the only way we will move toward them is if we ourselves, regular citizens, feel meaningful ownership of solutions through direct engagement. Our problems are too big, interrelated, and pervasive to yield to directives from on high.
—Frances Moore Lappé, excerpt from Time for Progressives to Grow Up

Friday, March 20, 2015

Climate Justice and Degrowth: a tale of two movements

Click here to access article by Tadzio Müller from degrowth (Germany).
In the run-up to last year’s United Nations Climate Conference in Lima, Peru, a particular headline kept popping up, an attempt to once again establish a particular meme in the mind of global elites as well as wider populations: friends, the line goes, you’re right to worry about climate change, but...what you really, really shouldn’t do, is start believing that worrying about climate change should make you worry about trying to end economic growth’. Economic growth, so the story goes once again, can in fact be made to work very nicely with climate protection, if only it’s done the right way.
Müller examines the differences between the two movements and then finds a common path that both can merge on that can effectively fight the above position of capitalist elites.
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