The conference was hosted by a post-socialist environment with the purpose to bring together degrowth conversations from different Eastern European regions. To facilitate this process several preparatory meetings were organised throughout the region. In line with this regional focus, the conference drew from Eastern European degrowth thinkers such as Karl Polanyi, Ivan Illich, Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen and André Gorz.I urge you to forego the transcript by listening to Susan Paulson as she reads her opening poem and delivers her following remarks. Below is the hour and half session via YouTube, but her introduction and presentation is from 6:12m to 8:37m.
What should we do in the face of the ongoing extinction crisis? What is rewilding, and how does it work? Is de-extinction, which involves the resurrection of extinct species, advisable? Ashley Dawson puts mass extinction and the various efforts to address it in a broader political-economic context.Dawson targets capitalism as the culprit behind the mass extinction of life forms that is increasing at a rapid rate in spite of various attempts by advocates of "green capitalism" to preserve species. A very thought provoking interview throughout, but he specifically draws our attention to the destructive role of capitalism starting at 36:25m.
The simple life is expensive, and the honey, eggs, strawberries and other fresh foods we can produce are essentially valueless to the outside world thanks to petroleum. But we have to keep pace. Little house on the prairie only works when everyone is playing. If no one uses a car, it is not expected that you will, and the overall pace of your society slows down. Money is energy and velocity. Your rate of production must be commensurate with that of those around you with whom you hope to trade, or you will be for all intents and purposes, too poor to participate.
Throughout the world, there is now a desire to improve public health and combat climate change. As a result, Copenhagen’s renowned cycle-friendly policies are now serving as a template for some of the world’s most congested cities.This piece by Todhunter brought back so many pleasant memories of cycling with my Canadian friends through various parts of Canada. One benefit he didn't elaborate on--because he was focused on cycling as an efficient way of transporting people and as a way to promote a healthy environment--was the personal health benefits of cycling. I'm referring to both physical and mental health. After moving back to the US I have lived in an area that is not conducive to cycling, and also because of my advanced age I no longer cycle. I miss it, and I miss the health benefits--I use to be in such great shape!
The main conclusion defended below is that so-called ‘cheap oil’ (at ~$50 per barrel) is just as problematic as expensive oil (at $100+ per barrel), but for very different social, political, economic, and environmental reasons. Just as expensive oil suffocates industrial economies that are dependent on cheap energy inputs to function, cheap oil merely propagates and further entrenches the existing order of global capitalism that is in the process of growing itself to death.It is clear that he is much more informed about the economic and environmental factors than he is about geopolitical factors. Thus, he devotes much more space to the former. However, he does make this one telling comment about the current geopolitical situation:
Perhaps most importantly, with cheap oil Saudi Arabia is able to punish or put pressure on some of its (and the US’s) geopolitical enemies, including Iran and Russia – two oil exporters that are much harder hit by $50 oil than the wealthier Saudi Arabia .... As of early 2015, the Russian economy seems particularly weak and unstable, and there is some speculation that the US has colluded with Saudi Arabia to flood the markets for this very purpose ..., even if this hurts US shale producers. In fact, some analysts argue with plausibility that oil markets, in our neoliberal era, provide a means for the US government and the broader ‘Transnational Elite’ to insidiously wage economic war, especially against Russia .... It is very difficult to know how far these geopolitical influences are shaping the oil markets – and space does not permit a more elaborate analysis – but there certainly seems to be more than plain ‘supply and demand’ issues at play.Thus the timing of the current low oil prices are driven more by these current geopolitical factors, but other factors will inevitably produce the same effect. In other words, the foreground "noise" of this geopolitics is masking the background fundamental sounds of the operation of capitalism. His essay focuses more on the broader issue of the limited supply of relatively inexpensive oil within a capitalist economy which requires growth, and thus offers some very important insights about the resulting contradictions and disasters that we will experience as long as capitalism exists.
We need to create new, post-capitalist structures and systems that promote, rather than inhibit, the simpler way of life. These wider changes will never emerge, however, until we have a culture that demands them. So first and foremost, the revolution that is needed is a revolution in consciousness.
These notes offer a quick glance to ways, in the south of Mexico, in which people are regenerating the society from the bottom up. It is a new kind of revolution without leaders or vanguards, which goes beyond development and globalization. It is about displacing the economy from the center of social life, reclaiming a communal way of being, encouraging radical pluralism, and advancing towards real democracy.There are some writing flaws in this article and the author tends to over-idealize his commons theme; in spite of this he offers some promising examples of people who, drawing from their cultural roots, are creating islands of people-centered societies in the midst of a hostile capitalist world that serves only a small fraction of people bent on "owning" everything of value.
...capitalism promotes the processes, relationships, and outcomes that are precisely the opposite of those needed for an ecologically sound, just, harmonious society.
After presenting his critical analysis of the global situation, Trainer describes his vision of The Simper Way, which is a vision of communities creating highly localised, zero-growth economies, based on far lower resource and energy consumption than what is common in developed nations today, and in which the profit motive has been largely or entirely removed. Since Trainer believes that governments are inextricably intertwined with the economic imperative to grow, his theory of change is fundamentally ‘anarchistic,’ in the sense that he believes that ‘top down’ parliamentary processes cannot be relied on to play any significant role in restructuring society for The Simpler Way.It appears that Mother Nature is going to evict us from our planetary home, the Earth, because we have been trashing the place. It's shocking because many of us thought that we owned the place, but the truth is that we are only renters. It looks like we have only two options: 1) either we immediately stop trashing the place, which means changing the economic system, or 2) we immediately look for another planet and a means of getting there. If we don't stop trashing right a way, she will start the eviction process; and then its only a matter of decades before we are out of this world, which will leave only the second option.