Post-growth Woodstock
May 17, 2023 7:04 AM Subscribe
The Beyond Growth 2023 conference held at the European Parliament was organized by around 20 MEPs from 5 parties.
Anecdotally: Attendees were largely masters, students or activists or similar in fields like sustainability. Almost all sessions were organized as a series of short talks, not really panel discussions, with relatively little debate among the panelists and only a few largely softballs audience questions.
Among these talks, there was a fair bit of rousing rhetoric in favor of degrowth and left wing causes, but at least you'll find short clips of many interesting academic speakers doing their rhetorical best.
There were relatively few climate scientist, only relatively thin comments on political paths to ending the push for economic growth, and little deeper discussion of environmental and economic collapse. There were a few pro-growth or even neo-classical speakers, with some even making physically impossible claims, or otherwise being rather tone def.
There were interesting insights into EU economic policy, regulations, indicators, etc. Also some of the MEPs chairing sessions like Philippe Lamberts and Manon Aubry were humorous and delivered astute comments on EU regulations and politics.
Anecdotally: Attendees were largely masters, students or activists or similar in fields like sustainability. Almost all sessions were organized as a series of short talks, not really panel discussions, with relatively little debate among the panelists and only a few largely softballs audience questions.
Among these talks, there was a fair bit of rousing rhetoric in favor of degrowth and left wing causes, but at least you'll find short clips of many interesting academic speakers doing their rhetorical best.
There were relatively few climate scientist, only relatively thin comments on political paths to ending the push for economic growth, and little deeper discussion of environmental and economic collapse. There were a few pro-growth or even neo-classical speakers, with some even making physically impossible claims, or otherwise being rather tone def.
There were interesting insights into EU economic policy, regulations, indicators, etc. Also some of the MEPs chairing sessions like Philippe Lamberts and Manon Aubry were humorous and delivered astute comments on EU regulations and politics.
this is my all time favorite topic and world solution view, the speaker list is great! Thanks for posting. If the human experiment is going to have any chance at survival for any more than the 0.5%, degrowth has to be taken seriously.
posted by tarantula at 11:44 AM on May 17, 2023 [6 favorites]
posted by tarantula at 11:44 AM on May 17, 2023 [6 favorites]
Matthias Schmelzer: Critiques of growth go back to Seneca, this is just the latest phrasing.
"only relatively thin comments on political paths to ending the push for economic growth" - yeah, that's because there is no feasible plan to make it happen. It's incredibly unpopular with the entire world. Even in Europe, you've got only 20 MEPs attending this conference out of 750. It's a laughable idea. Go to India and tell people there that growth is bad. Don't be surprised when they laugh in your face.
Rutger Bregman: "convinced that degrowth is the worst thing to have happened to the left in years"
And yet, the rainfall this summer in my country is so far outside the historical range that we're seeing unprecedented flooding, with "one-in-a-hundred" year events happening multiple times this year alone. It's clear we are we're exceeding planetary boundaries.
So there's a huge gap between what's politically possible to change and what changes we need to reduce the pain that's coming. And that pain is coming as we've fucked around with the climate, with water, with land, with ecosystems, with everything we depend upon. And we're getting to the stage of finding out.
We know we can decouple growth from emissions. We not doing it it fast enough.
We know we can remove all poverty globally. We're not doing it fast enough.
We know how to nuture and strengthen ecosystems. We just don't.
So we need a new politics, one of abundance, of plenty, and of progress. We can create shared welfare through shared contributions.
Degrowth is not that.
posted by happyinmotion at 2:08 PM on May 17, 2023 [7 favorites]
"only relatively thin comments on political paths to ending the push for economic growth" - yeah, that's because there is no feasible plan to make it happen. It's incredibly unpopular with the entire world. Even in Europe, you've got only 20 MEPs attending this conference out of 750. It's a laughable idea. Go to India and tell people there that growth is bad. Don't be surprised when they laugh in your face.
Rutger Bregman: "convinced that degrowth is the worst thing to have happened to the left in years"
And yet, the rainfall this summer in my country is so far outside the historical range that we're seeing unprecedented flooding, with "one-in-a-hundred" year events happening multiple times this year alone. It's clear we are we're exceeding planetary boundaries.
So there's a huge gap between what's politically possible to change and what changes we need to reduce the pain that's coming. And that pain is coming as we've fucked around with the climate, with water, with land, with ecosystems, with everything we depend upon. And we're getting to the stage of finding out.
We know we can decouple growth from emissions. We not doing it it fast enough.
We know we can remove all poverty globally. We're not doing it fast enough.
We know how to nuture and strengthen ecosystems. We just don't.
So we need a new politics, one of abundance, of plenty, and of progress. We can create shared welfare through shared contributions.
Degrowth is not that.
posted by happyinmotion at 2:08 PM on May 17, 2023 [7 favorites]
And to short-cut the likely next few comments - someone comes and explains why "degrowth" acutally means abundance, how it's about equitable economics providing decent living for all with decreased resource use focused on welfare-enhancing acitivities. Then I reply saying so why's it called "degrowth" then? That's just redirected growth and that's the same as what green growthers are calling for. Then we argue with each other about the definition of movements and it turns into internecine strife, just like debates on the Left always do.
posted by happyinmotion at 2:08 PM on May 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
posted by happyinmotion at 2:08 PM on May 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
"degrowth is the worst thing to have happened to the left in years"
(Obligatory...) Perhaps not
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 3:34 PM on May 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
(Obligatory...) Perhaps not
posted by Reasonably Everything Happens at 3:34 PM on May 17, 2023 [1 favorite]
Any sustained growth is physically impossible. A species with interstellar flight does not expand exponentially as some claim.
Is growth over for us yet? We'll reflect some sunlight, but we'll still likely hit +4°C and cut the world's carrying capacity below 1 billion humans, and growth clearly ends before then. We'll never engineer solution for most other planetary boundaries either. We'll simply make our world worse until most of us die.
We can decouple electricity energy from CO2 emissions, but not from resources, and only after major engineering trade offs, aka demand shifting not storage. We cannot scalably decouple transport from emissions either. Yes, we could build nuclear boats and planes but not enough of them. Yes, we could build some electric cars, but not enough and doing so worsens other planetary boundaries.
We cannot decouple economic growth from energy, or resources more boardly, so green growth cannot mean less energy and resource usage. We seemingly cannot decouple growth from transport either, not within a few decades anyways. We could build more electric rail of course, which maybe saves Asia-Europe trade, but the routes remain problematic.
We do know humans can still be happy using less energy and resources. We observe individuals choose this occasionally. We've no great historical precedent for society choosing less energy and resources, but we do have precedent for physically constrained societies becoming somewhat post-growth, and the rules change during real social collapse.
As a rule, the left always believes society could make choices which society cannot really make, or not directly anyways. At times they violate physics like green growth, but the insurmoutable obstacles are typically just path-dependence, not hard impossibilities. I think degrowth looks useful, even if we cannot choose degrowth, because the degrowth story sounds helpful during social collapse.
How could degrowth really happen here in Europe? America engages in a limited hot war with China, in which both attack the other's oil supply lines. America wants what oil capacity remains for itself, especially its military, so America cuts off most of Europe's oil. It'd quickly become popular here to live more simply.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:39 PM on May 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
Is growth over for us yet? We'll reflect some sunlight, but we'll still likely hit +4°C and cut the world's carrying capacity below 1 billion humans, and growth clearly ends before then. We'll never engineer solution for most other planetary boundaries either. We'll simply make our world worse until most of us die.
We can decouple electricity energy from CO2 emissions, but not from resources, and only after major engineering trade offs, aka demand shifting not storage. We cannot scalably decouple transport from emissions either. Yes, we could build nuclear boats and planes but not enough of them. Yes, we could build some electric cars, but not enough and doing so worsens other planetary boundaries.
We cannot decouple economic growth from energy, or resources more boardly, so green growth cannot mean less energy and resource usage. We seemingly cannot decouple growth from transport either, not within a few decades anyways. We could build more electric rail of course, which maybe saves Asia-Europe trade, but the routes remain problematic.
We do know humans can still be happy using less energy and resources. We observe individuals choose this occasionally. We've no great historical precedent for society choosing less energy and resources, but we do have precedent for physically constrained societies becoming somewhat post-growth, and the rules change during real social collapse.
As a rule, the left always believes society could make choices which society cannot really make, or not directly anyways. At times they violate physics like green growth, but the insurmoutable obstacles are typically just path-dependence, not hard impossibilities. I think degrowth looks useful, even if we cannot choose degrowth, because the degrowth story sounds helpful during social collapse.
How could degrowth really happen here in Europe? America engages in a limited hot war with China, in which both attack the other's oil supply lines. America wants what oil capacity remains for itself, especially its military, so America cuts off most of Europe's oil. It'd quickly become popular here to live more simply.
posted by jeffburdges at 5:39 PM on May 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
Fascinating what absolute hatred the word degrowth seems to inspire in people.
The basic origin of the term is a critique of the assumption that we can have never-ending growth in material usage. Infinite growth (of material consumption) is not possible, and having a reasonable discussion about where those limits are, and how those limits affect economic and political goals seems worth having to me?
There is definitely a liberal claim out there that pursuing infinite growth (in the fashion that we have been doing it and continue to do) will eventually make everyone in the world well off. But I find it pretty laughable.
In any event, replacing fossil fuel usage with wind/solar/nuclear will drastically reduce our material throughput as a whole. Copper, lithium, steel, silicon extraction -- it all pales in comparison to sustained oil, coal, and gas extraction and transport.
I suppose that a kind of infinite growth is possible, based not on increased material throughput, but rather the accumulation of value through labour (construction, repair, services, maintenance, software). But never at the types of rates that we have seen in the last century and a half.
posted by molecicco at 7:26 PM on May 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
The basic origin of the term is a critique of the assumption that we can have never-ending growth in material usage. Infinite growth (of material consumption) is not possible, and having a reasonable discussion about where those limits are, and how those limits affect economic and political goals seems worth having to me?
There is definitely a liberal claim out there that pursuing infinite growth (in the fashion that we have been doing it and continue to do) will eventually make everyone in the world well off. But I find it pretty laughable.
In any event, replacing fossil fuel usage with wind/solar/nuclear will drastically reduce our material throughput as a whole. Copper, lithium, steel, silicon extraction -- it all pales in comparison to sustained oil, coal, and gas extraction and transport.
I suppose that a kind of infinite growth is possible, based not on increased material throughput, but rather the accumulation of value through labour (construction, repair, services, maintenance, software). But never at the types of rates that we have seen in the last century and a half.
posted by molecicco at 7:26 PM on May 17, 2023 [3 favorites]
Is material decoupling possible?
MIT: "Yes, we have enough materials to power the world with renewable energy"
IEA: "Mineral requirements for clean energy transitions"
We'll need one to three billion tonnes of lithium by 2050. Sounds like lots? But we currently mine 8 billion tonnes of coal, each year every year. So shifting from fossil fuels to renewables is a massive reduction in mining, literally by orders of magnitude.
And if we stop shipping fossil fuels around the world, then our global shipping fleet can be cut by 40% straight away.
We have a route to greatly reducing material use in the near future and for the next fair few decades.
posted by happyinmotion at 9:04 PM on May 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
MIT: "Yes, we have enough materials to power the world with renewable energy"
IEA: "Mineral requirements for clean energy transitions"
We'll need one to three billion tonnes of lithium by 2050. Sounds like lots? But we currently mine 8 billion tonnes of coal, each year every year. So shifting from fossil fuels to renewables is a massive reduction in mining, literally by orders of magnitude.
And if we stop shipping fossil fuels around the world, then our global shipping fleet can be cut by 40% straight away.
We have a route to greatly reducing material use in the near future and for the next fair few decades.
posted by happyinmotion at 9:04 PM on May 17, 2023 [2 favorites]
We need to be clear about the difference between economic growth and increased consumption of natural resources. Perfectly possible (in fact ultimately essential) to have the first without the second.
posted by Phanx at 11:55 PM on May 17, 2023
posted by Phanx at 11:55 PM on May 17, 2023
We cannot separate economic growth as measured by GWP from increased consumption of energy and natural resources.
We could print more money, stock certificates, video game swords, etc. but we ultimately want those items to represent something like consumption, travel, retirement in comfort, etc. so really they represent claims on future energy and natural resources. See Lotka's wheel and the long arm of history by Steve Keen, Tim Garret, and Matheus Grasselli.
We could have human societies which require less energy and resources to deliver essential products and services, and even some comforts, but only via "private sufficiency and public luxury" model, so the opposite of economic growth. In this, we might perhaps have some adjacent fake video game economy with actual growth simply to entertain ourselves, but much more divorced from the real economy than today.
“The quantity of metal required to make just one generation of renewable tech units to replace fossil fuels is much larger than first thought. Current mining production of these metals is not even close to meeting demand. Current reported mineral reserves are also not enough in size. Most concerning is copper as one of the flagged shortfalls. Exploration for more at required volumes will be difficult, with this seminar addressing these issues.” — Simon Michaux, Is There Enough Metal to Replace Oil? (more)
At this conference, there were several speakers who acknowledged that our current recycling practices handle many of these minerals poorly. We know little about what full minimal recycling looks like, but likely lots of energy.
posted by jeffburdges at 1:28 AM on May 18, 2023 [1 favorite]
We could print more money, stock certificates, video game swords, etc. but we ultimately want those items to represent something like consumption, travel, retirement in comfort, etc. so really they represent claims on future energy and natural resources. See Lotka's wheel and the long arm of history by Steve Keen, Tim Garret, and Matheus Grasselli.
We could have human societies which require less energy and resources to deliver essential products and services, and even some comforts, but only via "private sufficiency and public luxury" model, so the opposite of economic growth. In this, we might perhaps have some adjacent fake video game economy with actual growth simply to entertain ourselves, but much more divorced from the real economy than today.
“The quantity of metal required to make just one generation of renewable tech units to replace fossil fuels is much larger than first thought. Current mining production of these metals is not even close to meeting demand. Current reported mineral reserves are also not enough in size. Most concerning is copper as one of the flagged shortfalls. Exploration for more at required volumes will be difficult, with this seminar addressing these issues.” — Simon Michaux, Is There Enough Metal to Replace Oil? (more)
At this conference, there were several speakers who acknowledged that our current recycling practices handle many of these minerals poorly. We know little about what full minimal recycling looks like, but likely lots of energy.
posted by jeffburdges at 1:28 AM on May 18, 2023 [1 favorite]
We only have plenaries in the playlist liked above the fold, so search youtube for the individual focus panels, as other groups like the Club of Rome post them. Example:
Beyond Growth focus panel 1 - Which prosperous future? Confronting narratives of growth
Also..
Nate Hagens posted insightful remarks about the conference
Michael Mezz's TikTok introduction to degrowth
“The present greenhouse gas forcing is 70% of the forcing that made Earth’s temperature in the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum at least +13°C relative to preindustrial temperature.” - Dr James Hansen
posted by jeffburdges at 11:29 AM on May 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
Beyond Growth focus panel 1 - Which prosperous future? Confronting narratives of growth
Also..
Nate Hagens posted insightful remarks about the conference
Michael Mezz's TikTok introduction to degrowth
“The present greenhouse gas forcing is 70% of the forcing that made Earth’s temperature in the Early Eocene Climatic Optimum at least +13°C relative to preindustrial temperature.” - Dr James Hansen
posted by jeffburdges at 11:29 AM on May 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
'Because here is the thing. Every. Single. Journalist. who was there (and there were many, from major outlets all over Europe and the world) that I spoke to, said "my editor refuses to print any story critical of economic growth."' - Julia Steinberger
posted by jeffburdges at 11:41 AM on May 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
posted by jeffburdges at 11:41 AM on May 21, 2023 [1 favorite]
« Older Wilde and Wonderfull | time mirrors Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
posted by doctornemo at 11:34 AM on May 17, 2023