It's great that the topic is getting a lot more attention!
If I had done the interview, I would have asked Saito about overpopulation. It is going to be extremely difficult to achieve desired results (true sustainability) with the world's human population at 8 billion and still growing.
Degrowth should include the goal of substantially lowering our numbers. That would amplify gains made in reducing consumption. It's going to be hard enough to get the Global North to reduce consumption while increasing material growth in the Global South. Moreover, our human population is currently way too high to allow many other forms of life to avoid extinction and recover from endangerment.
Here's a pertinent quote from Saito:
"There will be, of course, more usage of resources and energy in countries in the Global South, because right now they are under-consuming. Their development necessarily involves more consumption of energy and resources. That creates some pressure on planetary boundaries. So that means that the Global North needs to consciously degrow because it is over-developing, and has excessive production and consumption."
As we applaud the degrowth movement, we need to keep in mind related drivers of the ecological crisis, including overpopulation and extreme anthropocentrism. I've tried to bring together key requirements for genuine sustainability in this short essay ("How to Save the World. at https://scaledown.substack.com/p/how-to-save-the-world
How does the west consciously degrow when they’re being hit with excessive, unregulated migration that they don’t want (?) and can’t handle? on the southern border of the US, 2 million people per year are crossing irregularly, meaning not at official points of entry. This obviously expands consumption when first-world countries expand their population.
However, assuming first world countries wanted to reduce their population and consumption, which is a very shaky assumption, how would they go about encouraging their capitalist base societies to do that? I think it’s going to be very difficult, so my solution is we need to get rid of money as a system of value and replace it with Basic Services and the virtues. Once we get rid of money as a value system, values like nature, wildlife, spending time in nature, valuing nature, honoring our planet can have an opportunity to shift into focus and create better ways of living in harmony with our beautiful and wonderful world.
Well said. Thanks! On US immigration, the debate is never about sustainable population policy, only about politics and the immediate issues at hand. It is amazing how short-sighted our political and social establishments have become!
On Defining Degrowth
Here is an interview of Prof. Kohei Saito on his popular book on degrowth. https://grist.org/economics/slow-down-do-less-a-qa-with-the-author-who-introduced-degrowth-to-a-mass-audience/
It's great that the topic is getting a lot more attention!
If I had done the interview, I would have asked Saito about overpopulation. It is going to be extremely difficult to achieve desired results (true sustainability) with the world's human population at 8 billion and still growing.
Degrowth should include the goal of substantially lowering our numbers. That would amplify gains made in reducing consumption. It's going to be hard enough to get the Global North to reduce consumption while increasing material growth in the Global South. Moreover, our human population is currently way too high to allow many other forms of life to avoid extinction and recover from endangerment.
Here's a pertinent quote from Saito:
"There will be, of course, more usage of resources and energy in countries in the Global South, because right now they are under-consuming. Their development necessarily involves more consumption of energy and resources. That creates some pressure on planetary boundaries. So that means that the Global North needs to consciously degrow because it is over-developing, and has excessive production and consumption."
As we applaud the degrowth movement, we need to keep in mind related drivers of the ecological crisis, including overpopulation and extreme anthropocentrism. I've tried to bring together key requirements for genuine sustainability in this short essay ("How to Save the World. at https://scaledown.substack.com/p/how-to-save-the-world
How does the west consciously degrow when they’re being hit with excessive, unregulated migration that they don’t want (?) and can’t handle? on the southern border of the US, 2 million people per year are crossing irregularly, meaning not at official points of entry. This obviously expands consumption when first-world countries expand their population.
However, assuming first world countries wanted to reduce their population and consumption, which is a very shaky assumption, how would they go about encouraging their capitalist base societies to do that? I think it’s going to be very difficult, so my solution is we need to get rid of money as a system of value and replace it with Basic Services and the virtues. Once we get rid of money as a value system, values like nature, wildlife, spending time in nature, valuing nature, honoring our planet can have an opportunity to shift into focus and create better ways of living in harmony with our beautiful and wonderful world.
Well said. Thanks! On US immigration, the debate is never about sustainable population policy, only about politics and the immediate issues at hand. It is amazing how short-sighted our political and social establishments have become!
Keeping it simple is always a good idea. Live simply that others may simply live! Nice work, Tony.
Thanks! There's much to be done. Focus on tasks at hand with big picture goals in the headlights.