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#degrowth

59 posts47 participants8 posts today

We need to question the idea that more growth = a better life. This in not new - the #degrowth movement has been saying it for years.

Money, work, and stress shape our lives; #capitalism isn't delivering on its promises. Instead, we need to focus on things like community, well-being, and sustainability, but we also need safety nets and protections before jumping into big changes.

Basically, we need to rethink what "The Good Life" really means.

#climatecrisis #culture
znetwork.org/znetarticle/decou

Replied in thread

From the Bretton Woods Project: Focus on #MegaProjects

"The [#WorldBank] ’s shift towards leveraging private sector finance for development (see Governance above), which has gained momentum since 2015, includes a particular emphasis on promoting ‘infrastructure as an asset class’, in order to crowd in institutional #investors. This policy initiative is highly dependent on mega-infrastructure projects – and, as noted by a letter sent by concerned economists in October 2018, currently lacks a framework for aligning such mega-projects with the Paris Climate Agreement or the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs).

"This is of major concern, given that many planned ‘mega-corridors’ in developing regions are predicated on building a new generation of carbon-intensive infrastructure. In many cases, the Bank continues to support such projects that, while not ‘fossil fuel investments’ per se, are part of such carbon-intensive mega-corridors (see Observer Autumn 2018)."

Paper: Infrastructure Megaprojects as World Erasers: Cultural Survival in the Context of the Interoceanic Corridor of the Isthmus of Tehuantepec

Author: Susanne Hofmann, November 8, 2024

"This article explores the meaning of infrastructural changes resulting from the Corredor Interoceánico del Istmo de Tehuantepec (CIIT) infrastructure project for the cultural survival
of Indigenous peoples resident in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec region through the lens of ontological justice. The CIIT is being promoted as a multimodal road and rail transport corridor that will link the Gulf of Mexico with the Pacific Ocean, speed up global trade and benefit local residents. Based on interviews with affected residents in the states of Oaxaca and Veracruz, this research found that there is a strong desire for the continuity of existing, collective life
projects, Indigenous languages, cultural identities, beliefs, spirituality, established political and legal systems, and solidarity economy. De facto, the CIIT infrastructure project functions
as a technology of erasure of other lifeworlds, imposing integration into the One-World World (Escobar, 2016) and assimilation of Indigenous peoples and Afrodescendant communities.
Contemporary legal frameworks are not sufficient to guarantee alterlivability (Hamraie, 2020). Therefore, infrastructural megaprojects based on modern/colonial-extractivist-
developmentalist premises continue to threaten the futurity of Indigenous and
Afrodescendant life projects.

[...]

"An increasing number of infrastructure corridors, such as the Corredor Interoceánico, are currently being built across the globe (e.g. the Belt and Road Initiative/China, Corredor Bioceánico/Paraguay; Corredor Interoceánico/Chile-Bolivia-Brazil; The Northern Transport Corridor in East Africa/Kenya-Ethiopia-South Sudan – just to name a few). These projects are directed at reducing ‘economic distance’ –i.e. speeding up the transport of goods across
geographical distance whilst lowering the cost (Hildyard, 2016: 20). In the process, infrastructure megacorridors restructure whole regions into purpose-specific zones for export, logistics, transit, housing development, resource extraction, manufacturing etc.

"Thereby, they fragment geographic space, generating a distinctive reterritorialisation of the space to develop sites of capitalist growth. Megacorridors connect what Lerner (2010) called 'sacrifice zones' – geographic areas where processes of natural resource extraction cause permanent environmental damage – to global circuits of capital. Across Latin America the social and environmental impacts of extractive megaprojects and resistance against them has
been widely documented (Aguilar Rivero & Echavarría Cango, 2019; Domínguez, 2015, 2017;
Domínguez & Corona, 2016; Ibarra García & Talledos Sánchez, 2016; Pérez Negrete, 2017; Rodríguez Wallenius, 2015). This article explores the meaning of infrastructural changes resulting from the CIIT project for the cultural survival of Indigenous peoples resident in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec region through the lens of ontological justice."

Original paper:
journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/1

PDF version:
eprints.lse.ac.uk/120254/1/SHo

#MegaInfrastructureProjects #CarbonIntensive #MegaCorridors #SDGs #CIIT #GulfOfMexico #SustainableDevelopmentGoals #DeGrowth #IMFLoanSharks #SacrificeZones #CulturalGenocide #CulturalErasism #EnvironmentalDegradation #EnvironmentalDamage #Capitalism #CorporateColonialism #IndigenousPeoples #CulturalSurvival #IsthmusOfTehuantepec #OntologicalJustice #Tehuantepec #ExtractiveIndustries #Oaxaca #Veracruz #CorredorInteroceánico #BeltAndRoadInitiative #CorredorBioceánico #NorthernTransportCorridor #China, #Paraguay; Corredor #Chile #Bolivia #Brazil #EastAfrica #Kenya #Ethiopia #SouthSudan #IndigenousCulture #AfrodescendantCulture

Replied in thread

From the Bretton Woods Project: #Growth-based model #unsustainable

"In general, the growth-based approach to poverty reduction that the World Bank and IMF both promote has immense environmental consequences, as is evidenced by the deepening climate crisis. As noted by former World Bank Chief Economist Sir Nicholas Stern in 2007, 'Climate change is a result of the greatest market failure the world has seen.' Since their inception, the BWIs have played a formative role in aiding and abetting the global forces that have caused this market failure, through promoting economic growth as the core component of their development model, despite – as noted in the aforementioned Deaton report – mixed evidence that economic growth and poverty reduction are linked. While the Bank, and to a lesser extent, the Fund, have both increasingly tried to account for environmental and climate factors in their work over recent decades, these efforts have largely been limited to attempting to integrate these concerns into a growth-based development model."

Replied in thread

@SheDrivesMobility

2/2

Mit der Degrowth-Diskussion, wie sie geführt wird, werden keine Wahlen gewonnen werden: Wer wenig im Geldbeutel hat, will lieber mehr haben als weniger. Und nicht auch noch belehrt werden wie falsch dieser Wunsch sei

Mit #akademischer Sprache wird die breite Mehrheit nicht erreicht. Das haben weder #Bündnis90DieGrünen noch #DieLinke verstanden.

Erst die #Genderei, jetzt #Degrowth: Sind das nur Versuche, sich von den einfachen Leuten möglichst effektiv zu distanzieren?

"Western" societies have an upside down pyramid age structure, so more older than younger people. And the #covid pandemic has led especially this group to ask themselves 'what do I want to do in the last years of my life?' Quite some realized that meaningful relations with others, compassion and care taking including of ecosystems and future generations are the way to go. Too many (men) however seemed to have asked 'what they can get out of it' hence behave like total pricks now making daily life for many hard and are aiding the return of #fascism
#Gerontocracy #capitalism #assholery
#degrowth #solidarity #OneHealth

Here's a blog post and video discussion offering plenty of good stuff about the meaning and value of #degrowth.
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The system in which we currently exist isn’t serving the vast majority of people, so why continue with it? In fact, if we want any sort of livable planet, we must come up with a better alternative.

This is where the degrowth movement comes in, firmly based in truth-telling: Yes there will have to be sacrifices as we transition, but will they be sacrifices in the true sense of that word when what comes out the other end is a safer, more just, inclusive, happier, satisfied, peaceful and healthy world?

Would it be so bad if these ‘sacrifices’ involve letting go of so many of the things we currently do which are causing the current polycrisis?
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LEARN MORE -- climatesafety.info/thesustaina

Centre for Climate Safety · We need a better wayOur guests in The Sustainable Hour no. 528 are Alex Mungall and Terry Leahy from the Melbourne chapter of the Degrowth Network. 

Climate optimists like to claim that as soon as we reach “net zero” — the point when capitalist commerce and industry begins emitting less carbon dioxide than the amount absorbed by oceans, rocks, or plants, along with the amount being taken out of the atmosphere (theoretically) via high-tech CO2 removal — then global warming will stop almost immediately.

It’s a nice message, one intended to make us feel better, reassured that our leaders know what they’re doing. Don’t worry, we are told, everything is under control. By 2050, if not sooner, they’ll have the situation turned around. 😃

In the meantime, we can all relax and go ahead with Business As Usual. Keep shopping, keep buying, keep driving, keep flying. And don’t forget to do your part: buy a shiny new electric SUV and recycle your plastic water bottles!

BUT — there are big problems with this phony net zero promise, and the way countries report their emissions is one of them. Investigators have found huge discrepancies accruing through the use of spurious carbon offsets, outsourcing, and other UN-approved loopholes. Also, CO2 emissions from the military are not required to be included, nor are emissions from international trade.

Some estimates suggest that actual emissions could be at least *twice* as high as what’s being shown in the official reports. No wonder global temperatures keep rising even though we’re constantly assured that great progress is being made.

In addition, there’s a growing risk that climate change itself will trigger “natural” emissions of greenhouse gases as peat bogs dry out, as drought-weakened forests burn, as permafrost melts, and as the sea floor warms, releasing previously frozen methane clathrates. So it’s not just the emissions of human industry we need to worry about.

The point is, net zero is NOT zero. Don’t fall for their lies. It’s time for real change, for system change. We must demand the end of #capitalism and a pivot toward #degrowth.

Good news.

Collapse may not be certain. If drastic unprecedented global-scale changes are made within the next few years (i.e., the end of capitalism), the worst outcomes might still be avoided.

If.
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A remarkable new study by a director at one of the largest accounting firms in the world has found that a famous, decades-old warning from MIT about the risk of industrial civilization collapsing appears to be accurate based on new empirical data.
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➡️ enviro.or.id/2023/07/mit-predi