These Folks Think Eternal Economic Growth Will Lead to Unstoppable Climate Change
The “degrowth” movement says the developed world should let others catch up—or else accept the catastrophic environmental consequences.
Photographer: Gary Hershorn/Corbis via Getty Images
In recent years, a group of economists, ecologists, and anthropologists have converged on a way to address both climate and ecological crises that will also make the world happier, healthier, and more equal. The gist: “less is more”—which also happens to be the title of a new book by one member of this intellectual squad, Jason Hickel, an economic anthropologist at Goldsmiths University of London.
Known as the “degrowth” movement, these scholars first want the world to reconsider the value of gross domestic product as a metric for progress, as GDP may still be rising even as inequality worsens and overall well-being falls. Second, they contend that a sustainable planet must find a way to live within certain limits for things like climate change, ocean acidification, and biodiversity loss, called “planetary boundaries”—and that rich countries are abusing these boundaries by consuming too many resources. And third, they question the wisdom—and even the morality—of most climate models looking to keep temperature increases below 1.5°C, which require the use of negative-emissions technologies that draw down carbon dioxide from the air and are still in early stages of development.