Info, news & debate
Steady-state economics
12 economic growth myths and how to counter them
It’s essential that we stabilise the global economy. More people understand this every year, but corporations and governments don’t, and so we continue to destroy nature for profit. They’ve built up a bank of myths around the necessity of perpetual growth. Here are 12 common ones, and how to respond to them.
What makes the commons movement different? (A: it’s much more difficult to co-opt.)
The commons is a movement to create a different world, not just the same system with a few tweaks to make it more bearable. If successful, obviously there will be entities out there that will try to undermine it, buy it and ultimately, to crush it. But there are aspects to the commons model that will, I think, make it more resistant to this than existing models.
Degrowth or ‘green growth’?
Degrowth’s foundational opposition to continued economic expansion presents a clear challenge to coalition-building on climate. But degrowth is grounded in the ecological reality that resources are finite, a key truth that mainstream climate advocates seem to ignore.
George Monbiot and friends are wrong: techno-utopianism won’t save us
George Monbiot has joined a campaign called ‘Reboot Food’, working with techno-utopians who would like to see governments remove support for organic food and deregulate the GM industry, as well as producing bacteria-based food in giant factories (‘precision-fermentation’), and getting rid of smallholdings.
How much trouble are humans really in, and what can we do about it?
I’m inviting you to come on a journey with me. In an attempt to answer the question above, I’m going to research and write a series of blog articles (including interviews with key people), from which I’ll produce a book, and re-structure the Lowimpact website, including our message.
How perpetual GDP growth is killing fishing
Stephen Coghlan, associate professor of freshwater fisheries ecology at the University of Maine, and Maine chapter director for the Center for the Advancement of the Steady-state Economy, explains how the quest for perpetual GDP growth is damaging fish and fishing.
How to spread the idea of (much) more radical change?
We need system change, no less (i.e. system replacement, rather than trying to tweak this fundamentally damaging system). Here, I want to talk more about how I came to this conclusion, and what the route to radical change might be.
Can governments solve the climate problem?
Short answer: no, because governments are fixated on maximising GDP growth, which is the root cause of the climate crisis, and which far outweighs any (rare) beneficial legislation that they might introduce.
Reflections on building the ‘Commons’ economy
Lowimpact has been around since 2001, and we’ve provided lots of ways to help people live more sustainably. We’re going to also be focusing on how to build the ‘commons’ economy in future, as a viable alternative to the status quo.
Communicating about degrowth, with Mark Burton of Steady-state Manchester
Constant GDP growth causes ecological damage – there’s the constant expansion in the use of energy and materials, and the by-products of their use.
Is it time to rethink the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals?
Time to rethink the UN’s ‘Sustainable Development Goals’: the concepts of ‘development’ and ‘progress’ based on eternal GDP growth are flawed.
Review of Brett Scott’s ‘Cloud Money’
Review of Brett Scott’s ‘Cloud Money’, a ‘convoluted payments circuitry, tied together by institutions you cannot see, but who can see you’.
How the state favours big business and causes inflation with ‘Quantitative Sleazing’
A new essay on the economics of the pandemic suggests that the recent inflation is a sign that that failure is accelerating towards us. It’s an important reminder for us to ask ourselves how ready we are to both cope and help others in a crumbling economy.
How not to build a movement, as demonstrated by Chris Saltmarsh
We thought you might like this extraordinary defence of Deep Adaptation by Matthew Slater. Last year, he and Extinction Rebellion co-founder Skeena Rathor, authored a chapter in Deep Adaptation: Navigating the Realities of Climate Chaos; last month it was reviewed by newcomer Chris Saltmarsh, the champion of Jeremy Corbyn’s Green New Deal proposals and author of ‘Burnt’.
Toward co-operative commonwealth: transition in a perilous century
A while ago, we interviewed Pat Conaty, author, academic and stalwart of system change activism. We talked about how to grow the ‘co-operative commonwealth’ and about what constitutes the ‘commons’ in the 21st century. Pat is now part of the Synergia Institute, who have put together a MOOC for those of you involved with social and environmental change, and frustrated at the lack of real change we can see around us.
Is money the root of all evil? Shaun Chamberlin Part 2
This is Part 2 of a conversation with Shaun Chamberlin (Part 1 is here). Shaun left the board of the Ecological Land Co-op as I joined. He’s been involved with the Transition Network – he wrote the Transition Timeline. His website is Dark Optimism. He took on the work of David Fleming after his death, …
Where are we headed? (‘physics doesn’t negotiate’): Shaun Chamberlin
At Lowimpact we’re interviewing people who are working to build a new kind of world. We want to promote what they’re doing, and find ways to work together. Today I’m talking with Shaun Chamberlin.
IPCC climate report: perpetual GDP growth is unsustainable
The Systems Change Alliance share our view at Lowimpact.org that the climate change problem can’t be solved within the current economic system, which requires and generates perpetual growth and wealth concentration. Here, Roar Bjonnes explains that it’s capitalism’s growth imperative that renders it forever unsustainable. With COP26 over, a leaked report from the IPCC (The …
The problem with COP26
The IPCC recently conducted a study into the combined effects of all the agreed targets of the countries taking part in the ongoing COP talks. Tucked away in the report is this: “The available NDCs of all 191 Parties taken together imply a sizable increase in global GHG emissions in 2030 compared to 2010, of …
Six reasons the EU isn’t as green as it claims
Every year in June, the EU celebrates its annual ‘Green Week’, in which Europe’s environmental elite gather to congratulate each other on how green they are.