My talk yesterday on #sufficiency as a programme of advancing responsible democracy, followed by an exchange of thoughts with the Environmental Protection Agency's president Dirk Messner and the Protestant Academy's Jörg Göpfert, was at the agency's headquarters in Dessau. It is a fascinating meandering building full of interior spaces that support the human dimension, fostering the agency's important analytical work, and reflect the meandering Elbe river nearby, the surrounding city and parks.
Huge congratulations, very muxh looking forward to reading this. So important to talk about #Sufficiency in policy circles. And I love “Strategy of the Enough”.
I kind of already knew. But sometimes you need to have it shoved in your face.
Degrowth is a terrible neologism. Awful.
It is guaranteed to be misunderstood and misrepresented. Like Chris did.
But Chris is a good egg.
But but one should always consider how one’s antagonists are going to use a term. And the political right will rip the word ‘degrowth’ to shreds as it enters mainstream discourse.
RT by @EU_EESC: 📣Our #COP28 side event @UNFCCC Pavilion!
⛔️Consumption levels in the EU are not sustainable. Join our #BeyondGrowth event to discuss the practical applications of #Sufficiency in governance, equity and #SocialJustice!
Apparently, with the Finnish energy mix (i.e. how electricity is produced and its emissions) a new gas car is lower emissions than a new 40kWh electric car over 15 years of use if you drive just 1,200km per year.
This is a REALLY low figure. We ride our electric cargo bike roughly three times that distance each year #sufficiency#cycling
"Unpicking the dominant, growth-based worldview will mean closely analysing the stories we have been told (and who those stories might serve), and bravely and courageously assessing whether all of this growth really does bring us ‘the good life’. "
“There is a growing body of scientific evidence supporting sufficiency as an inevitable strategy for mitigating climate change. Despite this, sufficiency plays a minor role in existing climate and energy policies.”
"Humanity exceeds its fair share of natural resources by more than 50% and likely needs to reduce this demand by 70-80% to operate within carrying capacity. Those with greater wealth are responsible for a disproportionately large share of overshoot."
A great article by @jasonhickel about degrowth, its relationship to technology and the problems of capitalistic growth in development of sustainable technologies.
I could quote something from almost every paragraph, as this is a magnificent piece.
"Is it really reasonable to grow the plastics industry, the beef industry, and the advertising industry in order to get more efficient trains?"
Today I learned about Earth Overshoot Day which is the day in a given year when “the world as a whole is exceeding its renewable biocapacity” (see W_Lucht@mstdn.social)
For the 🌍 that day falls on August 2nd. For 🇨🇦 it’s a shocking March 13th. March 13th! Let that sink in.
I think we Canadians need to do more. And quickly. There’s no time to lose.
Earth Overshoot today: from now on the world as a whole is exceeding its renewable biocapacity. It's amazing how much Earth provides humanity with, but we in the rich nations with strongly extractive lifestyles live greatly beyond our means. I post the example of Germany: 123 days within, 242 days beyond.
It's always been a 3-fold insight: planetary boundaries, humanity's opportunities, and reconnecting with the biosphere.
#sufficiency is an urgent topic, not a lifestyle fad.
We live beyond our means: Today is German Overshoot Day. For the rest of the year, Germany lives beyond the renewable capacity of Earth. The riches available to us have been used. Now we live off of others, of the future.
We're working on a paper to the gvmt on #sufficiency.