Degrowth for Dummies

To grasp the full breadth of the Degrowth movement one needs to be familiar with the many euphemisms that are employed. These substitutions are all designed to protect a spoilt and complacent audience from accepting the reality of the enormous contraction in global GDP growth that is required before humanity can return within the available biocapacity of Earth. Despite the extensive level of denial in this respect, there are a rapidly growing list of organisations that are brave enough to label themselves openly Degrowth. Examples of euphemisms that you need to be familiar with:

• Beyond Growth, for example the conference in May 2023, summarised here into 7 hours of YouTube
• Post-growth, favoured term from Tim Jackson, author of ‘Post Growth — Life After Capitalism’
• Circular Economy, describes the ‘sustainable’ economic model that Kate Raworth introduced in her book ‘Doughnut Economics’; although not strictly Degrowth, anyone trying to implement this model will soon appreciate how far over carrying-capacity we operate.
• Steady-state economics, similar to circular economy with the same blindspot regarding the need for GDP Degrowth.
• Wellbeing Economy - this concept is a particular favourite of mine; it is a ‘catch-all’ that mops up all the euphemisms above into one happy family. The administrators of the Wellbeing Economy Alliance do a wonderful job keeping a very diverse membership happy in the delusion that human well-being can be achieved with or without GDP Degrowth
• Deep Transformation Network — founded by Jeremy Lent, author of the ‘Web of Meaning’, is a collection of soul-searching individuals seeking an ecological economy.

All of these euphemisms overlook the fact that we cannot simply step from extreme ecological overshoot aggravated by escalating climate breakdown directly into sustainability; at least not before a very significant amount of global GDP Degrowth and probably a similar reduction in population size. To understand what size of global human population might be genuinely sustainable, it is important to understand that the data from the Global Footprint Network does not allow any biocapacity for non-human life forms. The picture below is from the Wikipedia entry on ecological overshoot.

The Wikipedia entry explains that the definition of ‘Ecological Overshoot’ does not leave any biocapacity to other life forms; so this term is not the same as the concept of ‘exceeding the carrying capacity of Earth’.

We probably started exceeding the carrying capacity of Earth in 1925 when our population reached 2 billion. Since then the steady the rise in background extinction rates has been monitored in the decline of the insect population. See excerpt below from the World Wildlife Fund report in 2020:

When our global population reached 4 billion in the 1970s, we were already exploiting all the available biocapacity for our own purposes. For biodiversity to be able to flourish again, a sustainable human population is likely to be less than 2 billion; because we need to bear in mind that the total biocapacity of Earth is now shrinking rapidly due to climate change.

Even the organisations that are brave enough to label themselves openly ‘Degrowth’ will hesitate to admit that we need to shrink global GDP by three quarters; i.e. to a quarter of the level of consumption in 2023.

It is important to appreciate that the economic growth mindset was employed when we designed our STEM education system, which is why it is so hard for us to appreciate the ecocidal nature of the growth model in which we have been schooled. We are still being taught that making money and exploiting technology is a good thing. And surely having a family is necessary for our species to endure, isn’t it? Well, unfortunately, in the apocalypse that is now well under way, none of these activities are helping towards the survival of our species. On the contrary, continuing with business-as-usual is fatal for us. We are still putting financial ‘profit’ before healthy ecosystems, when it is the latter that we need for survival.

With regards to having children, the world is simply not a safe place for an adult anymore, let alone a vulnerable child. A voluntary global birth strike for 5–10 years would give our ecosystems a chance to recover from the injuries that we daily inflict. It would spare billions of unborn from suffering; and it would offer those children that have already arrived a slim chance for fulfilled lives. During this period we can attempt to reorganise our society whilst giving GDP Degrowth top priority. If many of us are still here in ten years time, it will be a truly wondrous miracle.

For decades we have been ignoring the insights offered through the I=PAT equation within environmental sciences in the 1970s.

Human Impact = Population size * Affluence * Technology

The IPAT equation informs us that the ecological footprint of an individual will usually increase with their affluence and the amount of technology that they rely upon for survival. It is not just personal income, anyone in an affluent country will have a high footprint, because of the protection provided by the civil infrastructure in those countries. This protection will rapidly crumble in the unfolding apocalypse. In our current context, any increase in GDP rapidly translates into further environmental degradation, and consequently financial inflation. Without the ability to grow crops no amount of money can save us, and our money rapidly devalues.

A shared global aspiration to equitably shrink the global GDP and population size, will be very helpful during the ecosystems collapse that we are now experiencing. To be sustainable we need to allow at least half of the Earth’s biocapacity for biodiversity to flourish once again. Humanity is consuming 1.75 Earths, the carrying capacity is about 0.5 Earths. Therefore we need to shrink the global economy by about 70% to get back within carrying capacity. 100*(1.75–0.5)/1.75

This animation explains how insect decline implies that we need to reduce our global consumption back within the levels that we used a century ago. To achieve this we need to move away from our failing monetary model by implementing a global rationing scheme. In this way we can minimise our global resource use and share resources fairly according to the need in the different environments that exist globally. Empowering and facilitating a global birth strike will maximise the protection for our unborn from the unfolding tragedy.

Barbara Williams is working to persuade all the different flavours of the Degrowth movement to accept the harsh reality that we urgently need to downsize the global economy to a quarter of its current level. Anyone who is interested in envisioning an altruistic Anthropocene in which we all work together peacefully with the shared objective to shrink back within the biocapacity of our planet is advised to read her social science paper ‘Scientists Warning proposes a Roadmap to Ecological Justice’.

Her book which was published in 2021 is free to download: ‘Saving Us from Ourselves — Can we Repair 50 years of ecological overshoot?’

Her submission to the 2023 global stocktake for the Paris climate agreement was approved and appears on the UNFCCC website.

The website and publishing house are both named Poems for Parliament. Barbara can be contacted by email: bw@poemsforparliament.uk