energy transitions, human labour, degrowth

Abstract: Willingly or not, due to climate change and/or scarcity of resources human society is in a transition away from the use of fossil fuels. This new transition towards a low carbon society will have as many far reaching implications for human labour as the transition towards the fossil fuels based industrial society has had. However, most analyses of “green jobs” pitch on single developments and fail to provide a comprehensive picture. Furthermore they are inseperably interwoven with the basic idea of promoting economic growth mainly by an ecological modernisation approach. To overcome this narrow approach we open up the time horizon and discuss history of labour starting with hunter and gatherer societies and risk an outlook into the future of labour. Demand for labour does not seem to be at risk. The challenge seems to be the economic balance between the remuneration of labour, the cost of raw materials, and the expectation of profits. To enable such developments a low or no growth society seems to be a pre-condition.