Should the ecological left aim to reduce all consumption, or to radically transform the prevalent type of consumption?

Presentation [part of the standard session “Limits, Ethics, Unsustainability and Change“]

Critical views of consumerism are widely shared among degrowthers. However, there is a risk of overlooking a particular affective dimension of consumption: the ‘entropic feeling’. The latter is triggered when we surpass the biophysical limits of our human body and come to enjoy the pleasures of dense energy, e.g. when we drive cars or drink coffee. Taking a critical and re-constructive stance towards what we call the ‘awesome life’ might increase the affective and strategic capacity of degrowth.

Presenters: Michael Deflorian (Institute for Social Change and Sustainability, WU Vienna), Karoline Kalke (Institute for Social Change and Sustainability, WU Vienna)

Language: English with German translation

Technical details: Standard A5_Michael DEFLORIAN&Karoline Kalke_The Awesome Life_ Why Degrowthers Need to Talk about the Feeling of Entropy.mp4, MPEG-4 video, 53.5MB

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Conferencia de la Plenaria del Jueves por Ulrich Brand: “Cómo el capitalismo afirma su hegemonía: El modo de vida imperial como promesa de riqueza imposible”

Abstract: Metrics on resource productivity currently used by governments suggest that some developed countries have increased the use of natural resources at a slower rate than economic growth (relative decoupling) or have even managed to use fewer resources over time (absolute decoupling). Using the material footprint (MF), a consumption-based indicator of resource use, we find the contrary: Achievements in decoupling in advanced economies are smaller than reported or even nonexistent. We present a time series analysis of the MF of 186 countries and identify material flows associated with global production and consumption networks in unprecedented specificity. By calculating raw material equivalents of international trade, we demonstrate that countries’ use of nondomestic resources is, on average, about threefold larger than the physical quantity of traded goods. As wealth grows, countries tend to reduce their domestic portion of materials extraction through international trade, whereas the overall mass of material consumption generally increases. With every 10% increase in gross domestic product, the average national MF increases by 6%. Our findings call into question the sole use of current resource productivity indicators in policy making and suggest the necessity of an additional focus on consumption-based accounting for natural resource use.

PNAS, May 2015, 112 (20), pp. 6271-6276

Esta presentación explica los desafíos de un modelo energético sostenible en México (2050).

Socio-environmental issues will continue to emerge if an energy transition project does not include changes in patterns of consumption and resource governance.

In July 2019, the Stay Grounded Network met in Barcelona to discuss how to counter the massive growth in the aviation sector. A new movement for degrowing aviation and fostering climate justice was born. The results of the conference and further discussions fed into this report, outlining numerous measures to reduce air travel in a just way.

(Excerpt)

“As we continue to grapple with climate change, we can expect consumers, rather than politicians, to increasingly drive degrowth by changing their consumption patterns. Firms should think in an innovative way about this consumer-driven degrowth as an opportunity, instead of resisting or dismissing the demands of this small but growing movement. Businesses that successfully do so will emerge more resilient and adaptable — instead of necessarily selling more, they will sell better, and grow in a way that satisfies consumers while respecting the environment.”

Presentation by Madalina Balau

In Romania all parents want to offer their children a better life and a better future, sometimes with their own sacrifice, yet the years following communist regime have brought unsustainable development, present in environmental degradation and social insecurity. After living in communism and knowing how bad it was, people have been accustoming for the last 26 years, to accept the lesser evil, and all critics to current capitalism and democracy are seen as communist nostalgia. I believe Degrowth can open the debate and stop seeing reality in dual terms – evil and good, or evil and less evil – and I try to explore this possibility here. The purpose of this paper is to understand, from parents perspective, the way consumer culture has impacted childhood and produced changes in their children’s lives. This will enable identifying lessons for a good life, from both communist regime and consumer culture childhoods. The study is based on interviews conducted with adults born in Romania during the communist regime, that lived at least some part of their childhood then, and who are now parents. The present findings suggest that parents see their children offered more opportunities of buying products and services, more activities to attend and more wishes to fulfill. This comes at the expense of less time for family and lost connections with the extended family, less freedom to play and less freedom to refuse consuming certain products due to peer pressure. These are identified mainly as a paradox, since in appearance we have more freedom, but time pressure and the lack of financial means to attend certain activities makes this freedom impossible to obtain in individual lives.

Shareable’s guide to setting up a repair café.

The author compared a series of studies regarding the possibilities for environmental impact in clothing consumption.

Worldwide, economic growth is a prominent political goal, despite its severe conflicts with ecological sustainability. Contributing to the debate on economic ‘growth imperatives’, this article explores the thesis that both firms and consumers frequently acquire goods that increase their efficiency (productivity). For firms, efficiency is accepted as a main investment motive, but for consumers it is usually framed as convenience, ease, or comfort. Via social diffusion processes consumer goods that can save time and costs are transformed from a welcome expansion of possibilities into a social imperative whose noncompliance over time also has economic drawbacks. Positive feedback mechanisms not only lead to an acceleration of private life but favor ever more efficient industry and trade structures on the supply side, contributing to a redistribution of incomes and revenues. Eventually, a comprehensive consumption pattern leads to a new ‘normality’ and makes the renunciation of consumer goods like cars, computers or smartphones virtually impossible. Both microeconomics and consumption sociology generally assume fundamental differences in the motivations, goals and overall structural conditions of firms and consumers. Some reasons for this scholarly asymmetry are discussed and a more symmetrical consumption model is proposed.

Technology in Society, vol. 59, November 2019