The topic of #degrowth has never been more popular. Here is a selection of recent articles published in mainstream media.
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"But what if growth is at best doing little to fix the world’s problems, and at worst fostering the destruction of the planet and jeopardizing its future?"
7 concepts from Herman Daly that will change your vision of economics.
1/ The ENVIRONMENTALLY EXTENDED INPUT-OUTPUT TABLE: bringing purely economic interactions, purely environmental interactions, and interactions between the economy and the environment into one comprehensive framework.
2/ The ENDS-MEANS SPECTRUM: political economy is the academic discipline that studies the use of intermediate means to produce intermediate ends.
What @paulkrugman says about green growth and degrowth is not only wrong - it is dangerous. Here is why.
Krugman argues that "despite lots of economic growth, British CO2 per capita is back down to the levels of the 50s — the *1850s*. Emissions reflect choices, not the level of GDP."
First, comparing per capita emissions between 1850 and today is disingenuous since there was 17,9 million people living in the UK in 1850 compared to 66,8 million today.
We need to seriously consider the ecological impacts of consumption in high income nations. In this report, the Spanish Ministry of Consumer Affairs conducts a thorough study of the Spanish national economy and its biophysical metabolism. 🧵
It’s like a life-cycle assessment with 16 indicators of environmental pressure but for the Spanish economy as a whole.
Results: when you look at domestic impacts (only what’s happening on the Spanish territory), it looks like environmental pressures are slightly decreasing.
If you think commercial aviation is a disaster for the climate, wait to hear numbers about the impact of private jets.
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Even though they're rather small (2% of the footprint of aviation), private jet emissions are growing even faster than commercial emissions.
In a single hour, a private jet emits 2t of CO2, which is the individual yearly footprint we should be aiming for. On average, a private flights pollutes 10 times more than its commercial alternative.