alice

> “We are not the defenders of the river. We are the river.” > — Fisherman, Magdalena River, Colombia Core idea of capitalism: one not only has to always profit but also do it in an accelerating way. When one does not grow enough, it's an economic crisis. The movement of degrowth raises the arguments against this social imaginary. Always growing is irrational, with no basis, but more importantly it is fatally dangerous. Earth is a balanced system; humanity is one of the cogs and by massively exploiting the Earth's resources the balance is no more and the system collapses. Degrowth is about scaling down world production, as it's the only way to prevent the aforementioned environmental collapse. There are several pathways: 1. End planned obsolescence. The lightbulb's life is the most famous example. 2. Advertising. Manipulating people to make irrational purchases does increase the GDP yet it doesn't improve our well-being. 3. Usership. Not every house needs a lawn mower every day. 4. End food waste. 30%-50% of all the food that's being produced is wasted. 5. Scale down eco-destructive industries. E.g. fossil fuel and beef. Undoubtedly, these pathways require massive economic and social restructuring. Countless problems, expected and unexpected, will arise. The author provides answers and solutions to many, yet, of course it could never be enough. Alas, it seems it's the only way to mitigate the sixth extinction. Looking back millions of years into the Earth system’s history there have been five mass extinction events. It looks like the sixth one has began.