Jennifer Szalai, writing in the New York Times, reviews several books making the case that the economists’ perpetual refrain, “growth is good”, is bad.  Our planet needs DeGrowth, they claim —  less consumption, not more. 

    “Consider some of the books published in the last several years: Tim Jackson’s “Post-Growth: Life After Capitalism,” Kate Soper’s “Post-Growth Living,” Giorgos Kallis’s “In Defense of Degrowth,” Vincent Liegey and Anitra Nelson’s “Exploring Degrowth,” Jason Hickel’s “Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World.” The proliferation of the term is as good an indicator as any: The literature of degrowth is growing.”

By building a global economy driven by personal consumption, we have indeed ruined our planet’s climate, water and land.  

 The question is: Having painted ourselves into a corner, how do we escape?

  Stop spending?  The economy would crash, causing recession, depression and unemployment, with massive suffering. 

   Shift from spending on consumption to investment?   That just means growth is driven by a different component.   Sure – better schools, trains, buses, transportation, airports… but, doesn’t solve the problem.

    The only practical solution is to maintain some growth, but —  eliminate fossil fuels, and create sustainable growth that at least does not do MORE damage to our planet;  reversing the damage will take technological innovation, to absorb carbon from the air and store it, an innovation that awaits us.