‘Degrowth’ movement going mainstream: COVID lockdowns inspire ‘shrinking the economy’ to save planet

[rangerrebew]

‘Degrowth’ movement going mainstream: COVID lockdowns inspire ‘shrinking the economy’ to save planet! -Economic growth ‘is itself the problem’

Marc Morano comments: My new book Green Fraud devotes an entire chapter to how climate activists praise COVID lockdowns and are seeking climate lockdowns and "planned recessions' and Degrowth to fight global warming.

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Axios: "The global economy shrank by an estimated 4.3% in 2020, according to data from the World Bank. That contraction was due both to the direct pain of the pandemic and the effects of social distancing measures, but it also led to a roughly 6% reduction in global carbon dioxide emissions — the biggest annual drop since WWII. However accidental, 2020 represented perhaps the best example we've ever experienced of degrowthism in action."

"For degrowthers, simply cleaning up the global economy by switching from fossil fuels to zero-carbon sources of energy isn't enough. Economic growth — the goal of essentially every government everywhere — is itself the problem.
Environmental activist Greta Thunberg...chastised delegates at a UN climate summit in 2019: “We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!”

https://www.climatedepot.com/2021/03/24/degrowth-movement-going-mainstream-covid-lockdowns-inspire-shrinking-the-economy-to-save-planet-economic-growth-is-itself-the-problem/
The movement now has its own dedicated academic journals, associations and conferences."

[Fishrrman]

I believe that those of the right have ideological/rational "blind spots", certainly nowhere near as many as those of the left, but there are a few that never go away.

One of them is the belief in "constant growth" in a somewhat finite world.

To those who say that "growth is good", and should never be addressed, I ask in return, "what would be the ideal population of the United States?"

Would it be 200 million?
Would it be 400 million?
Would it be 700 million?
Would it be 1 billion?
Will 2 billion Americans be enough?

If the reply is, "the population will stabilize itself", my reply becomes "well enough, but what happens to the economy when the population stabilizes, or even begins to shrink (as it's doing in Japan)?

Now, there is little to no "economic growth" because such growth isn't needed by a declining population.

Does the notion of a "steady state" economy then become desirable?

There are either limits to growth, or there are not.
If we accept unlimited growth, then we also must accept the eventual consequences of same.

Look around... how have things changed since you were young...??

Just askin'...

Aside:
I think about 140 million Americans (about the number when I was born) were more than enough.

[skeeter]

Its a matter of growth at all costs, vs sustainable growth, vs degrowth.

As a rule growth leads to an improving standard of living. Growth at all costs leads to an improving standard of living to a point, but after a time the wheels will come off, because the government WILL become involved calling balls and strikes - they'll have to - inviting corruption, as we see Amazon and Google et al having virtually purchased Washington DC, and coercion at the point of a gun. This is where the US has been for some decades.

Sustainable growth happens when individuals are allowed to progress as far as their personal skills, innovation and energy will take them, with the ONLY role the government playing is as a guarantor of security and occasional arbiter of disputes. Human nature will seek its natural level - some excel, for most simply earning a living will suffice, and a few will fail - and moderation will result.

Degrowth will lead to anarchy, as sure as hell. It is just not in the nature of a civilized, open & free society. Which is why the idea so appeals to 'progressives', I suppose.