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Well the real answer is to reduce consumption. It can and should be done without sacrificing comfort. This is a very uphill battle against systems that are interested in distracting you by turning your attention towards fads (recycling, electrification, carbon capture) when in reality we need degrowth and permaculture. (Please read this thread a bit more, including my replies, before you tell me what I think degrowth means. I'm only using it to mean "less [economic] growth")

In a bit more detail:

How about less cars? More effective public transit is good for people and the climate.

Let's do away with golf lawns and pools for every house... Perhaps architecture can be adapted to suit the specific location instead of stamping the same stock photo "American house with garage that can fit 4 cars." Look at passive cooling and stuff. [Again, I'm talking about redefining comfort. Is a personal pool and large car and trimmed lawn really, honestly, what makes you comfortable? Or is it more a product of culture and advertising? You're absolutely free to believe either way, and I don't want anyone to force you to do anything.]

And honestly, we need to consoom less. Devices should not have a lifecycle of one year. You and I don't really need all these gadgets and trinkets, either. Let's stop buying random things

If you think this is a distraction or that it won't work because we can't get everyone to agree: Degrowth and permaculture requires honestly no critical mass. You can choose to buy things that last longer, and use them a bit more. Learn to fix things, etc. These are all nothing but straight benefits to you (more money in your pocket, skills that can make you more valuable in the current system, more time available now that you aren't swiping short form videos all day).

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There is no way this world exists without an authoritarian global government.

Have you analyzed the impact of the total elimination of 4 car garages, golf courses, "trinkets", and enforced 5-year upgrades on devices? do those rank among the highest-impact against climate change, or do you just not like them very much?

Do you expect that the people who would have the authority to make and enforce these decisions agree with you about which things are important or not, and have also done the cost-benefit analyses correctly and in good faith?

And they're resistant to buy-off by the industries that have the most to lose under a degrowth paradigm?

I never said anything about forcing this idea on other people. I believe that degrowth and permaculture are about yourself, not other people. I believe that this change needs to start from the local level, in an organic way, instead of being signed into law and all dissenters be crushed. By engaging locally, logistics and politics problems that you speak of are pretty much solved.

I believe that I can change people's opinion by talking about this possible world, and they are completely free to act how they wish. I also think that doing these things are straight selfish benefits for you (more money in your pocket, skills that can make you more valuable in the current system, more time available now that you aren't swiping short form videos all day)

Signed, this is what I believe as well; I also think there are technological solutions, but technology alone won't save us this time, because of the scale of the issue. How much carbon we need to remove from the atmosphere even optimistically (it's already planned that we need to remove an astronomical amount! even for the less good projections) is frankly nuts, astronomical. Removing carbon is much, much more difficult than burning buried carbon.

I also echo the sentiment that we should both create a culture of questioning excesses, enjoying a simplified lifestyle of essentials: good health (address pollution, agriculture filled with toxic compounds, etc.), peace, arts and culture, instead of often self-destructive excesses; and that we should look at effective interventions: feeling good about it is not enough, we need actual effective change!

Some of the most effective changes you can do individually[1] is (1) reducing meat consumption significantly;[2] (2) Less air travel (3) Use alternative forms of transportation (bike, walk, public transit, live near work?).

(Of course, if you have a huge house with tons of appliances... I'm sure that's highly significant!)

I'm doing all those things personally. And as honest as I can: I think my health and wellbeing genuinely improved (I've lost weight due to better mostly-plant diet, am much more fit due to walking and public transit; I guess there's a psychological factor from knowing I'm helping too!). Public transit is the most inconvenient sometimes (other times it's far more convenient), but then I'm not absolute and take a ride faring app every now and then. Living this way isn't only possible, it's genuinely good.

Discovering places nearby to travel and connecting with local history and culture is something I also think we could do a lot more.

And by all means, be politically active on this issue! (I can't change things like energy matrix with individual habits, but I can vote well)

I'm with you dude :) Hack the planet!

[1] This seems to be a pretty good source: https://theconversation.com/here-are-the-most-effective-thin... I'm sure there are others similar as well

[2] That's good for animals too :)

That’s very optimistic!

Sure is! Optimism is our best bet. But also, reading and learning changed my opinion, so I'm confident words can change other's opinions too

I beg to differ. Unwavering optimism that things will be fine is exactly how we got where we are today; decades of knowing global warming is on the horizon with nowhere near enough response.

Bullshit.

Bike, ped, and rail infrastructure can be built at the national, state, and sometimes even local level. These things all reduce the need for owning so many cars.

Governments at any level can reduce how much they subsidize waste removal. Make people pay if they want to throw out more than is reasonable.

Carbon taxes can be levied against corporations, which would flow down to consumers and incentivize carbon-aware spending habits.

> Governments at any level can reduce how much they subsidize waste removal.

Are you in USA? What specific city/county/State goverment practices are problematic? I am interested in seeing the actual codes/laws.

In fairness a large authoritarian government is what makes car ownership a virtual necessity by outlawing city design that works well without a car.

Those authoritarian local governments are "democracies"

Tyranny of the majority is tyranny nonetheless

Blocking cultural change and progress.

It's kind of a weird case where you have a problem of incentives. Almost any home owner (and I am one!) can benefit financially by ensuring their home in a given area remains scarce, so votes to prevent new housing construction. But the people who would benefit from that housing being built can't vote, because they don't live there.

Also, the beneficiaries of new housing construction are diffuse (if I want to move to Berkeley I want to have a choice of housing, but I'm not likely to go to community meetings to voice support for any particular project), while the opponents are concentrated (if I have a $2 million house right by BART in Berkeley, I have a very strong incentive to prevent new home construction near me, and I will definitely go to community meetings).

In a sense, this is a failure of democracy - there are parties whose voices are unheard but (arguably) deserve representation.

Even for people whose desires re: housing should be net neutral, it doesn't pan out. If I live in Berkeley but want to move to SF, I want to see SF build lots of homes and Berkeley to build none. But I can only vote in Berkeley, so my net voting behavior is anti-housing. Even if there is someone else in SF who wants the exact same thing but in reverse!

This seems like an oversimplification of the issue. The people I know who oppose development are all older residents who have lived in the area for decades and want to preserve their way of life. They’re already house rich to the point that it’s difficult for them to move somewhere else (due to Prop 13 in CA their taxes would skyrocket). On the other hand the younger newer homeowners I know are all pro development.

That makes absolutely no sense to me.

In many places (including virtually all of the US), if you try to turn a single family home into a few apartments with a shop downstairs, or build a restaurant without parking, put a grocery store or a corner shop in an area zoned residential, etc. then your local authoritarian government will stop you.

Is it really your local authoritarian government, or your local/city/state government bowing to your neighbours' (admittedly immoral) desires?

> There is no way this world exists without an authoritarian global government.

The world does not care about humans and will be okay without us trying to micromanage.

The Romans had a long stretch of expansive rule, though it was not highly authoritarian. Klaus Schwab's marxist ideas will fail, and it will be an exiting decade until political upheaval (maybe ~2032).

Klaus Schwab a Marxist?

ROTFL

> There is no way this world exists without an authoritarian global government.

I agree, it will be hard to change opinions (especially in very liberal countries like the US, where socialism is apparently a very bad word).

But the world we are heading towards without degrowth is a world of global instability, wars, famines (for everyone, not just the poor countries for once).

I don't see democracy surviving in such a world.

> Well the real answer is to reduce consumption. It can and should be done without sacrificing comfort.

Comfort Or reducing their standard of living. Remember for most people in the world this they will keep consuming to get to *a* standard and will not care until they get there. One can say that the average person in a sub saharan african country X consumes 1/10th or 1/50th of the carbon that an american does. But unless N generations of X don't rise well above the poverty line they will continue to emit and it will add up by 2100 or 2200.

You don't even have to go to sub saharan africa. I believe there is non negligible double digit percentage of this country that is on the "edge" when it comes to many important living factors like Health, Education and Childcare Cost. Any of which when breached make one not care about reducing consumption.

As you've seen "degrowth" is a counter-productive argument and you are your own worst enemy and this gives ammunition to the side which claims that climate change is only possible via severe personal sacrifice -- which again reinforces the notion that climate change is an individual problem and failing and the whole "just recycle harder" idea.

We need to decarbonize the fucking electrical grid. Just get it done and that addresses the majority of the problem.

You'd also probably be better off if you focused on just changing the incentives and regulations which promote disposable culture. The CAFE standards need an overhaul and the Chicken tax needs to go away, that would do wonders towards getting us smaller, cheaper vehicles. Right to repair laws and EU regulations around replaceable batteries that are being imposed now on companies like Apple will help a lot. Better public transportation, sure, but that means building it (which means more economic output and jobs, but differently). But we're not going to manage to forcefully stop a lot of people from consuming, so we need to focus on making that impact less, particularly when it comes to GHGs, because that is more or less an emergency right now. We can have scalable carbon-neutral energy which still powers a lot of economic growth for the future up until we're all dead. And if you argue against that you will lose the broader war for the sake of trying to be a perfectionist (#include <leftists_being_their_own_worst_enemy.h>)

Hard disagree.

Degrowth is the only reasonable future if you understand the big picture: it's all about energy. Climate change and biodiversity loss are consequences of what humans do with abundant energy. Again: biodiversity loss is not due to CO2 at all, yet we are currently living a mass extinction. Replace fossils with nuclear fusion, you may solve climate change, but you will still be in a mass extinction.

Now let's be honest, we don't know a technology today that can replace fossil fuels. And fossil fuels are not unlimited (we still have enough to finish messing up the climate, unfortunately, but we are around the peak of production globally right now). So anyway, the days of a world with abundant energy are soon over, you've got to deal with it. That's called degrowth.

Either we go into a controlled degrowth, or we go into uncontrolled degrowth (that's poverty, global instability, wars, famines, ...).

That's pretty much it. And that's the elephant in the room, or 'an uncomfortable truth'. The problem is that very few people want to admit it, and even fewer people want to act on it and even fewer people than that are acting on it (and those are not usually near the seats of power).

Uncontrolled degrowth it is, for now. You forgot pandemics by the way, those are one way in which the loss of biodiversity and the ever increasing way in which humans force their way into animal territory is manifesting. This isn't exactly news either but I have to say to see it so vividly displayed still took me by surprise.

> in reality we need degrowth and permaculture

Personally, I wholeheartedly agree. Do you see degrowth as a realistic possibility? How would this happen in today's democracies with economic systems relying on GDP growth?

I believe that optimism is the only solution. Yes, it's pretty bleak, we got economic systems relying on GDP growth with corporations acting as governments, but if we decide "degrowth isn't realistic" then we automatically lose.

A tactic that "big oil" et al especially likes to use is to paralyze action that could've been effective if acted on, with doomerism like "oh the climate is too messed up to do anything about, why bother"

By believing and spreading optimism, we will see improvement. Which is also why I'm leaving comments like this haha.

> Do you see degrowth as a realistic possibility?

Degrowth will happen whether we want it or not. Because fossil fuels are not unlimited, and we are close to the global production peak. We don't have any technology that can remotely replace fossil fuels, and we don't remotely have the infrastructure anyway (it's not just about cars: everything relies on oil).

There are two ways: chosen degrowth is called "soberty". That's not super sexy, but the alternative (where we don't do it ourselves) is called "poverty".

We need to start changing society to degrowth in a controlled manner, for our own sake.

People have been hearing "more is better" their whole lives, hell, I was promised vacations twice a year, sports car, big comfortable house. I won't get that and I am ok with it but that's not a popular stance I am afraid.

My latest train of thought is going semi off-grid just in case degrowth hits us too rapidly. Big cities will not be fun.

I completely agree. Almost nobody genuinely wants less. I just came to realize that if we don't degrow smartly, then I will eventually have even less.

How would it happen? On a global level, it don't think it will. But that doesn't prevent us from applying it on a local or personal level.

You reminded me! Yes, it needs to start from the local level, in an organic way. But doing anything locally and organically is already winning (participating in local communities is a sorta solution to problems like logistics and politics)

> How about less cars? More effective public transit is good for people and the climate

Well, I'm about to renew the annual rail passes (which cover our entire local region) for two of our children, but this approach only works because we happen to live 5 mins walk from a local station and their school is 10 mins walk from another station, on the same line.

Good luck persuading people who don't have the benefit of such "lucky geography" to do the same :/

I feel like I'm doing a good job of, if not persuading people, at least putting the idea in people's heads by talking about it. Being optimistic is our best bet :)

The trouble with "more effective public transit" is that it's really not about having more transit, it's about having higher density housing construction so there are more areas that you can run a subway or a bus and have it full of passengers.

In cities this means you have to fight with property owners who want to keep housing costs high by limiting supply. And even if you win it will be years before the necessary amount of new housing is built to even start talking about new mass transit lines, whereas we need to do something now.

And in rural areas it's just not going to happen at all. The farmer is always going to have a truck. But it could be an electric truck.

> The farmer is always going to have a truck. But it could be an electric truck.

Farm trucks are a pathological case for electrification. They often have fairly extreme range requirements under adverse weather conditions and heavy loads. They spend much of their time far from the electrical grid, never mind a proper charging station. In some regions they have to account for being too far from a normal gas station, which is one of the reason you can buy barrels of fuel to bring with you or an extended tank.

But it doesn't matter because there aren't that many of them. Certainly not something we need to optimize for.

Farm trucks are a perfect case for electrification. You install solar panels at the farmhouse and the thing is sitting there with a full charge every time you go to use it without ever making you drive 100 miles away to buy fuel. Farmers often have a commercial driver's license or drive on private roads where one isn't necessary, so the thing can be big and heavy and have enough capacity to run whatever equipment you may need to run in the middle of a field.

But the point isn't about farmers in particular, it's anyone who lives in a rural or suburban area without enough density for mass transit. Plumbers and real estate agents in those areas are not going to find a bus there to take. And there are a lot of those.

> it's about having higher density housing construction

Umm, how would one go about selling that policy? Do enough (any?) people want that?

FWIW, my wife and I have spoken at length over the last year about what it would take for us to move, leaving our house and garden and safe streets and clean parks, our open countryside being only a short walk in pretty much every direction, and that our 7 year-old is able to walk the half mile to her primary school on her own every morning...

...and as it stands, there is no job offer _at all_ that would persuade us to move to the city.

Especially after what we saw during the pandemic.

> Umm, how would one go about selling that policy? Do enough (any?) people want that?

The thing preventing it right now is that it's illegal. Most areas zoned for higher density housing already have it, so to make more it would have to go somewhere currently zoned for lower density, which the existing zoning prohibits.

As for whether people want it, why does the existing higher density housing tend to cost more rather than less per square foot? Because it's nearer to jobs and shops and mass transit, and many people like that.

Nobody is forcing you to live there. In fact, if the place you currently live was one of the ares rezoned, it would net you a tidy sum -- the value of the land goes up because now someone can build a condo tower on it, meanwhile you can go use a fraction of the money to buy another single family home for even less than the one you have now is worth because the new construction reduces housing scarcity.

> The thing preventing it right now is that it's illegal

Just like towers (condos or any other kind) are round here.

Your local politicans are elected? So are ours.

Your claim was that nobody wants to live in them. But then why ban them, if no one would build them anyway because no one wants to live in them?

The current problem is that the people who want to live in them are priced out of the areas where they would have to go by the zoning rules they would want to change. Having a 20% lower cost per square foot doesn't make it more affordable to move there when the smallest available unit is required to have three times as many square feet. But since they can't afford to move there they can't vote to change the law there.

It's effectively a local law against poor people living there, which the poor people can't vote against because they don't live there. That seems bad.

I feel like we have been optimistic for far too long. The Paris target is also based on being optimistic about the situation. It’s only when we’re going to swoosh past that target and become very, very realistic about the situation is when _maybe_ we’re going to actually do something as a civilization that might start making things right.

Yeah, sounds like a tough sell. Instead, let's persuade people to vote for politicians who support funding rail, bike, and ped infrastructure at par with or even with priority over car infrastructure.

> politicians who support funding rail, bike, and ped infrastructure

My eldest (who travels to school by train every day) has children in his class who are brought to school every day in their parents cars. I know most of these kids, almost all of them live in villages with a regular bus service which would take them to school, yet instead the children get a lift with Mum or Dad in the car.

I'm not sure this is just about more infrastructure. There are some pretty seriously ingrained habits at play, too.

> It can and should be done without sacrificing comfort ... How about less cars ... Let's do away with golf lawns and pools ... You and I don't really need all these gadgets

You went straight from "we don't have to lose anything" to "except of course for cars, lawns, pools and technology in general" apparently without noticing the contradiction. This is a good example of why degrowth advocates have no credibility and always come across as anti-civilization Amish wannabees.

There is no such thing as degrowth outside of recessions and wars. If you want to reduce your own consumption, do so! The rest of us who believe in material progress will increase ours to make up for it.

> There is no such thing as degrowth outside of recessions and wars.

If we don't degrow now, we are heading towards recessions and wars anyway. And not small ones: count billions of climate refugees... that's probably the end of democracy everywhere.

The big problem with degrowth advocates don't say what the new world looks like in detail. They say we should go rid of problems, and we should, but those are the low-hanging fruit. They will help but won't be enough.

How do you propose to use much less energy without starving everyone? Where does the energy come from if not fossil fuels without conscripting people to be peasants? Does it matter if mass death is caused famine or "degrowth"?

> How do you propose to use much less energy without starving everyone?

That's the whole point: degrowth is about re-organizing society such that we don't starve. There are big efforts of planning for that in many places. Look at the "shift project" in France. It seems to me that the US are very, very, very far behind on that matter. The US seems to still be stuck on the Silicon Valley mindset ("they will save us with new technology"). But that's not representative of the rest of the world.

> Where does the energy come from if not fossil fuels without conscripting people to be peasants? Does it matter if mass death is caused famine or "degrowth"?

The idea of degrowth is that in order to avoid famines, we have to drastically reduce other stuff and reorganize society. Planes are not even a question there: planes will go away, because everyone agrees that we'd rather eat that fly. There are many decisions that are harder to make, though.

Those who don't believe in degrowth and instead think that "there will be a miracle technology that will save us" are just naive. Degrowth advocates are the ones who are actually trying to play with the cards they were dealt.

The first problem is no details like how much needs to be cut. You suggested it is impossible to build enough solar. Do we have to shrink to 10% (renewable electricity) or 20% (plus nuclear)?

A good example or problem with degrowth is proclamation that things like planes won’t be possible. Aviation is 2% of emissions. There are lots of little things that they add up. Like concrete being 3%, but nobody says that have to give up concrete. The big ones are things like heating and cooling and transportation that are hard to give up.

The other problem is that we mostly know how to solve aviation. Hydrogen or liquid fuels should work, both produced from green energy. New technology but no miracles. We know how to do green electricity.

I agree with you that we need to change the world a lot. But it won’t work if impose suffering on people. Or do things that don’t work or don’t help.

> A good example or problem with degrowth is proclamation that things like planes won’t be possible. Aviation is 2% of emissions.

Aviation came with oil, it will disappear with oil. It's not a problem of emissions per se, it's a problem of energy. Fossil fuels are not unlimited and we don't know how to completely replace them.

> The big ones are things like heating and cooling

We need to work hard on building isolation, obviously. And people need to live in smaller habitations.

> and transportation

We need more trains

> Hydrogen or liquid fuels should work, both produced from green energy.

Same thing: if you look at the numbers, we won't have enough green energy to produce enough hydrogen for aviation, even if technically we can make planes fly with hydrogen. We will have to choose where we use our hydrogen: for planes, or for steel and agriculture?

> But it won’t work if impose suffering on people.

Yep, we need to teach people and hope they accept to do what's needed to survive.

> Or do things that don’t work or don’t help.

Totally agreed here. Hoping for anything short of degrowth doesn't help. We need everything PLUS degrowth. And still, it will be hard because climate is already pretty messed up (with inertia) and biodiversity is looking bad.

I think the connection between technology/consumption with comfort is constructed by our system to manipulate you. The concepts are not synonyms. I honestly don't think having a lawn or a big car or pools or the newest devices bring me significant comfort.

In fact, I feel like if we did things less capitalist, we'd be more comfortable. How about devices that last longer and don't force fashion on you? (I'm looking at apple removing headphone jack, changing the notch, glued batteries, etc)

Further, how about shared pools that can be more comfortable and without requiring maintenance from you? (Or do you hire someone to take care of it for you?) Same with lawns and cars. Why not parks and transit systems?

> Why not parks and transit systems?

Where we live the parks are always safe and almost always clean. The same for the transit network.

There are plenty of apparently weathy places where that appears not to be the case.

> I honestly don't think having a lawn or a big car or pools or the newest devices bring me significant comfort.

Good for you, then don't bother with them. But you're in a tiny minority. The rest of us do in fact very much enjoy chilling out in a nice private pool surrounded by a big lawn on a warm sunny day, relaxing on an inflatable whilst listening to awesome music streamed to our AirPods whilst we drink chilled beer and wait for friends/family to drive over and join us for an epic grilling session.

Normal people don't like these things because we've been "manipulated" by "our system", get a grip. We like these things because they're extremely enjoyable perks of living in the modern world.

> I feel like if we did things less capitalist, we'd be more comfortable

Ah a watermelon, what an incredibly unexpected plot twist that's never been seen before. The green turns out to be skin-deep, and when you cut it open what's inside is bright red.

> Normal people don't like these things because we've been "manipulated" by "our system", get a grip. We like these things because they're extremely enjoyable perks of living in the modern world.

And that's perfectly fine. I'm not forcing anybody to do anything. I just provide my opinion on what I believe is good info.

> watermelon

So it's a personal dig about how I'm communist? I'm not, I don't think either state organization or anarchy will fulfill the promise of socialism to achieve an egalitarian society. But I do recognize the benefit of "public goods" that the "socialists" bring to the table, like roads and hospitals. Communism has failed many times throughout history, but I certainly don't think laissez-faire capitalism is any good either.

If you are a die hard believer that capitalism will lead to the best outcome for people, then ignore anything I say. If you perhaps don't realize how strongly identifying with the name of an idea alone lead you to a narrow perspective of the world, I urge you to take some time to reflect on your own opinions.

Comfort != "stuff". Yes in some cases stuff brings additional comfort, and what stuff does that varies by person but there isn't anything inherently contradictory in what they said imo.

I moved from an area where I needed a car to an area where I don't and doing so increased my comfort. If areas like this were more accessible I think a lot of people would willingly degrowth and become more comfortable at the same time. Of course people shouldn't be forced to lose their car or move to a denser area if they don't want. And I like my gadgets but it is pretty ridiculous that their lifespans are artificially shortened to prop up profits. I have a computer from 1984 that still works, I would bet a huge amount of money none of the devices I buy today will work in 2062.

> Of course people shouldn't be forced to lose their car or move to a denser area if they don't want.

You say of course, but that's exactly what eco-warriors want. Notice how "picture" doesn't think of his fellow humans as fully real, thinking people with their own fully developed opinions. He thinks we're all manipulated into wanting things, and that only if "the system" wasn't "distracting" and "manipulating" us with gadgets and private pools we'd all realize the superiority of collective ownership.

This is a very dangerous attitude. If you don't respect other people's views, and if you think they're all a product of manipulation you definitely don't, then you won't have any compunction in overriding them by force. That's why the degrowth agenda is strongly associated with the road and runway glueing brigade: they don't care if an ambulance can't get past them and someone dies as a result, or if you can't get to work and lose your job. Your preference for petrol powered transport is merely a manipulation by the system and thus has no validity.

In practice, comfort is mostly a function of stuff. Yes there are aspects that aren't to do with stuff but they're things that are really hard to move the needle on: loving families, low corruption, stable government and so on. Once you've got those things it's much easier to raise standards of living with incrementally better stuff than incremental improvements in quality of government, for example.

> "picture" doesn't think of his fellow humans as fully real, thinking people

I can't say I agree, this feels like a very uncharitable reading of his/her posts. Unless it was edited in after the fact they even said "You're absolutely free to believe either way, and I don't want anyone to force you to do anything."

While it would be insulting to call any individual person's preferences a result of brainwashing, I don't think it is a stretch to say that at a societal level preferences are shaped by mass-media and advertising. Improving access to and making people aware of less resource-intensive forms of comfort doesn't have to come from an authoritarian place. One of my major motivations for seeking out a more walkable area was urbanist YouTubers extolling the benefits. I suppose one could argue that things like bike lanes are hurting drivers but if a city's transit priorities stem from local politics and preferences I don't think it can be reasonably argued that making any particular transit method a priority is more authoritarian than another.

> In practice, comfort is mostly a function of stuff.

No question that it is a variable for most people but I'm not sure I buy that it is the most dominant one. All other variables being excluded, time to do what I want is at least as important for me as stuff (luckily I like my job so time/money aren't usually in conflict). And I think for many people "stuff" like cars and nice lawns aren't inherently drivers of comfort, but rather just possible reifications of goals like "pretty yard" or "fast/easy transit," both of which can be realized in less resource intensive ways. For the yard example, that might be a native garden or xeriscape (in some cases there are rules against these, which actually goes against freedom imo).

Yes, picture edited that into their post after I replied to it.

I don't personally believe people when they say that anyway, so I'd have taken the same stance even if the post had said that originally. Collectivists like that are never happy if people can make their own personal choices. That's why we now have government mandated phase-outs of liquid fuel vehicles on the horizon whether individuals like it or not. They campaign and bully until they get what they want, which as picture states very clearly is bans on anything convenient in favor of non-private property (n.b. they're fine with swimming pools as long as they're shared pools, and already admitted their actual motivation is dislike of capitalism not a belief that restricting golf will actually achieve anything).

Degrowth is a lovely euphemism for the forbidden topic of having less kids. [insert “how dare you” meme]

That is not true in the least. A hypothetical three-genetation extended (and frankly, quite large) family of 25 in Bangladesh emits roughly the same amount of CO2 as an average American.

What happens when Bangladesh fully modernizes and the average Bangladeshi consumes the same amount of energy as an American today?

There is an implicit assumption that "modernization" equates large energy consumption. Carbon emission of a German is half of that of an American, so are Americans twice as "modern" (whatever that means) compared to the average German?

This is the key. They don't want the third-world to industrialize.

Always gets political. It’s humans. We’re doing it. No question about that. Less humans will mitigate it. No question. The conversation always goes to which humans or which political faction. Start with the fact that it’s us. It is us.

I usually like to answer this question(?) with a quote from Jordan Peterson (paraphrased), “lift people from poverty and they and their future kids will have more time to worry about a solution”. Personally speaking, to me “controlled childbirth” (unless you are instead suggesting we kill off some people) seems a contingent for the usage of humans as livestock.

Reducing the birth rate below 2.2 kids per family on average results in negative population growth. We’re already seeing it in many places world wide as a result of equality and education. Simply creating awareness of the global benefits is enough. We are already facing a catastrophic global population decline mid century which is going to shock the hell out of our forever-growth economic systems. The only question is whether we’ll see a decline soon enough. Humans as livestock? Killing people? Relax dude.

No, it really isn't. But: degrowth to a Westerner usually translates into : the developing world shouldn't develop, and meanwhile I get to keep mine. That also doesn't work. That's the kind of pulling-up-the-ladder-behind-you thinking that gets you world wars. You can have as many children as you want as a nation, but you'll have to do that in more efficient (energy, resources) ways than you did in the past if you are a developed country and you probably can still develop quite a bit if you are a developing country.

We are having less kids though. Give it time and in 30-50 years we’ll have global population shrinkage on our hands.

The issue is society as currently structured doesn’t exactly work without population growth.

> The issue is society as currently structured

There was never better structured society as we have today.. or can you point some period where we were better than now?

Exactly. Countries with birth rate > 3 should be unacceptable in 2023... One of the main forces driving Europe crazy today.

Is it fair to tell an emerging county, hey I made my wealth doing X, however you can’t do X as it’s wrong.

Unlikely the emerging country will listen without the prior wealth being shared. And it’s unlikely for wealthy countries to give up their wealth.

> And it’s unlikely for wealthy countries to give up their wealth

Just from 2020 to 2023, more than $24 Billion in interest-free loans were distributed. https://www.imf.org/en/Blogs/Articles/2023/03/31/the-time-is...

There is no such thing as "enough help", but each country should do its own part, and birth control is for sure important for countries with birth rate > 3 and cannot provide to its people. I came myself from a poor country and I can guarantee that there is no way to develop a long term plan, if the population increases in a high pace. There is no way to allocate money accordingly and create infrastructure in such a pace to support it.

24 billion is equivalent to jeff bezo's buying you a Happy Meal at McDonalds, followed by hope you enjoy the shared wealth.

US's GDP is 23.32 Trillion, and US collected 5 Trillion in taxes Americans. Wealth sharing would need to be many orders of magnitude more than 24 billion over 3 years.

> US's GDP is 23.32 Trillion, and US collected 5 Trillion in taxes Americans. Wealth sharing would need to be many orders of magnitude more than 24 billion over 3 years.

Why is that is relevant? Do you think that US should share more money from US taxes payers with the World? I can imagine that the majority there holds a different opinion than you in such topic.

> 24 billion is equivalent to jeff bezo's buying you a Happy Meal at McDonalds, followed by hope you enjoy the shared wealth.

Why is it relevant for the discussion? AMZ is a private company, built in the last 20 years, without any colony exploitation.. they own $0 to the poorest countries in the World.

Emerging countries have the benefit of modern technology though. They can buy solar panels and batteries instead of coal plants like everyone else. Also surely we do say just that all the time. X=slavery, child labor, etc.

Proving that you don't understand what degrowth is, in one sentence.

I agree with you about the steps to take, though I don't think "degrowth" is the right label to that approach. When people say "degrowth" they often mean a reduced standard of living. But it's possible to reduce raw resource utilization while at the same time improving quality of life and building wealth.

A high-quality, well-maintained car or a phone that lasts longer is more valuable than the disposable equivalent. Developing dense city centers creates wealth, reduces environmental impact, and improves quality of living all at the same time.

In an economy that really is shrinking, things tend towards stasis and people spend much more time fighting over the shrinking pie. A lot of the built environment needs to change to become sustainable, and that's only possible if the economy is vibrant, housing and transportation are plentiful, and people are motivated to improve their communities.

I don't know the solution to convincing suburban Americans to buy smaller houses and smaller cars, but I think the only way it works is if there is a positive vision of the future with both more wealth and a healthier planet.

> I don't know the solution to convincing suburban Americans to buy smaller houses and smaller cars, but I think the only way it works is if there is a positive vision of the future with both more wealth and a healthier planet.

While I agree, it's worth mentioning that this framing overlooks the significant central planning component.

The suburban lifestyle is heavily subsidized from nearly every direction (housing, autos, roads, fuel, power and water grid, shipping) which makes something that is actually a luxury lifestyle feel like a median lifestyle. If suburban living were priced at the free market rate we would see an organic shift to denser developments and more efficient resource usage.

Most of that subsidization has already happened and will be locked in place for some time unfortunately - it's not like governments can realistically get away with discontinuing infrastructure maintenance while people are still living in an area. More politically feasible is higher levels of direct subsidisation for neighbourhoods that do measurably have a lower ecological impact per capita, to entice people to move to them. After all those who've grown up in suburbia with various expectations around house/land size and ability to get yourself everywhere via private motor vehicle are going to need quite some persuading that they can maintain their desired standard of living in much more built-up areas where transit/walking/cycling are the standard ways of getting around. OTOH there's still a lot more than can be done to massively reduce the carbon footprint of the average suburban home (and its occupants).

And yes, it's worth pointing out that in many first world countries (esp. my own), many higher density neighbourhoods actually have relatively high environmental footprints - usually because they're quite affluent ones. But also because they're often occupied by single people who don't have as many opportunities to share/pool resources with others as those in suburbia. So we need to realistic about what could be achieved simply by changes in government policy around subsidisation of various modes of urban development.

> Most of that subsidization has already happened and will be locked in place for some time

Yes An no.

Yes it is already built.

No because there is a lot that can be done to improve existing infrastructure.

Public transport can be retro fitted rail corridors, dedicated bus lanes, bike only paths, walking infrastructure

Zoning can achieve a lot too. Allowing more commercial pepperpotted amongst residential

You do have to defeat many vested interests, but unless we defeat them they will burn the world for profit, so we must defeat them

A real test for democracy

> convincing suburban Americans to buy smaller houses

In USA, a person's house value has become their retirement plan. A quick free-market solution is to eliminate the house mortgage interest deduction and make all of the sale price capital gains. Let the builders compete on quality, price, and maintainability rather than being subsidized by tax policy.

> When people say "degrowth" they often mean a reduced standard of living.

With what we have already emitted today (and we are still increasing our emissions every year), it is not clear at all that Europe will always have enough food in the next few decades. I don't know about the US, but seeing the fires in the last few years, I guess it's not far.

Growth definitely means reduced standard of living in our lifetime: we are going towards global instability, wars and famines.

Degrowth means reduced standard of living as well: just trying to keep them as high as possible. Everybody wants the same thing: the highest possible standard of living. Degrowth advocates have just accepted that it will get down in the future.

I didn't realize people had these associations with degrowth. Maybe I should have said "alternative growth" or something.. I think we should decouple wealth and comfort from individual marketable material objects.

Ah I think we agree, then! My association with "de-growth" is that it means stopping or reversing GDP growth in order to reduce research consumption. Some degrowth people think that we can continue to increase quality of life in ways that the GDP metric doesn't capture, while others think that quality of life needs to be reduced to preserve the environment.

I think we agree then about "alternative growth" or "eco-growth" where GDP and resource consumption are decoupled, where GDP continues to increase while environmental impact simultaneously falls. Most wealthy countries are already actually at that point already - CO2 emissions are falling while they still grow (adjusted for offshore emissions). It's an important point to me because the degrowth people I've encountered are kinda defeatist and I don't think will be able to grow a coalition, but decoupling the environment from growth is eminently doable.

Noah Smith is my main influence on this topic: https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/people-are-realizing-that-degr... https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/degrowth-we-cant-let-it-happen...

There’s a ton we can do before we talk about degrowth. Living in dense urban areas vs the suburbs will greatly reduce resource usage.Eating a lot less meat is another thing that’s even easier and will greatly reduce our carbon footprint.

While I’m sympathetic to the idea of degrowth, people will not go along with it. Instead I think we should advocate for living in dense areas, eating a lot less meat, reducing waste, etc.

> There’s a ton we can do before we talk about degrowth.

And that's far from being enough.

> While I’m sympathetic to the idea of degrowth

I think it's the first step. At some point you will realize that it is just not a choice. We will degrow anyway, because fossil fuels are not unlimited, and we can't reasonably replace them.

I am not in favour of degrowth because I find it romantic. I am in favour of degrowth because that's how we can control the fall. I'd rather have a hard landing than a complete crash.

> And that's far from being enough.

Based on what? We already have optimistic signs in developed countries where emissions per capita have declined.

As others have said, no idea how you impose degrowth short of dictatorship

> Based on what?

Based on the consensus on how much we need to cut our CO2 emissions, and on checking orders of magnitudes on "what we can do before degrowth" (which generally implies replacing fossil fuels with something else, which generally implies extrapolating numbers or hoping for non-existing technology).

> We already have optimistic signs in developed countries

It's too late to be optimistic unfortunately. We don't need to slightly reduce emissions per capita, we need to drastically cut them.

> As others have said, no idea how you impose degrowth short of dictatorship

Oh I agree with that (especially in the US). I think we are going towards global world instability, wars and famines (even in developed countries) in our lifetime. Doesn't mean I cannot wish we got reasonable for our own sake.

The only thing that can save us is controlled degrowth. Which is a very challenging problem. Yet too many are hoping for CO2 capture and miracle technology. Society will probably collapse, but that sucks.

How do you define degrowth?

Essentially "doing less with less". We still want to do as much as we can, so we have to do everything smarter.

We need to use less energy (because energy is CO2 emissions, and because we will have less abundant energy in the future), and therefore we need to rethink society to work without abundant cheap energy.

Some parts of economy will benefit from that (e.g. building bikes should work well), and many will not (typically the airspace industry will be reduced dramatically, probably the whole modern software has to go back quite a bit and stop wasting resources all over the board, etc).

When I propose living in urban areas and eating a lot less meat that sounds like "doing less with less" to me at some level. It typically means having a much smaller place and not eating what you might want to eat.

Your idea of "doing less" seems to entail something more, can you give some examples.

> When I propose living in urban areas and eating a lot less meat

Yep, that's on track with degrowth. The whole question then is: how much do we need to remove? Realistically, given how much we need to cut our CO2 emissions in the next couple of decades for hoping to keep the climate in a "bearable" state (as per our climate models which more and more appear to be optimistic themselves), we will have to remove a lot of stuff.

> Your idea of "doing less" seems to entail something more, can you give some examples.

Aviation has to mostly go away. Most meat, most fishing too. Individual cars in cities need to completely go away (at least in countries that can possibly do it, e.g. all of Europe) and public transportation has to be dramatically increased everywhere. In the countryside, people will probably still need small electric cars to compensate for the lack of public transportation.

We need to electrify trucks (because they bring food into cities), that's much more important than cars (not that it's easy to remove cars, but if we remove trucks, cities starve).

Cities should not be too big, they need to stop growing (same thing, it takes energy to bring food there). All buildings need to be properly isolated (for heat/cold).

IT needs to change. We don't need 5G to watch TikTok on our brand new smartphone in the bus. We don't need clouds for everything, not everything has to always be connected/tracked/serving ads, we don't need AI for everything, we don't need every single commit to run a CI on the cloud on 50 machines, etc. To me, this all says "we need to make good IT that makes sense", and as a developer I would like that. Since I started programming, I feel like IT has become a big joke of for-profit bullshit.

Because of the reduction of fossil fuels, importations will go down. We need to deal with that. Produce what's most important locally.

Globally it means degrowth, GDP will go down. But that does not mean going back to Middle Age. We can find a new number to optimize other than GDP, try to teach people that ultra-consumerism is not making them happier (it's actually killing us all), and there is a lot to do (typically the bike industry should go up, there will be job there, etc).

"Aviation has to mostly go away. Most meat, most fishing too. Individual cars in cities need to completely go away"

First, I don't think we need to go that far. Second, I don't see how you will ever achieve this without a brutal dictatorship on a global level. It's a complete non starter as far as I can tell unless you have a new idea for how to achieve it.

> First, I don't think we need to go that far.

You don't think we need to, or you hope we don't need to? And based on what? On my end it's pretty simple: fossil fuels have to pretty much disappear (and if we don't do it on purpose, they will anyway because they are not unlimited) and we don't have anything that remotely replaces them. Look around: all the ideas to replace them right now are wishful thinking. Given the timeline, we are almost certainly too late.

> Second, I don't see how you will ever achieve this without a brutal dictatorship on a global level.

Yeah that's a completely different problem. I personally think we're doomed. We won't manage to save what remains to be saved, so we will suffer the consequences (which will most likely destroy democracy globally, because we are talking mass immigration and famines at a level never seen before).

Still the only chance we have now is to start accepting that we should do that. Then we could start trying to do it.

> You don't think we need to, or you hope we don't need to?

I'm researching this to have some concrete data, but I doubt I'll have it together soon enough to share in this thread. Will definitely share on HN when this topic comes back around with what I find.

> Look around: all the ideas to replace them right now are wishful thinking.

I don't think this is true at all. Solar is improving at a rapid pace and is already cheaper. We need a large scale rollout, but that's a will issue, not a tech issue. Nuclear is always an option as well. You can see this in many places, here's a graph of solar production in the US, that rise looks amazing!

https://www.eia.gov/totalenergy/data/browser/index.php?tbl=T...

> Solar is improving at a rapid pace and is already cheaper. We need a large scale rollout, but that's a will issue, not a tech issue.

Solar is indeed improving at a rapid pace, but in a world full of cheap and abundant fossil energy. What will be its price in a world without fossil fuels?

Also it's obviously much easier to quickly go from "almost no solar" to "a little bit more solar", but it is not linear: the more solar you make, the harder it is to double the production.

It is most definitely a tech issue. Take absolutely whatever you want and try to get it to a whole different scale, and it will become a tech issue. And next to that, you can't control solar (if there is no sun, there is no electricity), and we don't have a convincing technical solution for that today.

> Nuclear is always an option as well.

Every year that we spend doing nothing, it becomes less and less of an option. It's pretty clear that fusion is way too late for the party. Now for fission plants, it takes decades to build, so we don't have a whole lot of time to start. Still you will get the scale problems again: you can't replace fossils entirely with fission.

Don't get me wrong: we absolutely need fission and nuclear and all the renewables. But we have to realize that they won't completely replace oil, and therefore we won't have enough energy to keep doing everything we are doing the way we are doing it today. Therefore we will have to choose what we prioritize, and that is called "degrowth".

Here’s a very balanced view with good data https://open.substack.com/pub/noahpinion/p/our-climate-chang...

With all due respect, what I read sounds like there is a lot of faith and not enough science. For instance:

> Now, you can choose to be a techno-pessimist about all this if you want. You can assume, if you like, [... adds an incomplete list of stuff that could prevent technology from solving the problem ...]. Yes, with enough mental effort, you can ignore a technological revolution in progress. > > But ignoring a technological revolution in progress will accomplish nothing.

Let's be real: this article does not prove that solar can replace fossil fuels. It has faith that it can, and believes that "anyway if that doesn't work, we're screwed, so we have to believe in it".

It merely extrapolates from the growth of solar in the last few years. That is not enough.

My turn to suggest a different view: https://www.amazon.com/World-Without-End-Blain-Christophe-eb...

This proposal is itself a nonsolution and distraction. You're not going to pull 7 billion people along with this.

We saw what a fairly massive reduction in consumption looked like during the pandemic. It basically put CO2 levels back to what they were in 2016. That's no where nearly enough.

> We saw what a fairly massive reduction in consumption looked like during the pandemic. It basically put CO2 levels back to what they were in 2016. That's no where nearly enough.

It's not, but an improvement in CO2 levels that's not enough is way better than no improvement unless we can go all the way.

A 2020-level reduction just slows the disaster down slightly.

What we need is a wholesale conversion to a fossil-free civilization. That means building a whole lot of stuff, and we need a growing economy to afford that.

"Degrowth" is code for "poor people should have fewer things"

Yeah I mean that’s pretty obvious. If you increase the cost of pollution then things will be more expensive, including for the poor. Still pretty disingenuous since the poor pretty much always get the short end of the straw by most economic crisis management, even though they are the least responsible for having created. Eg bailouts of irresponsible speculators.

Another aspect is that crises are really bad for the poor. Wars, pandemics and depressions is when the biggest poor-to-rich wealth transfers occur. Preventing crises is typically better for the poor than meager after-the-fact concessions.

Stop telling me what I mean. No, I believe that degrowth and permaculture are about yourself, not other people. This is why I say comfort cannot be sacrificed, because I see myself in this future too.

People aren't going to "degrow" by themselves, so governments turned authoritarian will force them, but will do so in a way that won't affect the rich.

For example, low emission zones for cars - you have to have a new car to be able to drive in a low emission zone. So, who can afford it?

Cheap airplane tickets, make them more expensive - who will be able to afford to fly? Beef contaminates, make it more expensive, same result.

You can follow the logic from there.

"People aren't going to "degrow" by themselves" is an immediate flaw, because, well, mere ideas were enough to convince me to change some of the ways I act. You're thinking about all this from policy at the global or national scale, but these ideas are closer to the local and organic level

It's actually a little concerning how your line of reasoning seems to follow the most dystopian path, can't you see any other way of it happening?

Low emission zones already exist and have existed for years.

"Airplane tickets are too cheap" is a talking point of French politicians recently. It's likely they will do something about it.

The EU already has a law in place saying no more regular cars can be sold starting in 2035. Of course, with a nice exception for Ferraris.

These dystopian things are happening now, I'm not imagining things.

A town with no cars is about the least dystopian thing I can imagine.

Banning them all would make my life difficult in many ways, but there would be some really huge upsides.

> there would be some really huge upsides.

You can live in Mackinak and try out the no car lifestyle. Watch out for the crap and piss in the gutters. https://www.michigan.org/city/mackinac-island

That's all.. specifically what I said I'm against? They're politicians and corporations manipulating you with distractions. Degrowth and permaculture are about yourself, not other people.

This list of yours are all imposed solutions.

I’m not the OP, but if I take one less flight, avoid a car trip and choose not to eat beef, the same has happened with no regulation change.

It doesn’t have to be all or nothing, small steps help and the OPs positive approach is very different to the ‘tax it’ approach you have described.

No, "degrowth as a model for combating climate change" is indeed fundamentally about poor people. Because there will be about 8 billion of not-westerners in a few decades, and they rapidly get out of poverty, increasing their carbon impact. Look at Chinese emissions; multiply by a few times and you get Africa and South-East Asia getting somewhat closer to the global middle class in 50 years without technological decoupling. On the other hand, if countries can grow out of poverty sustainably, there is no reason for already developed countries to "degrow".

Talking about "degrowth" doesn't just imply that you somehow get a say in allowing countries to grow, but also suggests that people aren't allowed to get out of poverty. This is unconscionable and unrealistic, a distraction from the only real answer — engineering our way out of it.

"The motte-and-bailey fallacy (named after the motte-and-bailey castle) is a form of argument and an informal fallacy where an arguer conflates two positions that share similarities, one modest and easy to defend (the "motte") and one much more controversial and harder to defend (the "bailey")."

I guess you know it, but just in case: "degrowth" is the opposite of "growth". "Growth" is the thing that is killing the planet.

"Green growth" is a utopia from people who haven't understood the problem yet.

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