There’s lots of talk recently about the wealth of Jeff Bezos. There are maps comparing his wealth to entire countries, a “You are Jeff Bezos” game where you can spend his money on different things - like paying their fair-share of taxes, and a graphic that puts his wealth in perspective. A recurring point is that most people simply cannot fathom the amount of money he has. The number is $150 billion. My favorite attempt to bring the number into human terms is Quartz’s article, “The average US worker would need 10 times the length of all human history to earn as much as Jeff Bezos”. This beautifully captures the point that someone does not simply earn or work for such an amount of money, but rather captures it. We, at degrowth.info, thought a similar calculation would be interesting. We wanted to know how many humble (but hopefully useful) projects like ours Jeff Bezos’ wealth could pay for. In case you haven’t heard already, degrowth.info is improving its site to better support the degrowth community and improve the usability of the platform – this will cost 7,500€.
This blog post analyzes press coverage of degrowth in Western European (English language) newspapers and magazines between January 2015 and October 2020. Using media theory concepts such as agenda setting and framing, it explores how degrowth is being considered in the press, particularly as a potential response to climate change.
The wider degrowth-community is asked to participate in a short survey on sustainable mobility which should not take more than 10-15 minutes: The results will be used as a part of Justin Hyatt´s academic work at the Institute for Housing and Urban Development Studies (IHS), Erasmus University, Rotterdam (Netherlands). It is also intended to publish and widely disseminate a separate report. ...
By Lasse Thiele Is degrowth only conceivable in the context of “oversaturated” industrial societies while the global “South” remains dependent on growth? In two installments, this article questions such assumptions. In this first part it introduces positions critical of development which refuse to adopt the Western model of prosperity; the second part will focus on the analysis of these positi...