A new Left has to be an ecological Left, or it won’t be left at all. Environmental change ‘changes everything’ for the Left too, Naomi Klein argued. Capitalism requires constant expansion, an expansion predicated on exploitation of humans and non-humans, that irreversibly damages the climate. A non-capitalist economy will have to sustain itself while contracting. But how can we redistribute or secure meaningful work without growth? There is not yet a concrete ‘economics of degrowth’. Lamentably, Keynesianism is the most powerful tool the Left, even the Marxist Left, has for dealing with issues of policy. But this is an economics of the 1930s when unlimited expansion was still possible and desirable.
Read the whole article in the New InternationalistThe climate crisis is a consequence of our economic system. Economic solutions, like carbon trading were supposed to be a problem solver. Despite such efforts, CO2 levels kept rising. Should we consider changing our economic system instead? And which role do environmental NGOs play in the battle for climate justice? Joanna Cabello, activist and researcher on environmental justice and part of...
By Nnimmo Bassey The industrial mode of food production is known to greatly contribute to global warming through such means as the large-scale land use changes, deforestation and the use of chemical fertilisers. Industrial agriculture promotes monoculture, erodes biodiversity and treats agricultural produce as mere commodities and for speculation. it continues to be single-mindedly supported b...
Während meiner Zeit an der Universität wurde ich im Rahmen eines Workshops zum Thema „Resourcenknappheit“ mit folgender Grafik konfrontiert: Die Grafik beschreibt wie Wirtschaft, Gesellschaft und Umwelt voneinander abhängen. Spezieller Augenmerk liegt auf dem Machtverhältnis zwischen den einzelnen Einheiten: Ohne die Gesellschaft kann keine Wirtschaft existieren und ohne die Umwelt kann keine Gesellschaft existieren. Pavan Sukhdev [...]
