From the text: There is, on the one hand, ever more economic growth and development as actively promoted by the projects of engineers (modern engineering), big science (physical and biological sciences), including the social sciences and mainstream economics, the competitive Nation-State system and related intergovernmental organizations, as well as by the firms and others big business actors, notably transnational corporations. On the other hand, there are ever more alarmist scientific assessments on the destructive aspects of the same anthropogenic material and energetic processes disturbing dangerously the Earth System, namely the present Biosphere as a whole. These dramatic warnings are made by pioneering scientists and naturalists since many years, as well as by some people still connected to the natural milieu, but, since the 1980s, also by intergovernmental panels of experts in global environmental issues (like SCOPE and IPCC). The paradoxical opposition of these two current human evolutions has taken on religious proportions, to the point that a rational debate about development or growth now seems almost impossible.
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However, this paper only presents the first part, i.e., the gradual elimination of of the real issues. More concretely, we will critically look at what is currently being proposed today in terms of addressing the global crisis. This is done by looking at the outcomes of “Rio+20” or the recent UN conferences on Climate Change; we will state what all these frustrating efforts of inter-national environmental politics are all about and what they omit. The implicit view of this part is that what is currently proposed as a solution to the global socio-ecological crisis is far too narrow and grossly inappropriate.

Contribution to the 3rd International Degrowth Conference for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity in Venice in 2012.