Library

By: Hermilo Salas

Abstract: If the basic contradiction is in current economic models, what is the right path to solve it and thus avoid the crisis of the environment and of life itself? It is evident that our current lifestyles are part of economic models that are unsustainable. How can we avoid that catastrophic growth? The basis of the proposal presented here is in showing the contradictions of growth to find ...

By: Caroline Ruschel

Rule of Law; Law of Time; Transdisciplinarity; Planetary Citizenship

By: Judith Dellheim

A socialist view on degrowth positions by Judith Dellheim. Policy Paper 04/201 Introduction: Who does actually drive growth? Two central forces behind destructive growth today are a new type of capital oligarchies, and a new form of financialisation. More than ever, these are blocking social and ecological alternatives. Any socialist critique of growth must therefore begin here. There are t...

By: Claudia Gómez Portugal

Abstract: The great challenge of our time is to build and nurture sustainable communities, the environmental, social and existential crisis, among others, increasingly evident the unsustainable of the development model. Address this systemic crisis involves recognizing the need to create new structures and forms of organization. Its necessary a new education to generate a genuine change, mainly...

By: Oliver Richters, Susan Krumdieck

Abstract: History of society is strongly influenced by the energy supply available and energy is an important economic production factor. It's coupled with extraction of natural ressources and the emission of pollutant particles and heat, surpassing the ability for regeneration of our ecosystems. Society has to face the question how to reduce energy demand. Transition engineering offers a roadm...

By: Tilman Reitz, Tine Haubner

Abstract: In discussions about the main growth drivers in our societies, two explanations often collide: a cultural account of growth dispositions and an economic account of capitalist growth imperatives. The planned contribution aims at bridging the gap between these accounts. Its central idea is that flexible global capitalism increasingly binds exploitation to the relative weakness and stren...

By: Daniela Gottschlich

Abstract: Feminist approaches take the rationale of care as a normative guideline that offers an opportunity to deal with the numerous socio-ecological crises caused by e.g. the rationale of development and resource extractivism. Taking the accumulation of capital as a guiding principle does not have a neutral effect on the efforts to secure sustainable livelihoods. On the contrary, it promotes...

By: Marion Real, Benjamin Tyl, Iban Lizarralde

strong sustainability, user behaviors, eco-ideation, learning and open environments

By: Christian Kerschner

Abstract: This paper is part of an effort to compile a vocabulary for Degrowth. Such a collection of concepts for the paradigm is important for the creation of a common language and knowledge base. This article is the first one, which tries to offer a universal definition of resource peaks and explains de main basics behind such phenomena. Peak-Oil is one of the most central elements in the bio...

By: Claudia Gómez Portugal

Abstract: The great challenge of our time is to build and nurture sustainable communities. Increasingly often environmental, social and existential crisis among others, evidence unsustainability of the development model. Face this systemic crisis involves recognizing the need to create new structures and organizational forms that include a new education, that primarily respond the paradigm shif...

By: Vera Freyling

Abstract: The presentation is part of the special session “Resource efficiency Beyond GDP”. Improving resource efficiency generally means maximizing produced value, while minimizing pressures and impacts of economic production. In the GDP-era we wholly consider produced value in quantifying gains of economic activities, in other words, praising the quantities of all produced final and intermedi...

By: Gabriel Lombard

Abstract: Modern economists have accustomed us to put different things under the words wealth. Some authors of the past tackled more thoroughly the question of the nature of wealth and the correlated question of the role of money. We present three prominent examples of different periods but of a common spirit: the Physiocrat François Quesnay, in 18th. century France, the art-critic John Ruskin ...

By: Lukasz Pancewicz

Abstract: Despite relatively mild effects of the world financial and economic crisis on Central and Eastern European cities, in the long run they face similar challenges that its western counterparts - falling birthrates and ageing populations, growing pressure of global economic competition that push for lower wages and increasing job insecurity as well as significant environmental challenges....

By: Onofrio Romano

Abstract: The ecological and social crises, standing at the origins of the political engagement for degrowth, are not the outcome of execrable “values” but mainly of the “horizontal” form adopted by growth regime. Horizontalism is founded on a clear separation between “functions” and “values”: the social pattern is not aimed to the implementation of specific values or ideas of justice. The regi...

By: Aili Pyhälä

Abstract: The last few decades have witnessed a rapid increase in the number of studies addressing the concept of “happiness”. However, the existing literature is highly biased to a) income-related studies; b) modern, industrialized societies; and c) single case studies. There is scarce research on cross-cultural understandings of happiness, particularly from small-scale, preindustrial societie...

By: Heide Imai

Abstract: Cities like Tokyo face recently new, complex urban challenges. However, responses to the changing urban space are often reflected in the emergence of new cultural revivals or the forging of unknown, hybrid subcultures, which can be understood when studying the diverse ways people (re-) interpret small urban places in relationship to their changing lifestyles. This paper will discuss t...

By: Mark Lindley, Jan Otto Andersson

Abstract: A traditional, persistently mercantilist tendency of nation states has prevented them from cooperating sufficiently on macro-ecological problems of unprecedented urgency in the 21st century. The strength of this tendency is due historically to the fact that nation states, and the kind of patriotism which they engender, emerged together with internationally competitive capitalism. We p...

By: Frederike Neuber, Barbara Muraca

viable technologies; conviviality; Climate Engineering; climate change;

By: Vincent Moreau, Frédéric Meylan, Suren Erkman

Abstract: Carbon dioxide emissions from industrial activities have accumulated in the atmosphere in excess of 880 gigatons (Gt) since preindustrial times. The conventional approaches to climate change, market based mechanisms, energy efficiency or technology have proved less efficient than recent economic downturns at curbing the emission rate. We propose to account for the atmospheric stock as...

By: Markus Flück

Abstract: My starting point is that the “green revolution” and free trade policies haven’t been successful towards solving hunger problems and might even endanger the nutrition system of the whole human society. On the consumption side, especially in the north, but also in the wealthy social classes in the south, feeding habits need more and more energy and produce too much rubbish. A hopeful c...