Ep 295 - Degrowth Through Social Movements with Erin Remblance

When people reject the concept of degrowth are they suggesting society continue to allow capital to ravage the earth? Are they saying the countries of the global North should continue exploiting and extracting from the global South? Are they pushing for more growth?

Steve’s guest, Erin Remblance is an Australian researcher and activist who was spurred into action six years ago when the IPCC released their special report on global warming of 1.5°C. Since then, Erin has been creating courses, events, and materials that address the crises and work toward solutions.

Erin and Steve discuss degrowth, a planned reduction in energy and material throughput to maintain ecological balance. (Throughput, for those unfamiliar with the term, is defined as “the amount of material or items passing through a system or process.”)

The episode goes into the systemic issues of capitalism, which increasingly commodifies all areas of our lives in its relentless pursuit of growth.

“The gross national product does not allow for the health of our children, the quality of their education or the joy of their play. It does not include the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our marriages, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials. It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning, neither our compassion nor our devotion to our country. It measures everything in short, except that which makes life worthwhile.” Robert F. Kennedy, 1968, included in Erin’s slide presentation, An Introduction to Degrowth

Follow Erin Remblance and find her work on LinkedIn, Substack, and Twitter:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/erin-remblance/

https://erinremblance.substack.com/

https://twitter.com/remblance_erin

https://the-healthy-habits-accelerator.circle.so/c/start-here/the-rules