Well and just consumption to start with. It's not just that we are producing items that are made to go bad quickly, its just that we are producing too many items in total. We are encouraged to consume when that has no real societal or social value, it just benefits capitalism. Throw out the whole system and build something better. We need a system that is designed around human and non-human animal value, as well as environmental values not one designed to enhance profit.
@@peterbedford449 the false assumption is the 'free rational beings' will reflect their own values in purchases thus turning the ship into a somewhat democratic abstraction of the population's values. LMFAO reality is sooo different. But I do think it's a genuine challenge to incorporate the values of an ideologically diverse population into such clearly motivated policy without the socialism I love and hope for turning tyrannical and clumsy and therefore summoning the opposition to dismantle it.
You're probably confusing manufactured obsolescence with a "programmed/planned" lifespan of utensils, these are different things, and neither necessarily wastes more resources than not having them, possibly arguably the opposite. The real key problem is the virtual lack of an effective recycling pathway (and sometimes, other kinds of regulations, like favoring extremely bottles that you return to the seller). Theoretically you could have things like electronic goods being in a way more rent/leased than 100% transferred to the consumer, along with the responsibility to deal with it when it no longer works or when a new development renders it comparatively costlier to use, and then the consumer/citizen basically transfer this responsibility to the state, which historically has been mostly choosing to dump all the trash into large holes. Ideally (yet under real-world constraints of physics, technology, and economy/scarcity) this kind of destination would be the last resort, and the industries or sectors of the industry would have their own obsolete or broken stuff returned, it would then be processed to salvage what's still somehow valuable, and then only the most definitely garbage stuff would end up in a landfill. It's worth stressing that no ideal scenario or improvement comes without a short-term cost, including in prices paid for stuff. Cheap/more affordable production, its pollution, and landfills are basically a way of more cheaply skipping those costs and postponing the consequences, which still has a price, also postponed.
@@peterbedford449 Right, but people don't simply consume because they're encouraged to. They want stuff to enhance their local environment, and fun. You'll have a hard time convincing people they should give up fun, or environmental enhancements. If you want to forward a new system you have to also convince people it will enhance their local environment, and fun. You don't get points for advocating some nebulous "value of the organism" which is ultimately boring to most people who already value organisms in their own mind, but still want stuff that makes them happy.
@@spacedoohicky you seem to be assuming the new system world be put to public referendum. in the population at large we have at least 80% nationwide bipartisan support for the immediate disbursal of the covid relief, and have for months. as far as i know, nobody in washington dares to express opposition and yet all that is forthcoming is the declaration from the president that he's willing to negotiate on the issue.
My guess is that what people are most frightened about is that their livelihoods seem to be so closely linked to GDP. When people hear "degrowth," their minds immediately go to "recession" and "austerity." Which is perfectly fair. I think that if the de-growth model is to succeed, it'll have to show people what they gain. In the US at least, society is not going to tolerate giving the state more power, and to be honest, I don't really blame them. What is most necessary is demonstrating the gains that they can make through cooperative organizations, not just with trade unions but with cooperative organization generally, for any and all reasons. People are dis-empowered, terrified and are desperate for a way out
"most frightened about is that their livelihoods seem to be so closely linked to GDP. When people hear "degrowth," their minds immediately go to "recession" and "austerity."" Yeah that's because we have an ever increasing population with ever dwindling resources
@@onedeathbyflame yes and no. Yes, the population is growing, but the rate of growth has already dropped off precipitously, mostly due to higher costs of childrearing in economically developed countries and female education and empowerment- turns out women are much better judges of how many children to have then men. As for resources, most of the resources that we actually use can be regenerated or recycled with the right technology, which we have, and the right economic structure, which we don't. Obviously there are some things you can't regrow or recycle, and for those we may have to consider that perhaps we shouldn't be looking to use such scarce resources. For everything else, the big ball of fusion reactor in the sky covers most of the entropic problems we would encounter- if we make good use of it That being said, richer countries would have to reduce consumption a fairly substantial amount. But a lot of their excess comes from overproduction and planned obsolescence. Degrowth of the economy wouldn't necessarily lead to an overall reduction in quality of life if it was balanced by growth in the productiveness of household economies (yard gardens, rainwater harvesting, net negative energy use from solar panels, petty crafts and trades) and the creative commons (like wikipedia and public domain). Not to mention the mental health benefits of not being pressured to produce and consume at full tilt 24/7/365.
Not just on lefttube - I think most leftie spaces are missing economic insight!! This is going to be an amazing resource and I’m definitely checking out some of the sources :) thank you for your work!!
Seems bit of a straw man to me. Most Lefty space are all about economics. Most Lefty academics and think pieces are about economics, and offer a better alternative to the current failing system
@@meatboy6128 Yes, that is the definition of leftism. Challenging inequality and hierarchy.
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@@arcarsenal1380 Instead these new theoretic policies are becoming failed systems, themself. Except for social democrats whose policies don't bring economic growth per se, but bring however stability to the countries.
The thing that's nice about degrowth is that it proposes a holistic solution to non-climate-related environmental problems. I tend to frame my discussion of these in the context of the Stockholm Resilience Institute's planetary boundaries model, where agriculture is one of the major economic sectors that impacts the vast majority of these problems. Green-growthers don't have good solutions for global-scale long-term sustainable ag, but degrowthers do: literally grow less (and considering how land-inefficient our food systems are in terms of feed crops, there's a lot of room to grow less while feeding more people).
@@hellboy6507 I'm pretty sure the degrowthers are saying that there is enough land to grow abundant food. But the industrial scale in which we produce it is so massive that it goes beyond abundance into waste. Certainly we could dial back for now to be less wasteful. And in the future if it is needed, dial production back forward.
@@hellboy6507 We live in a society of abundance right now. The problem is that a ton of it is wasted, and we keep making more and more. Degrowthers seem to want to stop this.
I study sustainable business in university and all of my business classes (and my economics classes especially) are taught through an extremely neoliberal lens, which causes a whole lot of dissonance with the sustainability side of my major and the business side of my major, so this video is much appreciated. This channel in general articulates a lot of the points of contention that I've struggled to adequately put words to when they've come up in my classes. Liked and subbed!
Several fundamental transformations that have been proposed to address the limitations and negative consequences of capitalism include: 1. Economic Democracy: One transformation is the establishment of economic democracy, where workers and communities have a say in decision-making processes within economic institutions. This can be achieved through various means, such as expanding co-operatives, implementing participatory budgeting, and creating worker-owned enterprises. 2. Redistribution of Wealth: Addressing income and wealth inequality is another crucial transformation. This can be achieved through progressive taxation, wealth redistribution policies, and ensuring fair wages and benefits for all workers. 3. Sustainable and Regenerative Economy: Transitioning to a sustainable and regenerative economy is essential to address the environmental challenges posed by capitalism. This includes investing in renewable energy, promoting circular economy principles, prioritizing sustainable agriculture, and adopting practices that reduce waste and resource consumption. 4. Social Safety Nets: Building robust social safety nets that provide universal access to healthcare, education, housing, and basic income can help ensure that everyone has a minimum standard of living and protection against poverty and insecurity. 5. Democratic Planning: Implementing democratic planning mechanisms, where decisions about resource allocation and production are made collectively and transparently, can help prioritize societal needs and environmental sustainability over profit maximization. 6. Localized and Community-Centered Economies: Promoting localized economies that prioritize community well-being, local production, and consumption can reduce dependence on global supply chains and empower communities to shape their economic systems according to their values and needs. 7. Reevaluation of Growth: Rethinking the obsession with perpetual economic growth and transitioning to models that prioritize well-being, quality of life, and ecological sustainability over endless consumption and production. It's important to note that the specific transformations required may vary depending on the context and the vision of the alternative economic system being pursued. Different schools of thought within alternative economic theories, such as socialism, may propose varying strategies and approaches to bring about these transformations.
See The Great Simplification. Listen to Steve Keen on pre Adam Smith thinking and alternatives to Keynesian theory. No economic theories incorporate any concept of Energy. Try doing or making anything without it! A lot of rethinking is required and so refreshing to see how it makes sense.
@@nishi1870 So somehow this huge amount wealth will just exist year after year that will allow everyone to have great jobs and wages and have great schools and great every other public service people need build this incredible post capitalism society while at the same forcing massive degrowth on our people which means our people will get poorer every year. You can't have both this great fair and equal society where every gets a great wage and public institutions are financed enough to be functioning great and have Degrowth at the same time. You and your fellow climate warriors need stop being intellectually dishonest about all this. If u support forcing Degrowth on your fellow people than just own it and admit the truth that you believe that CC is so horrible that it's better to have Degrowth and have us all be incredibly poor (poor forever after since we can't ever bring back economic growth cause that will kill the planet in no time), and our govt. bankrupt (we don't need all those racist cops anymore anyway) and that it will be horrible and' we will all have to somehow learn to farm the l again if we don't want to starve but it's better than killing the whole planet in 10 years from CC.
In my country we often see economist as downright disconected elitist who often blame the poor for their own disgraces and suppourt extractivism without any measure. It is great to see a backed up channel that makes the effort to explain economy concepts taking sources such as anarquist theory books about localists solutions, thank you for taking the time
There is also the question of how much is enough. For an individual rather you have 100 billion or 500 billion dollars is completely irrelevant. If we can have enough to meet all our basic needs and luxuries for those that work a little harder and some set aside for unexpected things like natural disasters or disease do we really need that much more? I think we need to reduce the focus on the economy. It often feels like economic growth is a dick measuring contest these days rather then a mechanism to get people the things they need to live a good life.
Thank you for your feedback. It's unfortunate that some economists are perceived as disconnected or elitist, as economics should be a field that strives to understand and improve the well-being of all individuals in society. It is important for economists to consider diverse perspectives, including those that prioritize localism and sustainable solutions. Exploring concepts from various economic theories, such as anarchist theory or localist approaches, can contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the complex challenges we face and help inform potential solutions. By incorporating a range of sources and perspectives, economists can contribute to a more inclusive and equitable economic discourse.
@@nishi1870 I think to achieve these things the first step is to stop the GDP dick measuring contest. To not longer have a high GDP for the sake of having a high GDP.
Learning economics with you is weirdly helping with my anxiety. I start with the impression that I will be dealt some really bad news ... which is kinda true, but then there are also some real possible solutions and ideas to explore towards building a brighter future. All this is invaluable work and I hope your outreach grows (heh see what I did there)
So what I’m hearing is decentralization and increased localization while subsidizing better more multipurpose methods of production across many sectors like agriculture and manufacturing?
Another way of looking at this is simply that economic and other systems need to be considered with a broad lens before we expect new technologies to magically allow us to continue to drive/fly/eat/consume quite as much as we are now. Reducing one kind of environmental damage cannot simply become a shell-game wherein the damage is just transformed into damage of a different type.
Sounds very similar to the "diversification" strategy that gets taught to investors. Seems like a wise strategy. We should not put all our eggs in one basket.
Dude, this video was actually pretty inspiring; I've always known that I want to spend my life helping to make the world a more sustainable place, and am thinking of going into urban planning in order to achieve this. Been trying to improve my (currently pretty poor) understanding of economics in order to further that goal, this channel is proving so useful, kind of overwhelmed with how much your videos are expanding my reading list though 😅
I've been toying with a similar idea myself, but I'd like to emphasize links between rural and urban areas and converting spaces for modern citywide food production and waste recycling.
@@mikolajdubiel1384 "converting spaces for modern citywide food production" - This is exactly one of the things I want to do; during a few years I spent studying architecture I became obsessed with projects which rethink the relationship between food production and the city. Eventually I decided that town-planning/urban design is probably a better route for me to go down to have a chance of exploring these ideas on a large scale
That's wonderful to hear! Urban planning can be a great field to contribute to creating more sustainable and livable communities. As an urban planner, you'll have the opportunity to shape cities and regions, considering factors such as land use, transportation, infrastructure, and environmental sustainability. Your work can have a significant impact on creating more resilient and environmentally friendly urban spaces. To pursue a career in urban planning, it's beneficial to acquire the necessary education and skills in the field. Look for universities or colleges that offer urban planning or related programs. Engage in internships or practical experiences that allow you to gain hands-on knowledge and understanding of the field. Networking with professionals in urban planning and sustainability can also provide valuable insights and opportunities. Remember to stay informed about current trends and practices in sustainable urban planning. This includes considerations like smart growth, mixed land use, green infrastructure, renewable energy integration, and community engagement. By combining your passion for sustainability with urban planning, you can contribute to creating more environmentally conscious and socially equitable communities. Best of luck in your pursuit of a career in urban planning!
Personally im on the side of degrowth, however I see the points you brought up. Agriculture honestly needs to be one of the most important and radical parts of the change, which alongside your housing video could help transform some of the more impoverished rural areas into flourishing communities
He honestly presents both sides quite well. I'm still mostly on the side of growth, but I can definitely see the merits of degrowth a lot better after this. I'm ashamed to admit that I've mostly dismissed it as anarcho-primitivist nonsense until now. Instead, it seems to be more of a curtailing of development, instead of an attempt to go back to the Year Zero I think agriculture reform is important as well to prevent ecological devastation and to improve sustainability for an ever-increasing population. I also think that power generation is a critical concern, since the golden dream of nuclear fusion plants are still too far away to rely on. A lot of the technological advancements we take for granted over the last few years (not phones and computers, but medical and production, and public transportation technology) is still out of reach of much of the developing world due to lack of power generation and infrastructure. There is also the concern of water procurement and treatment in these regions. My home country of Egypt is gearing for war against Ethiopia as we speak over what are essentially just power and water disputes. And this is a trend I'm afraid will continue in other places as developing countries, well, develop and strive for a better quality of life comparable to the G7 countries. New policies and advancements, especially those that are not western-centric, will curtail this issue by providing viable alternative models for these developing nations to adopt.
Biggest agricultural chamber I can think of is to stop cultivating lawn. It gives no value beyond asthetic and yet is also the most cultivated crop in the USA by land area
You should do a UBI vs Welfare video with some stuff about countercyclical stabilizers vs flat payments. Pretty good topic That and a federal jobs guarantee
While they should obviously be avoided, I agree that lesser-of-two-evils sort of decisions will be necessary, especially during the transitional period
10:15 “I think of this problem as like a lump of air under the carpet, pushing it down will only make another one appear elsewhere” you have perfectly described how i feel about basically everything people are doing for the environment
I think it's important to have an economic system that can cope with recession; where livelihoods are not threatened by a lack of growth. Circular economics and the repair economy are going to be key to a prosperous future.
Yeah. We need something that is stable and self sustaining. We are at a ceiling in civilization right now, and we cannot grow higher than the ceiling. We need to grow broad branches and deep roots.
@@ten_tego_teges Not just a safety net for when there isn't economic growth, but a redesign of the system so that we are not dependant on said growth.
I'm all for degrowth. We have the power to make less stuff that lasts longer and live in the same conditions but with a much smaller economy. It's not just about the climate. It's not even just about resources like you mentioned. It's about ecosystems and all the wildlife we are driving extinct. Those things have intrinsic moral value to me.
9:45 I also think it's a good opportunity to change some of the mistakes and bad decisions such as massive car use. A lot of the European love of bicycles isn't just related to carbon emissions, it is just nicer to have a city full of bicycles than a city full of cars even electric cars. Also for this to work we need nuclear power too as well as hydrogen gas plants. A combination of nuclear for base power, renewables for daytime and peak power and gas powerplants and hydro power to take care of the margins.
I was already fairly aware of the Green New Deal and the basics of it's aim, but I appreciate the extra background information and extending my understanding of the specifics. Yet I remain unchanged in my position... the US needs a Green New Deal one way or another.
This is a really great overview! Outside the scope of an overview like this, I've also heard quite a bit from the Green Growth camp about nuclear energy. You touch on the high degree of technological optimism in that camp, and this is, I think a subset of that. It isn''t economics, per se, but the governance (and I would say that economic systems are a form of governance, which is why I think its relevant) of any technological solutions to climate change (or any other problem really) can either erect or alleviate barriers to solving it that a technocentric view might ignore. I'm just an adjunct, but a colleague and I recently wrote a paper about democratic governance and nuclear energy that I think is peripherally related. For the sake of being upfront, we did have to tone back our nuclear skepticism a bit for this piece, including our supposition that the option to reject any given technology has to be on the table for the governance of it to be truly democratic. But here it is for anyone interested: www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/democracy-and-the-nuclear-stalemate
11:40 "Bees: without their pollination, most of our food systems would be completely useless." This is a bit misleading, in a couple of ways. Firstly, bees are not the only pollinators, and protecting other wild pollinators is equally important (although the required measures are typically the same either way). Secondly, the majority of calories consumed globally come from crops that have little or no need for animal pollination, like grains and starchy root vegetables. The crops that directly require pollination for their production are mostly ones where we eat the fruit: coffee, apples, pumpkins, avocados, etc. (There's also variation in which crops rely on wild pollinators versus honeybees, which are a domesticated species and hence not always subject to the same environmental threats.) So "most food systems" is maybe an overstatement, although it's clear that life would suck in various ways without animals pollinating our crops, and many economically and nutritionally important food systems would collapse. I like this video and channel a lot.
Excellent video. I am often complaining about the over-reliance on sustainability and technological development in conversations about climate change, this is a really interesting framing of the issue.
Not really sure the differences between green growth and degrowth are going to matter much when we overshoot the carbon neutrality deadlines. The technology might be there, but the culture and its associated will are not. Most people can't even really define conspicuous consumption, let alone identify all the things in their lives they think of as just being completely normal but are actually just useless status symbols - like suburban lawns. The amount of people who have lawn care services truck in zero turn mowers to mow their lawn for them in my area is insane in the face of the fact that no property in my neighborhood is over half an acre . . . . I can literally mow my entire front and back yard with a manual reel mower in an hour or less. Yet only two of my closest eight neighbors use gas push mowers to mow their own lawns, the others either own riding mowers or hire people who bring riding mowers to their homes. I can't share in optimistic environmental ideas when I can't even have a conversation with my neighbors about managing their own tiny property more responsibly without being called a yippie or a hipster at some point . . . . or being lazy because they don't like how the no-mow portions of my lawn I have already converted look or the fact that I let my backyard get pretty shaggy between cuttings because it stands up to my two dogs better when its not cropped short all the time. Trying to convince people within ten years to make serious changes or at the very least patiently deal with the growing pains of completely shifting our culture of consumption to something more reasonable is not feasible.
Yeah I feel your pain.. I suppose the thing to remember is individual actions < large-scale corporate shifts. I feel like the best way forward is to pressure governments and companies, and social changes will follow naturally, in the same way LGBTQ acceptance followed changes in the law and institutions. Maybe I'm being naive but at least if we target corporations & governments rather than shaming individuals we have the biggest possible chance.. I'm vegan and I've been trying to convince people for years that if you are worried about the environment or care about reducing suffering, it is the single biggest thing you can do - but I think the change will come as artificial meat and vegan food in general becomes more common, and meat becomes more expensive and rare. I've convinced one person to become vegan out of many conversations but I know two who are now vegetarian for economic & health reasons. Sorry this got rambly, effective advocacy is a really complicated area. We need leftist sociologists and psychologists to help us out here!
@@r-pupz7032 I think you are being naïve, because this issue is nothing like LGBTQ rights . . . and also ignores the ongoing attacks on them still currently happening. A corporation or politician could garner more customers/voters by paying lip service to supporting a minority group - dealing with climate change is going to require actual sacrifices . . . . and as a country we can't even all wear masks in public to stop thousands of people from dying. I don't think its realistic to see three+ decades of billion dollar companies and conservatives lobbying against climate regulations being undone in the short amount of time we have left to make meaningful changes. Consider just agriculture for example. There is no functional way to shift most farms into a regenerative state where they are carbon capturing in their soil within the next decade - and lobby groups for corporate and rented farm lands would fight that effort every step of the way to make sure it didn't edge into their profits. Ethanol is one of the least green, least cost effective, and least energy efficient ways to utilize land in America today - and that has been well documented since the 90's . . . . but its impossible to get rid of despite the fact you can literally generate more energy for our country by taking the same corn and anaerobically digesting it to produce electricity. The lobby and the sentiment it has created around "protecting farmers" and "protecting American energy independence" is so strong we can't convince people to stop wasting their time and just throw that corn into a dark wet hole because its literally more effective. No politician that relies on rural voters is going push that infrastructure change because those voters will see the transition as a threat.
How about a video on the EU Green Deal? I for one think it's a more salient issue than the US Green Deal as the latter won't happen in the near future...
The addition of green house emissions comes from other sectors than energy production also. It is thought that energy production amounts to only 60-70 percent of our emissions. Renewable energy will not be the single out to this problem, we need a more holistic solution.
I think that "The Limits to Growth" report has kinda nailed this question back in 1972 : - whether we want it or not there is several limits to physical growth : like ressources stocks decreasing quality and limited regeneration rate, or the increasing cost of keeping a higher proportion of pollution and waste under control, relatively to the overall production, - crossing those limits can only be done temporarily, and the further we go, the more painful the callback to reality will be, the faster we react the better the outcome, Thus at some point we will have to make our economies livable without a need for exponential growth, and as climate change and a bunch of other issues are getting more and more pressing, it is pretty clear that the deadline we operate under may be closer to a few decades than several centuries. The focus on the growth of production rather than stocks is also an issue, as churning more merchandise at the expense of its lifetime, sometimes going as far as actively destroying the old value to give room for the new through marketing and planned obsolescence, does not make us richer, it only makes a few organisations more powerful while making way more waste than necessary.
You dropped the "physical" from "growth" halfway through. It's a common mistake people make when thinking about growth and I think that's in part because the alternatives are hard to imagine. IMO that makes imagining them all the more important.
@@subtlewolf non physical growth is limited by people time : we can't experience things faster than we already do. The production of culture and science is already orders of magnitude beyond what an individual can absorb. Diversity helps to gain some margin, but even that has an end.
thx man, as someone who studied agriculture 11 Years ago and now works in social services this hits home for me !!! this video is a nice overview of the discussions going on and I realy appriciate your content over all !!!!
I feel that if you would want a Green New Deal you would want economic planning and public ownership of the key or emergent sectors to direct resources and investments quickly and to ensure society as a whole benefits and control. This will become more important in the future. European nations after ww2 engaged in the relatively minor task of rebuilding their economies and thus implemented planning, along with a growing trend towards distrust of markets. We have to break with economic orthodoxy.
As long as we can have true democratic planing, where workers, citizens and ... well, basically everyone involved by planning decision share a part of democratic power inside the process. This could really be a new golden age when we could decide to produce things we actually need while ensuring we DO need them.
Great video! I wish you had touched on nuclear energy though. It is often left out of climate discussions because an inconvenient truth for many green growthers AND degrowthers is, nuclear power has displaced fossil fuels -- in France, Germany, sweden, Japan, certain us states -- in a way even cheap renewables have not. I say this as someone who wants a rapid expansion of both renewables and nuclear power
I've never understood why it's always either renewables or nuclear. Why not use every tool at our disposal for combating climate change? Renewables are what we ultimately want to settle on but nuclear could play a massive role in getting rid of fossil fuels, especially if we invest in technologies like nuclear waste recycling
My mum was with me when I watched this. "Do you believe this? Do you think it's real?" I said "Yes. I don't understand how your generation doesn't get that." She said "What I don't get is, the roads aren't melting in Vietnam" (where I live) "but they are in the UK. How do you explain that?" I actually did say "OK Boomer. Maybe you can't believe it because you won't have to deal with it." She said "Neither will you." "Yes I will, and so will he (my son, her grandson)." Worst. Generation. Ever.
Before watching the video: DE-growth. "Green growth" is an illusion, an oxymoron. The *only* way to solve the crimate challenges is for human to forget its current and historically speaking quite new love affair with economic growth. Now I'll watch the video :-)
I find the discussion illuminating and need to look into a couple of the books you mention. I especially like the idea of shifting from a capital-intensive to a labour-intensive production. I'm also involved in local permaculture organization here in Randers, Denmark, and am (as a working pro in the software business) fascinated by the idea of rebuilding as least as many ressources as you consume in each of the areas corresponding to the "five disasters", earth, air, water, energy and organization. Even more interesting may be the notion of "global footprint". How do we reach a point where the total ressource consumption of everyone on earth is sustainable, i.e. that it would require less than or equal to ONE planet Earth to sustain it? In that respect, you might say, the point is to increase total human wellbeing while remaining sustainable. That would require not decoupling emissions from economic growth, but achieving a fair partition of resources that would allow us to decouple economic growth from human wellbeing. And THAT would mean really attacking inequality. Which, of course, is what makes all of this really difficult.
@unlearning economics The statement at 2:40 is kind of incorrect, we are already at 1.1 degrees out of 1.5 and even if we hard-stopped emissions right now there is still a large amount of committed warming that will happen regardless due to carbon already in the atmosphere. It is currently nearly impossible to hit the 1.5 degree paris agreement without not only hard-stopping emissions but also removing over a quadrillion tons of co2 equivalent gas from the atmosphere. This taken into consideration means that the net zero by 2050 goal is over 30 years too late. The IPCC has been criticized heavily by climate scientists for it's overly optimistic representation of the problem which leaves out these facts. For more info you can research "committed warming" or check out this study and others like it: link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-020-02849-5
"With chunks the size of Delaware are falling off the poles, how long until there's nothing left at all?" -Billy Strings It's so sad how ubiquitous song lyrics about the end of a livable world are for artists under 40.
Great video, the ending of which is what I see repeated within Degrowth literature, especially the work of Jason Hickel. From what I've read, in terms of policy, technology, and reorganization of the economy, growth and degrowth advocates are basically indistinguishable. But degrowth advocates emphasize a few very important ideas. (1) Regardless of whether or not GDP growth can be eventually decoupled from GHG emissions, it certainly cannot be accomplished in the rapidly vanishing time we have left to rescue the earth from catastrophic climate change; and (2) GDP growth overwhelming goes to the top 5%, meaning that the majority of this growth does not positively impact the lives of those doing the producing. Be it climate change, environmental degradation, environmental justice, economic disenfranchisement, or any related topic, degrowth has the more immediate, holistic, and justice-oriented approach.
Jill Stein is grumbling about not being mentioned on "her name/idea" Americans. The world is ending, and we're arguing about who invented the slogan. Sigh.
What some people call "gold" others call "Good day sir may I ask what you are doing with so much gold? Shall I assume you have amassed such a volume in anticipation of redistributing it for the benefit of the common folk?"
The claim that renewable technologies are more mineral intensive is patently false, as it usually disregards the consumption of fossil fuel as being a "mineral resource." This is a very common (sometimes deliberate) mistake in studies making comparisons between fossil fuel and "green" technology. For instance, when comparing a coal plant to a wind farm, somebody conducting such a study will simply compare the material require to manufacture all the windmills, and compare that to the material required to construct the coal plant, in doing this, it would seem that the windmills use much more material. What they usually do not do, is a full lifecycle analysis about how much earth must be moved to procure coal for running the coal plant, they will not account for the petroleum required to run mining equipment to procure the coal, etc. Whereas, the windmills do not require much, if any additional resources to actually extract power from the wind. This is a massive oversight in methodology. The REAL elephant in the room for "green tech" is that they currently lean to heavily on resources extracted from politically unstable "global south" nations, one solution to this would be to move lithium and cobalt extraction to western countries like the US, Australia and Canada, where environmental impacts and labor issues can be more closely monitored. A more seminal long-term solution would be to deliberately design energy storage technology that uses more common and easily sourced materials, such as batteries that use Aluminum, Iron, Zinc, or Sodium as their active cathode material, with carbon-based anode materials; such metallic and organic elements are much more commonly available and more easily recyclable than current li-ion batteries.
I am firmly on the "Degrowth" side of the argument. Green growth simply leaves too much room for current pollution culprits to pay lipservice to being green and carry on as usual. This needs to stop. And thus green grows is not an option anymore.
Concerns about labels are merely aesthetic. "Green growth" is a term like any other, no more likely to get corrupted than "degrowth". A video by another pseudo-breadtuber called "consummerism: can we buy a better world?" Shows just how degrowth can be appropriated by elites just as much as green growth used to be. Rejecting solutions based on mere lables is not acceptable, not when we need politically viable solutions ASAP.
I want to save this so I can remember to read all those books! I believe strongly in a lot of these ideas but struggle to put it into words sometimes so this channel is great
There's also the obsolescence problem with Solar Panels and batteries. They both have lower life expectancy compared to other energy systems, are hard to recycle and are (still) expensive to produce. In 10 to 20 years we'll have to deal with replacing the solar pannels installed in the last decade.
@@gp1157 Also what it loses in efficiency it gains in benefits for the environment and possible scale. Batteries do not have the capacity to replace every fossil fuel car on the planet and biofuels are not really an option.
I was into the Green New Deal until I learned the history of the name. There was the Square Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Deal. Why, WHY can’t it just be called the “Green Deal”??
Wow mate really great stuff absolutely loving it and will be listening and re-listening to it! I hope you'll consider having a podcast on spotify! Looking forward to more videos of yours! Cheers
@@MrTooEarnestOnline Yup, never gonna happen. World bank loves the opposite happening, extract more growth from exploited countries in the most environmentally disastrous ways their supporters can get away with.
Great video! As someone that lives in the global south, it's a bit disheartening seeing just how much our livelihoods will depend on what gets done on the upper side of the map. That said, we do have a lot of housecleaning to do on our side too. It'll either be ecosocialism or collapse, capitalism cannot survive climate change.
Isn't there an argument for sustainability rather than growth or retraction, also my understanding is that capitalism is hugely inefficient in almost every aspect.
@@Disthron efficiency is a bit vague: i would suggest that a majority of the ressources extracted are for unnecessary money piling and not for actual needs
I'm skeptical of a degrowth model with a still growing human population. The closing timeline needed for climate action is 30 years to carbon neutrality, and then go carbon negative! That is not much time to get all of the technology invented, scaled, and deployed let alone having to restructure the entirety of modern society on top of that
Good summary, and the 'substituting one environmental problem for another' point is very important. Couple thoughts: -It's been argued that dense cities are far more environmentally efficient than living in suburbs or the land. Cities have *vastly* smaller geographic footprints per person; are easier to insulate (since one person's apartment heats their neighbors apartment); have shorter logistics chains per person; and are the only place where public transport, walking and biking are not only viable, but often prefered. -Linked to that, global value chains probably benefit the environment. You burn far more fuel driving a truck to your local ecofarm, than a massive containership does bringing mutton from New Zealand. And any policy that encourages Canadians to grow avocados is environmental silliness. Politically, such value chains are more mixed: on the one hand, they can make enforcing environmental regulations more difficult (environmental arbitrage and all that), but on the other, they give countries a common interest in a problem that will require global cooperation regardless. -While GDP is a crude measure, there is one area where it gives us a reasonable idea about something real, including the ability of a country to engage in conflict. This point is often hard to appreciate for people in secure countries like the US or UK, but especially for smaller countries, proposing that they shift away from heavy industries and sacrifice national output directly threatens their ability to defend themselves from their neighbors.
I know this is a comment from two years ago, it's bad etiquette to comment now and your opinions have probably changed, but your last point is really important. Western-centric (or more narrowly, American-centric) politics often frames the military as something used for enforcing political and economic will overseas, and thus many left-wing groups reject the concept of a military outright, citing its ties to imperialism and the lack of a real existential threat to their nation. But as should be obvious, you can only come to this conclusion if you live in a so-called "imperial core" nation, safely isolated from hardship and war. Outside of that bubble, the threat of irredentism or being caught up in other nations' conflicts is very real, and will dominate a nation's politics. And if you can't understand that kind of difference between your own privileged bubble and the rest of the world, then you'll never have effective foreign policy or be able to build multinational agreements on issues like climate change. End of.
The only reason you'd need a military in today's world, is to defend yourself from the u Imperial core, or nations like yourself, that are overexploited by it.
There is no spatial dimension to most analyses. Continued growth of use of cars, for example, is not possible even if there were no GHG emissions. Meanwhile walking and bicycling require a lot less investment and preserve space.
A great challenge I hear almost nobody talk about is the production of fertilizers especially the need for phosphate. At the moment the need for phosphate is largely sustained through mining and it seems like there is no plan for what to do once that isn't viable any longer.
About concern about climate change vs other ecological concerns, like with lithium: IMO there is an important difference: climate change is a huge, global threat. Concerns around lithium are not remotely close. They're vastly exagerrated - critics of doing anything about climate change take that, and equivocate. "We should stay at burning fossil fuels, green tech like EVs also have ecological impact!". Sure - everything has. But it's a matter of scale. Concerns around EVs or plastic use or whatever are not as severe as concerns over fossil fuels. Sometimes it gets even more ridiculous: some people spread FUD about solar panels - that they are somehow problematic because of recycling them. Nevermind they'd generate "free electicity" for decades - even after 20 year warranty expires. Never mind they're made of trivial to recycle metal frame, some glass - which could be dumped in a landfill and wouldn't have any negative effects there\* and semiconductors with small copper wires - which also could go onto a landfill - they're just processed silicon + metal. Silicon is one of the most abundant elements on the planet. \* and no, we're not going to run out of space for our trash, that's a ridiculous notion.
Also, about lithium: AFAIK less than $100 worth of it goes into a Tesla car battery. We could make something like $100 or $200 tax which would go into fixing these mining operations - increasing worker wages or making them less polluting - and it wouldn't drive up cost of the batteries that much. And concerns about "running out of the stuff" are baseless IMO - AFAIK we don't have magic technology which lets us detect all instances of the element on the planet. There could be more of this stuff in unknown places. And then there's recycling.
And, the thing is, it's true that "resources are limited". If we're constricted to Earth - otherwise, the problem effectively disappears. It won't if we just STOP - as I understand, that's what degrowth proponents want. And unless we decide to stop the civilization and go back to hunter-gatherer lifestyle (killing few billions in the process) - we'd eventually use all of these resources. "Degrowth" is a trap.
@@arcarsenal1380 it's mostly philosophical discussion surrounding economic systems and the way people interact with them. Not nessessaraly economics itself.
You say that renewable energy is more mineral intensive than fossil fuels, and is therefore destructive because of mining, but that's only because the definition of "mineral" arbitrarily excludes fossil fuels, whose extraction is comparatively destructive, not to mention that devastated local habitats (excluding tropical rainforests) can often be rehabilitated after the resources have been depleted, albeit with some effort. The same is not true for greenhouse gas emissions. In addition, minerals can theoretically be recycled after the product they were used for reaches the end of its life span. Its possible that at some point in the future, if the global population stops growing and most citizens of the world are rich enough to afford an electric car, we will no longer need to extract lithium and cobalt for batteries if 100% of them are recycled. Obviously that's a lot of "if"s.
Hey! beginner in Marxist economics here: Doesn't UBI ultimately come up against a fundamental contradiction of capitalism? UBI is funded by surplus wealth created by production right? But a machine cannot produce surplus wealth by the virtue of its own operation, it can only be extracted from the labour-time of living beings. The contradiction lies in this: The less time that we spend on things that do not generate surplus wealth, the less wealth there is to fund the UBI in the first place.
Does Marx's analysis on this hold on a UBI-like scenario coupled with modern monetary/financial practices? Also, machines require labour-time in various ways. Another point I wonder about is how a UBI-scenario might eventually change the value-price relationship and, taken to a extreme, the nature of money?
Kinda misleading title - thought I was gonna disagree with your position, but then you said all my thoughts in the latter half of the video lol. Great videos, look forward to more!
Insect decline is incredibly important but most of our food is not dependent on insect pollination. The majority of our food crops are wind or self pollinating.
Hey, what are some good didactical books to learn some modern economics? I want to get myself to think criticaly about economical theories and propositions :) I can handle maths if needed...
the fact that my government could do so much stuff *right now* to help prevent the effects of climate change and yet they just _dont_ is frustrating as hell
This may be an ignorant question, but is there any way to harvest and recycle Lithium and cobalt from old smartphones and electric cars for reuse? Open question, if you're reading this and have any clue, feel free to answer.
I know this woulf ne hard to solve, but one thing I’ve been thinking about recently is how we produce electronics and appliances and even furniture no longer meant to last. My parents still have most of my grandparents appliances and furniture. Meanwhile stuff I buy lasts like 10 years and falls apart. Just off the top of my head, some things thst could probably be built to last a lifetime : Fridges, Stoves, Washing machines and dryers, any furniture (chairs, sofas, etc), Microwaves, coffee machines, etc. I don’t think phones and computers could be built to last forever especially as we are coming up with new technologies constantly, however, we could build them to be easily upgradable, so we didn’t need whole new computers and phones every 2 yesrs (we dont need that anyways but also how phone companies work does make phones become more outdated more quickly like overcharging for even basic replacement parts and having a monopoly on those things. example is phone batteries. Anyways, my point is I think the Green New Deal shoulf include something about forcing companies to make products that last or at the very least being super honest about how they purposely make them to break (i think you’d see companies emerge that made longer lasting products if we had the idea that that was possible. Whi wants to replace their washing machine often honestly?)
Don't forget that their long-lasting things things are way more expensive than your cheap stuff. And simpler as well. If you would pay 10 times for your furniture, it could last for generations as well. But yeah, many things are manufactured with the idea that it should break soon enough to buy a replacement.
The fact that you left out the solution of nuclear power makes this whole video kind of worthless. We don’t need degrowth if we just move to nuclear power which is even less carbon intensive than renewables. We already have examples of full decarbonization of electricity within a decade- France and Sweden did it in the 60s. If the GND just focused on a planned nuclear buildout, we can tackle climate change while growing GDP and creating lasting jobs. Really disappointed in this videos oversight, as the quality is usually very good.
I'm not against nuclear power but the assumption that there are negligible risks is questionable and the idea that it would make every other environmental problem go away is wrong. For example, it wouldn't hep with soil depletion or species extinction.
@@unlearningeconomics9021 Thanks for the response. The safety statistics (deaths per Kw/hr) have Nuclear ahead of all other power sources even when you include Chernobyl, so I think the evidence is clear on safety. Fair point on species and soil, but there’s no reason to believe these issues won’t have technological solutions too
If it wasn't for the anti-nuclear loonies we'd already be a decade or two ahead in fighting climate change. Yet somehow nuclear remains controversial and to all those people a socialist revolution and reinventing the whole economy is more realistic than constructing a couple dozen reactors. Btw, same goes for GMO food: zero evidence for detrimental health effects while greatly improving efficiency. Yet all GMO crops are illegal in the EU. Honestly, what Greenpeace, Frined of the Earth and the like have done is absolutely criminal. Germany is firing up coal plants, so they can close nuclear plants. fml
I think a video regarding the economics of veganism might be interesting to watch. With specific regard to zoonotic diseases, climate change, deforestation, public health and deforestation.
Are you familiar with Mexie's channel? ruclips.net/video/oY_Dt1jey4M/видео.html She did a video with Unlearning Economics early on, and covers at least a few of those topics in her videos. Good stuff, and worth a watch.
It certainly sounds like the focus on economy, at least in terms of "growth", is misplaced. It's trying to trace back from the desired/expected macroeconomic results to matching policies. Too much emphasis on central planning given the empirical evidence that the procesees are too chaotic to meaningfully predict. There's a similar problem with an overemphasis towards specific technical solutions. The push for large scale retrofits that implies a better understanding of both the upstream and downstream effects than we can realistically have given their chaotic nature. So perhaps we need to look for a way to think about it at a higher level while pushing the economic and technical issues further down. The push toward localizing of the economy meshes with my own thoughts on the issue but at the same time it's still in that uncomfortable middle ground of dictation solutions. Asside from the unpredictable impacts there are also foreseeable problems like economies of scale and accessibility of goods and services. Perhaps a higher level of combining locality and resource use is to think in terms of the efficiency of moving resources. That is, moving as little mass as possible (all the way from extraction) with using as few resources as possible.
Also I think your idea that solving one environmental problem with a new technology will necessarily cause another is false. You use a couple of examples to illustrate this but that doesn't show it's always the case. Imagine a post-agricultural world in which all our food was grown in laboratories, leaving the vast majority of the earth's landmass to be rewilded. Are you seriously saying that there would necessarily be a negative environmental side-effect to that?
@@Rdorulesbc2 Of course mining causes environmental damage. I'm not questioning that. My question was rather about whether simply the fact of extracting minerals from the ground is by itself problematic (for the environment), regardless of what methods are used to do so. And when you say that a future in which all our food is produced in laboratories would be a "complete nightmare", do you mean it would be a complete nightmare for the environment, or for us?
@@Martindebenitogellne Oh, I see. To be honest, I'm not really sure then but in general, I always think that human knowledge is limited and we should avoid doing things that cant be undone such as extraction of minerals. Since we are part of the environment (we must not forget about it) I would say both. In general, we humans shouldn't be trying to do what nature do best (evolution). Look at Pugs and Bulldogs. I'm not really that studied but you should read about Agroforestry (if you hadn't). I worked in one once and felt in love.
It's a little oversimplified to have the only two options with material production be a slight modification to how things are now or "returning to hunter-gatherer" society. There are far more options beyond that, for example, resource-based economies. That would be a lot to get into so I understand not exploring it further, but it's reinforcing a worldview that slight adjustments to our current value system is the only way forward. Good video though.
The claim that "the New Deal excluded African Americans from social security" seems to me very misleading. What it excluded was certain industries which comprised 65% of the black workforce and only 27% of the white workforce. So yes, clearly the New Deal disproportionately favored white people, but also, this is not the same as totally excluding black people. To me your phrasing implied, like, literally saying "only whites are eligible" which would've been a surprise to me but not unthinkable given the time period.
Many policies which are racist in their impacts aren't explicit about it, this is why institutional racism can be so difficult to convince people of. The tests that excluded blacks from voting also affected poor/uneducated whites, for instance.
@@unlearningeconomics9021 I agree. But would I be wrong in charging that what you said would be the equivalent of just saying "African Americans couldn't vote under Jim Crow," which would obscure the fact that a significant number could and did vote despite those efforts to prevent them? I do feel like I'm nitpicking, because I think it would've taken only a little rephrasing to something like "New Deal programs disproportionately benefited whites" to make the statement more accurate and preserve the essential point. It's just if I hadn't googled it to check out that specific claim, I would have come away with a wrong idea about _how_ racially biased the New Deal was.
@@unlearningeconomics9021 institutional racism is not a problem anymore. If it was black immigrants would be doing twice as much as African Americans. The issue of black being left behind is much bigger that racism, specifically within the community.
Manufactured obsolescence, wastes a lot of minerals doesn't it.
Well and just consumption to start with. It's not just that we are producing items that are made to go bad quickly, its just that we are producing too many items in total. We are encouraged to consume when that has no real societal or social value, it just benefits capitalism. Throw out the whole system and build something better. We need a system that is designed around human and non-human animal value, as well as environmental values not one designed to enhance profit.
@@peterbedford449 the false assumption is the 'free rational beings' will reflect their own values in purchases thus turning the ship into a somewhat democratic abstraction of the population's values. LMFAO reality is sooo different.
But I do think it's a genuine challenge to incorporate the values of an ideologically diverse population into such clearly motivated policy without the socialism I love and hope for turning tyrannical and clumsy and therefore summoning the opposition to dismantle it.
You're probably confusing manufactured obsolescence with a "programmed/planned" lifespan of utensils, these are different things, and neither necessarily wastes more resources than not having them, possibly arguably the opposite. The real key problem is the virtual lack of an effective recycling pathway (and sometimes, other kinds of regulations, like favoring extremely bottles that you return to the seller). Theoretically you could have things like electronic goods being in a way more rent/leased than 100% transferred to the consumer, along with the responsibility to deal with it when it no longer works or when a new development renders it comparatively costlier to use, and then the consumer/citizen basically transfer this responsibility to the state, which historically has been mostly choosing to dump all the trash into large holes. Ideally (yet under real-world constraints of physics, technology, and economy/scarcity) this kind of destination would be the last resort, and the industries or sectors of the industry would have their own obsolete or broken stuff returned, it would then be processed to salvage what's still somehow valuable, and then only the most definitely garbage stuff would end up in a landfill.
It's worth stressing that no ideal scenario or improvement comes without a short-term cost, including in prices paid for stuff. Cheap/more affordable production, its pollution, and landfills are basically a way of more cheaply skipping those costs and postponing the consequences, which still has a price, also postponed.
@@peterbedford449 Right, but people don't simply consume because they're encouraged to. They want stuff to enhance their local environment, and fun. You'll have a hard time convincing people they should give up fun, or environmental enhancements. If you want to forward a new system you have to also convince people it will enhance their local environment, and fun. You don't get points for advocating some nebulous "value of the organism" which is ultimately boring to most people who already value organisms in their own mind, but still want stuff that makes them happy.
@@spacedoohicky you seem to be assuming the new system world be put to public referendum. in the population at large we have at least 80% nationwide bipartisan support for the immediate disbursal of the covid relief, and have for months. as far as i know, nobody in washington dares to express opposition and yet all that is forthcoming is the declaration from the president that he's willing to negotiate on the issue.
My guess is that what people are most frightened about is that their livelihoods seem to be so closely linked to GDP. When people hear "degrowth," their minds immediately go to "recession" and "austerity." Which is perfectly fair. I think that if the de-growth model is to succeed, it'll have to show people what they gain.
In the US at least, society is not going to tolerate giving the state more power, and to be honest, I don't really blame them. What is most necessary is demonstrating the gains that they can make through cooperative organizations, not just with trade unions but with cooperative organization generally, for any and all reasons. People are dis-empowered, terrified and are desperate for a way out
"most frightened about is that their livelihoods seem to be so closely linked to GDP. When people hear "degrowth," their minds immediately go to "recession" and "austerity.""
Yeah that's because we have an ever increasing population with ever dwindling resources
@@onedeathbyflame pls, do elaborate, what resources are dwindling exactly?
@@onedeathbyflame yes and no. Yes, the population is growing, but the rate of growth has already dropped off precipitously, mostly due to higher costs of childrearing in economically developed countries and female education and empowerment- turns out women are much better judges of how many children to have then men.
As for resources, most of the resources that we actually use can be regenerated or recycled with the right technology, which we have, and the right economic structure, which we don't. Obviously there are some things you can't regrow or recycle, and for those we may have to consider that perhaps we shouldn't be looking to use such scarce resources. For everything else, the big ball of fusion reactor in the sky covers most of the entropic problems we would encounter- if we make good use of it
That being said, richer countries would have to reduce consumption a fairly substantial amount. But a lot of their excess comes from overproduction and planned obsolescence. Degrowth of the economy wouldn't necessarily lead to an overall reduction in quality of life if it was balanced by growth in the productiveness of household economies (yard gardens, rainwater harvesting, net negative energy use from solar panels, petty crafts and trades) and the creative commons (like wikipedia and public domain). Not to mention the mental health benefits of not being pressured to produce and consume at full tilt 24/7/365.
plus current "real growth" rate is aberrantly higher than population growth.
I dearly hope you're wrong, because I don't foresee anything short of democratic power having the ability to change any of our current issues.
This is precisely the kind of channel we need.
ikr?? so happy to have stumbled across this!!!
For the engagement!
Sane leftist lense that is economically grounded
For so long I was just an average leftist who didn’t understand economics
How the F did the narrator not mention nuclear? That’s the missing key for the GND
Not just on lefttube - I think most leftie spaces are missing economic insight!! This is going to be an amazing resource and I’m definitely checking out some of the sources :) thank you for your work!!
Seems bit of a straw man to me. Most Lefty space are all about economics. Most Lefty academics and think pieces are about economics, and offer a better alternative to the current failing system
Leftism literally emerged from economic inequalities?
@@meatboy6128 Yea, I think I've come to realise they mean specifically Breadtube, and not the Left in general.
I thought it was a weird criticism too
@@meatboy6128 Yes, that is the definition of leftism. Challenging inequality and hierarchy.
@@arcarsenal1380 Instead these new theoretic policies are becoming failed systems, themself.
Except for social democrats whose policies don't bring economic growth per se, but bring however stability to the countries.
The thing that's nice about degrowth is that it proposes a holistic solution to non-climate-related environmental problems. I tend to frame my discussion of these in the context of the Stockholm Resilience Institute's planetary boundaries model, where agriculture is one of the major economic sectors that impacts the vast majority of these problems. Green-growthers don't have good solutions for global-scale long-term sustainable ag, but degrowthers do: literally grow less (and considering how land-inefficient our food systems are in terms of feed crops, there's a lot of room to grow less while feeding more people).
I’d rather live in a society of abundance than one where everything is rationed (well, except for the wealthiest). Fuck that shit.
@@hellboy6507 I'm pretty sure the degrowthers are saying that there is enough land to grow abundant food. But the industrial scale in which we produce it is so massive that it goes beyond abundance into waste.
Certainly we could dial back for now to be less wasteful. And in the future if it is needed, dial production back forward.
@@hellboy6507 We live in a society of abundance right now. The problem is that a ton of it is wasted, and we keep making more and more. Degrowthers seem to want to stop this.
@@hellboy6507 i'd would rather live in a sustainable economy/society that isnt endangered by a climate crisis
@@hellboy6507 But this is exactly what all currencies to. Ration all goods in regards to how wealthy you are.
I study sustainable business in university and all of my business classes (and my economics classes especially) are taught through an extremely neoliberal lens, which causes a whole lot of dissonance with the sustainability side of my major and the business side of my major, so this video is much appreciated. This channel in general articulates a lot of the points of contention that I've struggled to adequately put words to when they've come up in my classes. Liked and subbed!
Several fundamental transformations that have been proposed to address the limitations and negative consequences of capitalism include:
1. Economic Democracy: One transformation is the establishment of economic democracy, where workers and communities have a say in decision-making processes within economic institutions. This can be achieved through various means, such as expanding co-operatives, implementing participatory budgeting, and creating worker-owned enterprises.
2. Redistribution of Wealth: Addressing income and wealth inequality is another crucial transformation. This can be achieved through progressive taxation, wealth redistribution policies, and ensuring fair wages and benefits for all workers.
3. Sustainable and Regenerative Economy: Transitioning to a sustainable and regenerative economy is essential to address the environmental challenges posed by capitalism. This includes investing in renewable energy, promoting circular economy principles, prioritizing sustainable agriculture, and adopting practices that reduce waste and resource consumption.
4. Social Safety Nets: Building robust social safety nets that provide universal access to healthcare, education, housing, and basic income can help ensure that everyone has a minimum standard of living and protection against poverty and insecurity.
5. Democratic Planning: Implementing democratic planning mechanisms, where decisions about resource allocation and production are made collectively and transparently, can help prioritize societal needs and environmental sustainability over profit maximization.
6. Localized and Community-Centered Economies: Promoting localized economies that prioritize community well-being, local production, and consumption can reduce dependence on global supply chains and empower communities to shape their economic systems according to their values and needs.
7. Reevaluation of Growth: Rethinking the obsession with perpetual economic growth and transitioning to models that prioritize well-being, quality of life, and ecological sustainability over endless consumption and production.
It's important to note that the specific transformations required may vary depending on the context and the vision of the alternative economic system being pursued. Different schools of thought within alternative economic theories, such as socialism, may propose varying strategies and approaches to bring about these transformations.
See The Great Simplification. Listen to Steve Keen on pre Adam Smith thinking and alternatives to Keynesian theory. No economic theories incorporate any concept of Energy. Try doing or making anything without it!
A lot of rethinking is required and so refreshing to see how it makes sense.
@@nishi1870 So somehow this huge amount wealth will just exist year after year that will allow everyone to have great jobs and wages and have great schools and great every other public service people need build this incredible post capitalism society while at the same forcing massive degrowth on our people which means our people will get poorer every year. You can't have both this great fair and equal society where every gets a great wage and public institutions are financed enough to be functioning great and have Degrowth at the same time.
You and your fellow climate warriors need stop being intellectually dishonest about all this. If u support forcing Degrowth on your fellow people than just own it and admit the truth that you believe that CC is so horrible that it's better to have Degrowth and have us all be incredibly poor (poor forever after since we can't ever bring back economic growth cause that will kill the planet in no time), and our govt. bankrupt (we don't need all those racist cops anymore anyway) and that it will be horrible and' we will all have to somehow learn to farm the l again if we don't want to starve but it's better than killing the whole planet in 10 years from CC.
In my country we often see economist as downright disconected elitist who often blame the poor for their own disgraces and suppourt extractivism without any measure. It is great to see a backed up channel that makes the effort to explain economy concepts taking sources such as anarquist theory books about localists solutions, thank you for taking the time
It sounds like most of your economists are from the Chicago school, with a metric ton of neoliberal economics poured into their heads.
There is also the question of how much is enough. For an individual rather you have 100 billion or 500 billion dollars is completely irrelevant. If we can have enough to meet all our basic needs and luxuries for those that work a little harder and some set aside for unexpected things like natural disasters or disease do we really need that much more?
I think we need to reduce the focus on the economy. It often feels like economic growth is a dick measuring contest these days rather then a mechanism to get people the things they need to live a good life.
Thank you for your feedback. It's unfortunate that some economists are perceived as disconnected or elitist, as economics should be a field that strives to understand and improve the well-being of all individuals in society. It is important for economists to consider diverse perspectives, including those that prioritize localism and sustainable solutions. Exploring concepts from various economic theories, such as anarchist theory or localist approaches, can contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the complex challenges we face and help inform potential solutions. By incorporating a range of sources and perspectives, economists can contribute to a more inclusive and equitable economic discourse.
@@nishi1870 I think to achieve these things the first step is to stop the GDP dick measuring contest.
To not longer have a high GDP for the sake of having a high GDP.
Learning economics with you is weirdly helping with my anxiety. I start with the impression that I will be dealt some really bad news ... which is kinda true, but then there are also some real possible solutions and ideas to explore towards building a brighter future.
All this is invaluable work and I hope your outreach grows (heh see what I did there)
Agreed, definitely the best breadtuber.
So what I’m hearing is decentralization and increased localization while subsidizing better more multipurpose methods of production across many sectors like agriculture and manufacturing?
Another way of looking at this is simply that economic and other systems need to be considered with a broad lens before we expect new technologies to magically allow us to continue to drive/fly/eat/consume quite as much as we are now. Reducing one kind of environmental damage cannot simply become a shell-game wherein the damage is just transformed into damage of a different type.
Sounds very similar to the "diversification" strategy that gets taught to investors. Seems like a wise strategy. We should not put all our eggs in one basket.
another thing we can do is preventing companies from making factories outside of the country to force them to go by our rules
Dude, this video was actually pretty inspiring; I've always known that I want to spend my life helping to make the world a more sustainable place, and am thinking of going into urban planning in order to achieve this. Been trying to improve my (currently pretty poor) understanding of economics in order to further that goal, this channel is proving so useful, kind of overwhelmed with how much your videos are expanding my reading list though 😅
I've been toying with a similar idea myself, but I'd like to emphasize links between rural and urban areas and converting spaces for modern citywide food production and waste recycling.
@@mikolajdubiel1384 "converting spaces for modern citywide food production" - This is exactly one of the things I want to do; during a few years I spent studying architecture I became obsessed with projects which rethink the relationship between food production and the city. Eventually I decided that town-planning/urban design is probably a better route for me to go down to have a chance of exploring these ideas on a large scale
I hope you can find such a position and not get swallowed by our corporate overlords.
That's wonderful to hear! Urban planning can be a great field to contribute to creating more sustainable and livable communities. As an urban planner, you'll have the opportunity to shape cities and regions, considering factors such as land use, transportation, infrastructure, and environmental sustainability. Your work can have a significant impact on creating more resilient and environmentally friendly urban spaces.
To pursue a career in urban planning, it's beneficial to acquire the necessary education and skills in the field. Look for universities or colleges that offer urban planning or related programs. Engage in internships or practical experiences that allow you to gain hands-on knowledge and understanding of the field. Networking with professionals in urban planning and sustainability can also provide valuable insights and opportunities.
Remember to stay informed about current trends and practices in sustainable urban planning. This includes considerations like smart growth, mixed land use, green infrastructure, renewable energy integration, and community engagement. By combining your passion for sustainability with urban planning, you can contribute to creating more environmentally conscious and socially equitable communities. Best of luck in your pursuit of a career in urban planning!
Personally im on the side of degrowth, however I see the points you brought up. Agriculture honestly needs to be one of the most important and radical parts of the change, which alongside your housing video could help transform some of the more impoverished rural areas into flourishing communities
He honestly presents both sides quite well. I'm still mostly on the side of growth, but I can definitely see the merits of degrowth a lot better after this. I'm ashamed to admit that I've mostly dismissed it as anarcho-primitivist nonsense until now. Instead, it seems to be more of a curtailing of development, instead of an attempt to go back to the Year Zero
I think agriculture reform is important as well to prevent ecological devastation and to improve sustainability for an ever-increasing population. I also think that power generation is a critical concern, since the golden dream of nuclear fusion plants are still too far away to rely on. A lot of the technological advancements we take for granted over the last few years (not phones and computers, but medical and production, and public transportation technology) is still out of reach of much of the developing world due to lack of power generation and infrastructure. There is also the concern of water procurement and treatment in these regions. My home country of Egypt is gearing for war against Ethiopia as we speak over what are essentially just power and water disputes. And this is a trend I'm afraid will continue in other places as developing countries, well, develop and strive for a better quality of life comparable to the G7 countries. New policies and advancements, especially those that are not western-centric, will curtail this issue by providing viable alternative models for these developing nations to adopt.
Biggest agricultural chamber I can think of is to stop cultivating lawn. It gives no value beyond asthetic and yet is also the most cultivated crop in the USA by land area
Didnt realize how much I needed a channel like yours. Great stuff
You should do a UBI vs Welfare video with some stuff about countercyclical stabilizers vs flat payments. Pretty good topic
That and a federal jobs guarantee
Environmental damage from mineral extraction is less of an existential threat.
While they should obviously be avoided, I agree that lesser-of-two-evils sort of decisions will be necessary, especially during the transitional period
10:15 “I think of this problem as like a lump of air under the carpet, pushing it down will only make another one appear elsewhere” you have perfectly described how i feel about basically everything people are doing for the environment
I think it's important to have an economic system that can cope with recession; where livelihoods are not threatened by a lack of growth.
Circular economics and the repair economy are going to be key to a prosperous future.
Yeah. We need something that is stable and self sustaining. We are at a ceiling in civilization right now, and we cannot grow higher than the ceiling. We need to grow broad branches and deep roots.
Circular economics are integral, but we have to degrow first and then sue steady state economics
You mean a safety net like every EU country has?
@@ten_tego_teges Not just a safety net for when there isn't economic growth, but a redesign of the system so that we are not dependant on said growth.
I'm all for degrowth. We have the power to make less stuff that lasts longer and live in the same conditions but with a much smaller economy. It's not just about the climate. It's not even just about resources like you mentioned. It's about ecosystems and all the wildlife we are driving extinct. Those things have intrinsic moral value to me.
Excelent summary, puts many scattered thoughts in one place, which is no small feat.
9:45
I also think it's a good opportunity to change some of the mistakes and bad decisions such as massive car use. A lot of the European love of bicycles isn't just related to carbon emissions, it is just nicer to have a city full of bicycles than a city full of cars even electric cars.
Also for this to work we need nuclear power too as well as hydrogen gas plants. A combination of nuclear for base power, renewables for daytime and peak power and gas powerplants and hydro power to take care of the margins.
I was already fairly aware of the Green New Deal and the basics of it's aim, but I appreciate the extra background information and extending my understanding of the specifics.
Yet I remain unchanged in my position... the US needs a Green New Deal one way or another.
This is a really great overview! Outside the scope of an overview like this, I've also heard quite a bit from the Green Growth camp about nuclear energy. You touch on the high degree of technological optimism in that camp, and this is, I think a subset of that. It isn''t economics, per se, but the governance (and I would say that economic systems are a form of governance, which is why I think its relevant) of any technological solutions to climate change (or any other problem really) can either erect or alleviate barriers to solving it that a technocentric view might ignore. I'm just an adjunct, but a colleague and I recently wrote a paper about democratic governance and nuclear energy that I think is peripherally related. For the sake of being upfront, we did have to tone back our nuclear skepticism a bit for this piece, including our supposition that the option to reject any given technology has to be on the table for the governance of it to be truly democratic. But here it is for anyone interested: www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/democracy-and-the-nuclear-stalemate
really liking it so far! ive been curious about this for a while (but its been sort of in the back of my head) really excited to finish reading it
May this be recommended to more youtube peoples
smash that like button
11:40 "Bees: without their pollination, most of our food systems would be completely useless."
This is a bit misleading, in a couple of ways. Firstly, bees are not the only pollinators, and protecting other wild pollinators is equally important (although the required measures are typically the same either way).
Secondly, the majority of calories consumed globally come from crops that have little or no need for animal pollination, like grains and starchy root vegetables. The crops that directly require pollination for their production are mostly ones where we eat the fruit: coffee, apples, pumpkins, avocados, etc. (There's also variation in which crops rely on wild pollinators versus honeybees, which are a domesticated species and hence not always subject to the same environmental threats.)
So "most food systems" is maybe an overstatement, although it's clear that life would suck in various ways without animals pollinating our crops, and many economically and nutritionally important food systems would collapse.
I like this video and channel a lot.
Excellent video. I am often complaining about the over-reliance on sustainability and technological development in conversations about climate change, this is a really interesting framing of the issue.
I'd love for growth but degrowth is probably the best immediate remedy
we need at least a one month lockdown once a year
@@BigGainer98 eco-fascist spotted
@@BigGainer98 I'm curious. Who do you think would be worthy of living under your population degrowth scenario?
@@seraphinduvolzairo5938 Probably rhymes with "trite people."
@@seraphinduvolzairo5938 not white males, that's for sure ;)
Not really sure the differences between green growth and degrowth are going to matter much when we overshoot the carbon neutrality deadlines. The technology might be there, but the culture and its associated will are not.
Most people can't even really define conspicuous consumption, let alone identify all the things in their lives they think of as just being completely normal but are actually just useless status symbols - like suburban lawns. The amount of people who have lawn care services truck in zero turn mowers to mow their lawn for them in my area is insane in the face of the fact that no property in my neighborhood is over half an acre . . . . I can literally mow my entire front and back yard with a manual reel mower in an hour or less. Yet only two of my closest eight neighbors use gas push mowers to mow their own lawns, the others either own riding mowers or hire people who bring riding mowers to their homes. I can't share in optimistic environmental ideas when I can't even have a conversation with my neighbors about managing their own tiny property more responsibly without being called a yippie or a hipster at some point . . . . or being lazy because they don't like how the no-mow portions of my lawn I have already converted look or the fact that I let my backyard get pretty shaggy between cuttings because it stands up to my two dogs better when its not cropped short all the time. Trying to convince people within ten years to make serious changes or at the very least patiently deal with the growing pains of completely shifting our culture of consumption to something more reasonable is not feasible.
Yeah I feel your pain.. I suppose the thing to remember is individual actions < large-scale corporate shifts. I feel like the best way forward is to pressure governments and companies, and social changes will follow naturally, in the same way LGBTQ acceptance followed changes in the law and institutions. Maybe I'm being naive but at least if we target corporations & governments rather than shaming individuals we have the biggest possible chance..
I'm vegan and I've been trying to convince people for years that if you are worried about the environment or care about reducing suffering, it is the single biggest thing you can do - but I think the change will come as artificial meat and vegan food in general becomes more common, and meat becomes more expensive and rare. I've convinced one person to become vegan out of many conversations but I know two who are now vegetarian for economic & health reasons.
Sorry this got rambly, effective advocacy is a really complicated area. We need leftist sociologists and psychologists to help us out here!
@@r-pupz7032 I think you are being naïve, because this issue is nothing like LGBTQ rights . . . and also ignores the ongoing attacks on them still currently happening. A corporation or politician could garner more customers/voters by paying lip service to supporting a minority group - dealing with climate change is going to require actual sacrifices . . . . and as a country we can't even all wear masks in public to stop thousands of people from dying.
I don't think its realistic to see three+ decades of billion dollar companies and conservatives lobbying against climate regulations being undone in the short amount of time we have left to make meaningful changes.
Consider just agriculture for example. There is no functional way to shift most farms into a regenerative state where they are carbon capturing in their soil within the next decade - and lobby groups for corporate and rented farm lands would fight that effort every step of the way to make sure it didn't edge into their profits. Ethanol is one of the least green, least cost effective, and least energy efficient ways to utilize land in America today - and that has been well documented since the 90's . . . . but its impossible to get rid of despite the fact you can literally generate more energy for our country by taking the same corn and anaerobically digesting it to produce electricity.
The lobby and the sentiment it has created around "protecting farmers" and "protecting American energy independence" is so strong we can't convince people to stop wasting their time and just throw that corn into a dark wet hole because its literally more effective. No politician that relies on rural voters is going push that infrastructure change because those voters will see the transition as a threat.
How about a video on the EU Green Deal? I for one think it's a more salient issue than the US Green Deal as the latter won't happen in the near future...
The addition of green house emissions comes from other sectors than energy production also. It is thought that energy production amounts to only 60-70 percent of our emissions. Renewable energy will not be the single out to this problem, we need a more holistic solution.
I think that "The Limits to Growth" report has kinda nailed this question back in 1972 :
- whether we want it or not there is several limits to physical growth : like ressources stocks decreasing quality and limited regeneration rate, or the increasing cost of keeping a higher proportion of pollution and waste under control, relatively to the overall production,
- crossing those limits can only be done temporarily, and the further we go, the more painful the callback to reality will be, the faster we react the better the outcome,
Thus at some point we will have to make our economies livable without a need for exponential growth, and as climate change and a bunch of other issues are getting more and more pressing, it is pretty clear that the deadline we operate under may be closer to a few decades than several centuries.
The focus on the growth of production rather than stocks is also an issue, as churning more merchandise at the expense of its lifetime, sometimes going as far as actively destroying the old value to give room for the new through marketing and planned obsolescence, does not make us richer, it only makes a few organisations more powerful while making way more waste than necessary.
You dropped the "physical" from "growth" halfway through. It's a common mistake people make when thinking about growth and I think that's in part because the alternatives are hard to imagine. IMO that makes imagining them all the more important.
@@subtlewolf non physical growth is limited by people time : we can't experience things faster than we already do.
The production of culture and science is already orders of magnitude beyond what an individual can absorb.
Diversity helps to gain some margin, but even that has an end.
thx man, as someone who studied agriculture 11 Years ago and now works in social services this hits home for me !!! this video is a nice overview of the discussions going on and I realy appriciate your content over all !!!!
I feel that if you would want a Green New Deal you would want economic planning and public ownership of the key or emergent sectors to direct resources and investments quickly and to ensure society as a whole benefits and control. This will become more important in the future. European nations after ww2 engaged in the relatively minor task of rebuilding their economies and thus implemented planning, along with a growing trend towards distrust of markets. We have to break with economic orthodoxy.
As long as we can have true democratic planing, where workers, citizens and ... well, basically everyone involved by planning decision share a part of democratic power inside the process. This could really be a new golden age when we could decide to produce things we actually need while ensuring we DO need them.
Great video! I wish you had touched on nuclear energy though. It is often left out of climate discussions because an inconvenient truth for many green growthers AND degrowthers is, nuclear power has displaced fossil fuels -- in France, Germany, sweden, Japan, certain us states -- in a way even cheap renewables have not. I say this as someone who wants a rapid expansion of both renewables and nuclear power
And nuclear power expansions have successfully decoupled gdp from emissions too!!!
I've never understood why it's always either renewables or nuclear. Why not use every tool at our disposal for combating climate change? Renewables are what we ultimately want to settle on but nuclear could play a massive role in getting rid of fossil fuels, especially if we invest in technologies like nuclear waste recycling
My mum was with me when I watched this. "Do you believe this? Do you think it's real?" I said "Yes. I don't understand how your generation doesn't get that." She said "What I don't get is, the roads aren't melting in Vietnam" (where I live) "but they are in the UK. How do you explain that?" I actually did say "OK Boomer. Maybe you can't believe it because you won't have to deal with it." She said "Neither will you." "Yes I will, and so will he (my son, her grandson)." Worst. Generation. Ever.
And who taught the Baby Boomers these opinions?🗿🗿
UK roads were never created to handle higher temperatures
"Degrowth is not optional, what is optional is if it will be done with justice or not"
I hadn't heard anything of the de growth argument laid out this well before very interesting and a good channel keep it up
Degrowth is for anti-science luddites. Nuclear power allows us to decarbonize within killing our economy.
Before watching the video: DE-growth. "Green growth" is an illusion, an oxymoron. The *only* way to solve the crimate challenges is for human to forget its current and historically speaking quite new love affair with economic growth. Now I'll watch the video :-)
I find the discussion illuminating and need to look into a couple of the books you mention. I especially like the idea of shifting from a capital-intensive to a labour-intensive production.
I'm also involved in local permaculture organization here in Randers, Denmark, and am (as a working pro in the software business) fascinated by the idea of rebuilding as least as many ressources as you consume in each of the areas corresponding to the "five disasters", earth, air, water, energy and organization.
Even more interesting may be the notion of "global footprint". How do we reach a point where the total ressource consumption of everyone on earth is sustainable, i.e. that it would require less than or equal to ONE planet Earth to sustain it?
In that respect, you might say, the point is to increase total human wellbeing while remaining sustainable. That would require not decoupling emissions from economic growth, but achieving a fair partition of resources that would allow us to decouple economic growth from human wellbeing. And THAT would mean really attacking inequality. Which, of course, is what makes all of this really difficult.
i just found your channel and oh my god this is exactly what left youtube needs. thank you bro
@unlearning economics
The statement at 2:40 is kind of incorrect, we are already at 1.1 degrees out of 1.5 and even if we hard-stopped emissions right now there is still a large amount of committed warming that will happen regardless due to carbon already in the atmosphere. It is currently nearly impossible to hit the 1.5 degree paris agreement without not only hard-stopping emissions but also removing over a quadrillion tons of co2 equivalent gas from the atmosphere. This taken into consideration means that the net zero by 2050 goal is over 30 years too late.
The IPCC has been criticized heavily by climate scientists for it's overly optimistic representation of the problem which leaves out these facts. For more info you can research "committed warming" or check out this study and others like it:
link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10584-020-02849-5
"With chunks the size of Delaware are falling off the poles, how long until there's nothing left at all?" -Billy Strings
It's so sad how ubiquitous song lyrics about the end of a livable world are for artists under 40.
Great video, the ending of which is what I see repeated within Degrowth literature, especially the work of Jason Hickel. From what I've read, in terms of policy, technology, and reorganization of the economy, growth and degrowth advocates are basically indistinguishable. But degrowth advocates emphasize a few very important ideas. (1) Regardless of whether or not GDP growth can be eventually decoupled from GHG emissions, it certainly cannot be accomplished in the rapidly vanishing time we have left to rescue the earth from catastrophic climate change; and (2) GDP growth overwhelming goes to the top 5%, meaning that the majority of this growth does not positively impact the lives of those doing the producing. Be it climate change, environmental degradation, environmental justice, economic disenfranchisement, or any related topic, degrowth has the more immediate, holistic, and justice-oriented approach.
Lithium extraction won't be a huge problem if we believe in using sodium battery.
Do you ever find a great channel that have amazing bingable videos, but the channel has only a handful of them?
Yea, I'm there right now.
Jill Stein is grumbling about not being mentioned on "her name/idea"
Americans. The world is ending, and we're arguing about who invented the slogan. Sigh.
Right?
Good to know at least intellectual property rights will be protected while the world burns/floods. /s
Started on your housing market vid, and am now devouring the rest. This is leftist gold.
What some people call "gold" others call "Good day sir may I ask what you are doing with so much gold? Shall I assume you have amassed such a volume in anticipation of redistributing it for the benefit of the common folk?"
The claim that renewable technologies are more mineral intensive is patently false, as it usually disregards the consumption of fossil fuel as being a "mineral resource." This is a very common (sometimes deliberate) mistake in studies making comparisons between fossil fuel and "green" technology. For instance, when comparing a coal plant to a wind farm, somebody conducting such a study will simply compare the material require to manufacture all the windmills, and compare that to the material required to construct the coal plant, in doing this, it would seem that the windmills use much more material. What they usually do not do, is a full lifecycle analysis about how much earth must be moved to procure coal for running the coal plant, they will not account for the petroleum required to run mining equipment to procure the coal, etc. Whereas, the windmills do not require much, if any additional resources to actually extract power from the wind. This is a massive oversight in methodology. The REAL elephant in the room for "green tech" is that they currently lean to heavily on resources extracted from politically unstable "global south" nations, one solution to this would be to move lithium and cobalt extraction to western countries like the US, Australia and Canada, where environmental impacts and labor issues can be more closely monitored. A more seminal long-term solution would be to deliberately design energy storage technology that uses more common and easily sourced materials, such as batteries that use Aluminum, Iron, Zinc, or Sodium as their active cathode material, with carbon-based anode materials; such metallic and organic elements are much more commonly available and more easily recyclable than current li-ion batteries.
I am firmly on the "Degrowth" side of the argument.
Green growth simply leaves too much room for current pollution culprits to pay lipservice to being green and carry on as usual. This needs to stop. And thus green grows is not an option anymore.
Concerns about labels are merely aesthetic. "Green growth" is a term like any other, no more likely to get corrupted than "degrowth". A video by another pseudo-breadtuber called "consummerism: can we buy a better world?" Shows just how degrowth can be appropriated by elites just as much as green growth used to be.
Rejecting solutions based on mere lables is not acceptable, not when we need politically viable solutions ASAP.
I want to save this so I can remember to read all those books! I believe strongly in a lot of these ideas but struggle to put it into words sometimes so this channel is great
There's also the obsolescence problem with Solar Panels and batteries. They both have lower life expectancy compared to other energy systems, are hard to recycle and are (still) expensive to produce. In 10 to 20 years we'll have to deal with replacing the solar pannels installed in the last decade.
We can use some forms of Hydrogen energy storage as a replacement
@@superduperfreakyDj Very inefficient hydrolyse is a straight 50% lose of energy
@@gp1157 There's high efficiency fuel cells mate
@@gp1157 Also what it loses in efficiency it gains in benefits for the environment and possible scale. Batteries do not have the capacity to replace every fossil fuel car on the planet and biofuels are not really an option.
Nuclear energy subtlety solving all these problems...
I was into the Green New Deal until I learned the history of the name. There was the Square Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Deal. Why, WHY can’t it just be called the “Green Deal”??
Degrowth also doesn’t have to be linked with primitivism. Work From Home is a good example of degrowth with limited impact on output.
Wow mate really great stuff absolutely loving it and will be listening and re-listening to it! I hope you'll consider having a podcast on spotify! Looking forward to more videos of yours! Cheers
It's sad that developing nations are going to be most greatly affected from climate change, meanwhile the imperial core continues life as usual.
i’ve held a lot of misconceptions about the GND, so this video really helped to clear things up in an understandable way. thanks for making this!!
This is me begging for the community wealth building as an economic model video as a follow-up to the STELLAR recent video on worker co-ops.
Hoo boy, a fresh, brand spanking (pun intended) new channel. I appreciate your information. It makes my body produce a healthy amount of dopamine.
Degrowth in developed countries, green growth in exploited countries. Its the only way.
As much as that sounds amazing, you know for a fact the world bank would never allow that to happen
@@MrTooEarnestOnline Yup, never gonna happen. World bank loves the opposite happening, extract more growth from exploited countries in the most environmentally disastrous ways their supporters can get away with.
@@dan26dlp well hopefully we can get enough development to mitigate the damage in the developing world. That’s kind of one of my life goals
Degrowth is feudalism.
What’s needed is revolution and rapid industrial rethinking. Growth should be made sustainable, and should be accelerated.
@@hellboy6507 You are going to have to elaborate on "degrowth is feudalism." that's quite the claim
I actually find living in hippie communs quite attractive
Lithium is not the issue, it never was. Cobalt is what makes lithium batteries problematic.
Great video! As someone that lives in the global south, it's a bit disheartening seeing just how much our livelihoods will depend on what gets done on the upper side of the map. That said, we do have a lot of housecleaning to do on our side too. It'll either be ecosocialism or collapse, capitalism cannot survive climate change.
So glad the algorithm brought me to this channel
Isn't there an argument for sustainability rather than growth or retraction, also my understanding is that capitalism is hugely inefficient in almost every aspect.
Not everything can be sustainable
You can’t sustainably remove a mountain for its lithium or copper
@@marcsimard2723 This is true, though you can use what's extracted more efficiently. Which we are not currently doing, like, at all.
@@Disthron efficiency is a bit vague: i would suggest that a majority of the ressources extracted are for unnecessary money piling and not for actual needs
@@marcsimard2723 That's what I'm talking about.
@@marcsimard2723 dumb take. We can continue to grow AND decarbonize if we move to nuclear power. No need to live in mud huts. Please
Amazing video! Shared and subbed. Keep up the amazing work bud
:)
I'm skeptical of a degrowth model with a still growing human population. The closing timeline needed for climate action is 30 years to carbon neutrality, and then go carbon negative! That is not much time to get all of the technology invented, scaled, and deployed let alone having to restructure the entirety of modern society on top of that
Good summary, and the 'substituting one environmental problem for another' point is very important. Couple thoughts:
-It's been argued that dense cities are far more environmentally efficient than living in suburbs or the land. Cities have *vastly* smaller geographic footprints per person; are easier to insulate (since one person's apartment heats their neighbors apartment); have shorter logistics chains per person; and are the only place where public transport, walking and biking are not only viable, but often prefered.
-Linked to that, global value chains probably benefit the environment. You burn far more fuel driving a truck to your local ecofarm, than a massive containership does bringing mutton from New Zealand. And any policy that encourages Canadians to grow avocados is environmental silliness. Politically, such value chains are more mixed: on the one hand, they can make enforcing environmental regulations more difficult (environmental arbitrage and all that), but on the other, they give countries a common interest in a problem that will require global cooperation regardless.
-While GDP is a crude measure, there is one area where it gives us a reasonable idea about something real, including the ability of a country to engage in conflict. This point is often hard to appreciate for people in secure countries like the US or UK, but especially for smaller countries, proposing that they shift away from heavy industries and sacrifice national output directly threatens their ability to defend themselves from their neighbors.
I know this is a comment from two years ago, it's bad etiquette to comment now and your opinions have probably changed, but your last point is really important. Western-centric (or more narrowly, American-centric) politics often frames the military as something used for enforcing political and economic will overseas, and thus many left-wing groups reject the concept of a military outright, citing its ties to imperialism and the lack of a real existential threat to their nation. But as should be obvious, you can only come to this conclusion if you live in a so-called "imperial core" nation, safely isolated from hardship and war. Outside of that bubble, the threat of irredentism or being caught up in other nations' conflicts is very real, and will dominate a nation's politics.
And if you can't understand that kind of difference between your own privileged bubble and the rest of the world, then you'll never have effective foreign policy or be able to build multinational agreements on issues like climate change. End of.
The only reason you'd need a military in today's world, is to defend yourself from the u
Imperial core, or nations like yourself, that are overexploited by it.
This Channel is a blessing
There is no spatial dimension to most analyses. Continued growth of use of cars, for example, is not possible even if there were no GHG emissions. Meanwhile walking and bicycling require a lot less investment and preserve space.
Thanks for covering this topic! I love taking a deeper look on this.
A great challenge I hear almost nobody talk about is the production of fertilizers especially the need for phosphate. At the moment the need for phosphate is largely sustained through mining and it seems like there is no plan for what to do once that isn't viable any longer.
Very interesting and surely the right way forward!?
please never stop
Read many of the sources. Really good array of perspectives.
About concern about climate change vs other ecological concerns, like with lithium: IMO there is an important difference: climate change is a huge, global threat. Concerns around lithium are not remotely close. They're vastly exagerrated - critics of doing anything about climate change take that, and equivocate. "We should stay at burning fossil fuels, green tech like EVs also have ecological impact!". Sure - everything has. But it's a matter of scale. Concerns around EVs or plastic use or whatever are not as severe as concerns over fossil fuels.
Sometimes it gets even more ridiculous: some people spread FUD about solar panels - that they are somehow problematic because of recycling them. Nevermind they'd generate "free electicity" for decades - even after 20 year warranty expires. Never mind they're made of trivial to recycle metal frame, some glass - which could be dumped in a landfill and wouldn't have any negative effects there\* and semiconductors with small copper wires - which also could go onto a landfill - they're just processed silicon + metal. Silicon is one of the most abundant elements on the planet.
\* and no, we're not going to run out of space for our trash, that's a ridiculous notion.
Also, about lithium: AFAIK less than $100 worth of it goes into a Tesla car battery. We could make something like $100 or $200 tax which would go into fixing these mining operations - increasing worker wages or making them less polluting - and it wouldn't drive up cost of the batteries that much. And concerns about "running out of the stuff" are baseless IMO - AFAIK we don't have magic technology which lets us detect all instances of the element on the planet. There could be more of this stuff in unknown places. And then there's recycling.
And, the thing is, it's true that "resources are limited". If we're constricted to Earth - otherwise, the problem effectively disappears. It won't if we just STOP - as I understand, that's what degrowth proponents want.
And unless we decide to stop the civilization and go back to hunter-gatherer lifestyle (killing few billions in the process) - we'd eventually use all of these resources. "Degrowth" is a trap.
If Lithium Mining gets us cleaner air, then mine up the Lithium.
your channel got recommended to me and this is great stuff! Need more economics discussion among the left
But, the Left is all economic discussion.. Right? Leftism is about economics, with little nobs to social issues.
@@arcarsenal1380 it's mostly philosophical discussion surrounding economic systems and the way people interact with them. Not nessessaraly economics itself.
You completely missed the Green party in the US developing the concept and public discourse between 2010 and 2018.
Commenting so that the algorithm registers my approval and recommends this to more users.
You say that renewable energy is more mineral intensive than fossil fuels, and is therefore destructive because of mining, but that's only because the definition of "mineral" arbitrarily excludes fossil fuels, whose extraction is comparatively destructive, not to mention that devastated local habitats (excluding tropical rainforests) can often be rehabilitated after the resources have been depleted, albeit with some effort. The same is not true for greenhouse gas emissions.
In addition, minerals can theoretically be recycled after the product they were used for reaches the end of its life span. Its possible that at some point in the future, if the global population stops growing and most citizens of the world are rich enough to afford an electric car, we will no longer need to extract lithium and cobalt for batteries if 100% of them are recycled. Obviously that's a lot of "if"s.
New favorite channel
Excellent channel, your videos need to get recommended to more people!
Hey! beginner in Marxist economics here: Doesn't UBI ultimately come up against a fundamental contradiction of capitalism? UBI is funded by surplus wealth created by production right? But a machine cannot produce surplus wealth by the virtue of its own operation, it can only be extracted from the labour-time of living beings. The contradiction lies in this: The less time that we spend on things that do not generate surplus wealth, the less wealth there is to fund the UBI in the first place.
Does Marx's analysis on this hold on a UBI-like scenario coupled with modern monetary/financial practices?
Also, machines require labour-time in various ways.
Another point I wonder about is how a UBI-scenario might eventually change the value-price relationship and, taken to a extreme, the nature of money?
Kinda misleading title - thought I was gonna disagree with your position, but then you said all my thoughts in the latter half of the video lol.
Great videos, look forward to more!
Insect decline is incredibly important but most of our food is not dependent on insect pollination. The majority of our food crops are wind or self pollinating.
I'm so glad i found this channel. keep it up please
How will corrupt politics affect all these theories?
Hey, what are some good didactical books to learn some modern economics? I want to get myself to think criticaly about economical theories and propositions :) I can handle maths if needed...
the fact that my government could do so much stuff *right now* to help prevent the effects of climate change and yet they just _dont_ is frustrating as hell
This may be an ignorant question, but is there any way to harvest and recycle Lithium and cobalt from old smartphones and electric cars for reuse? Open question, if you're reading this and have any clue, feel free to answer.
I know this woulf ne hard to solve, but one thing I’ve been thinking about recently is how we produce electronics and appliances and even furniture no longer meant to last. My parents still have most of my grandparents appliances and furniture. Meanwhile stuff I buy lasts like 10 years and falls apart. Just off the top of my head, some things thst could probably be built to last a lifetime : Fridges, Stoves, Washing machines and dryers, any furniture (chairs, sofas, etc), Microwaves, coffee machines, etc. I don’t think phones and computers could be built to last forever especially as we are coming up with new technologies constantly, however, we could build them to be easily upgradable, so we didn’t need whole new computers and phones every 2 yesrs (we dont need that anyways but also how phone companies work does make phones become more outdated more quickly like overcharging for even basic replacement parts and having a monopoly on those things. example is phone batteries. Anyways, my point is I think the Green New Deal shoulf include something about forcing companies to make products that last or at the very least being super honest about how they purposely make them to break (i think you’d see companies emerge that made longer lasting products if we had the idea that that was possible. Whi wants to replace their washing machine often honestly?)
Don't forget that their long-lasting things things are way more expensive than your cheap stuff. And simpler as well. If you would pay 10 times for your furniture, it could last for generations as well. But yeah, many things are manufactured with the idea that it should break soon enough to buy a replacement.
@@lormaeris My cheap stuff. Big assumption. And why did you make it exactly?
The fact that you left out the solution of nuclear power makes this whole video kind of worthless. We don’t need degrowth if we just move to nuclear power which is even less carbon intensive than renewables. We already have examples of full decarbonization of electricity within a decade- France and Sweden did it in the 60s. If the GND just focused on a planned nuclear buildout, we can tackle climate change while growing GDP and creating lasting jobs. Really disappointed in this videos oversight, as the quality is usually very good.
I'm not against nuclear power but the assumption that there are negligible risks is questionable and the idea that it would make every other environmental problem go away is wrong. For example, it wouldn't hep with soil depletion or species extinction.
@@unlearningeconomics9021 Thanks for the response. The safety statistics (deaths per Kw/hr) have Nuclear ahead of all other power sources even when you include Chernobyl, so I think the evidence is clear on safety. Fair point on species and soil, but there’s no reason to believe these issues won’t have technological solutions too
If it wasn't for the anti-nuclear loonies we'd already be a decade or two ahead in fighting climate change. Yet somehow nuclear remains controversial and to all those people a socialist revolution and reinventing the whole economy is more realistic than constructing a couple dozen reactors.
Btw, same goes for GMO food: zero evidence for detrimental health effects while greatly improving efficiency. Yet all GMO crops are illegal in the EU.
Honestly, what Greenpeace, Frined of the Earth and the like have done is absolutely criminal. Germany is firing up coal plants, so they can close nuclear plants. fml
@@ten_tego_teges do you have a source for Germany firing up new coal plants due to closing nuclear?
2:29 The end of growth?
9:13 It’s more than climate change
I think a video regarding the economics of veganism might be interesting to watch. With specific regard to zoonotic diseases, climate change, deforestation, public health and deforestation.
Are you familiar with Mexie's channel? ruclips.net/video/oY_Dt1jey4M/видео.html
She did a video with Unlearning Economics early on, and covers at least a few of those topics in her videos. Good stuff, and worth a watch.
Very good job with these videos and easy to follow!
It certainly sounds like the focus on economy, at least in terms of "growth", is misplaced. It's trying to trace back from the desired/expected macroeconomic results to matching policies.
Too much emphasis on central planning given the empirical evidence that the procesees are too chaotic to meaningfully predict.
There's a similar problem with an overemphasis towards specific technical solutions. The push for large scale retrofits that implies a better understanding of both the upstream and downstream effects than we can realistically have given their chaotic nature.
So perhaps we need to look for a way to think about it at a higher level while pushing the economic and technical issues further down.
The push toward localizing of the economy meshes with my own thoughts on the issue but at the same time it's still in that uncomfortable middle ground of dictation solutions. Asside from the unpredictable impacts there are also foreseeable problems like economies of scale and accessibility of goods and services.
Perhaps a higher level of combining locality and resource use is to think in terms of the efficiency of moving resources. That is, moving as little mass as possible (all the way from extraction) with using as few resources as possible.
Can you explain why increased mineral extraction is in-and-of-itself a problem (besides the fact that they will run out one day)?
Also I think your idea that solving one environmental problem with a new technology will necessarily cause another is false. You use a couple of examples to illustrate this but that doesn't show it's always the case. Imagine a post-agricultural world in which all our food was grown in laboratories, leaving the vast majority of the earth's landmass to be rewilded. Are you seriously saying that there would necessarily be a negative environmental side-effect to that?
mineral extraction per se is responsable for destroying a large amount of forest and creating toxic waste
@@Martindebenitogellne "Imagine a post-agricultural world in which all our food was grown in laboratories". That's a complete nightmare
@@Rdorulesbc2 Of course mining causes environmental damage. I'm not questioning that. My question was rather about whether simply the fact of extracting minerals from the ground is by itself problematic (for the environment), regardless of what methods are used to do so.
And when you say that a future in which all our food is produced in laboratories would be a "complete nightmare", do you mean it would be a complete nightmare for the environment, or for us?
@@Martindebenitogellne Oh, I see. To be honest, I'm not really sure then but in general, I always think that human knowledge is limited and we should avoid doing things that cant be undone such as extraction of minerals.
Since we are part of the environment (we must not forget about it) I would say both. In general, we humans shouldn't be trying to do what nature do best (evolution). Look at Pugs and Bulldogs. I'm not really that studied but you should read about Agroforestry (if you hadn't). I worked in one once and felt in love.
How can overall economic activity decrease if capitalism is dependent on economic growth? It seems like putting the cart before the horse imo...
Omg you actually reference Bookchin. I'm officially in love now
It's a little oversimplified to have the only two options with material production be a slight modification to how things are now or "returning to hunter-gatherer" society. There are far more options beyond that, for example, resource-based economies. That would be a lot to get into so I understand not exploring it further, but it's reinforcing a worldview that slight adjustments to our current value system is the only way forward. Good video though.
Intriguing video on the practical paths to socialist reformation of society
The claim that "the New Deal excluded African Americans from social security" seems to me very misleading. What it excluded was certain industries which comprised 65% of the black workforce and only 27% of the white workforce. So yes, clearly the New Deal disproportionately favored white people, but also, this is not the same as totally excluding black people. To me your phrasing implied, like, literally saying "only whites are eligible" which would've been a surprise to me but not unthinkable given the time period.
Many policies which are racist in their impacts aren't explicit about it, this is why institutional racism can be so difficult to convince people of. The tests that excluded blacks from voting also affected poor/uneducated whites, for instance.
@@unlearningeconomics9021 I agree. But would I be wrong in charging that what you said would be the equivalent of just saying "African Americans couldn't vote under Jim Crow," which would obscure the fact that a significant number could and did vote despite those efforts to prevent them? I do feel like I'm nitpicking, because I think it would've taken only a little rephrasing to something like "New Deal programs disproportionately benefited whites" to make the statement more accurate and preserve the essential point. It's just if I hadn't googled it to check out that specific claim, I would have come away with a wrong idea about _how_ racially biased the New Deal was.
@@unlearningeconomics9021 institutional racism is not a problem anymore. If it was black immigrants would be doing twice as much as African Americans. The issue of black being left behind is much bigger that racism, specifically within the community.