Socially Sustainable Degrowth Discussed at Event in the European Parliament
The global economy has been growing for decades with a high speed, largely ignoring the warnings of "The Limits to Growth". But in a limited system,
unlimited growth is impossible. It has to come to an end, the question is just when and how.
Instead of a planned and managed degrowth of material consumption in the developed countries, there is now a deep crisis, a chaotic period of
the global economy. Social imbalance might further increase.
Could we have done it better and can we do it better in the future? Is there a possibility of socially sustainable economic degrowth?
In April 2009 a conference on the topic took place for the first time in the European Parliament.
It was organized by
Vlaams Overleg Duurzame Ontwikkeling,
the European Support Centre / Brussels-EU Chapter of the Club of Rome,
Research and Degrowth Network and SERI in cooperation with
Bart Staes MEP and ULB. The proceedings of the event show that we are still at the very beginning
of the discussions about a design for degrowth in the developed countries.
The documentation is available for download as
pdf file.
The documentation includes contributions
by Joan Martinez Alier, Francois Schneider, Francine Mestrum, Stefan Giljum, Raoul Weiler
and Leida Rijnhout.
For further information about the event, please visit the conference website.
Looking Back...
From today's perspective, it is interesting to look back at the proceedings of the international conference on degrowth which took place
before the crisis in spring 2008. Then, participants' contributions were focussing on
finding alternatives to economic growth.
The proceedings of the conference, which was organized by
"Research and Degrowth Network"
(The European Support Centre of the Club of Rome and the Brussels/EU Chapter were partners
of the event) were edited by Fabrice Flipo and Francois Schneider. The documentation
is available for download.
EVENT IN VIENNA
Reducing Resource Consumption ?
September 2: Dennis Meadows, Member of the U.S. Association for the Club of Rome, gave a presentation in
Vienna with the title "Priorities for Reducing the Use of Energy and Materials".
Dennis Meadows focussed in his speech on the problem of overshoot and discussed various strategies, which might help to get the
resource consumption back to a sustainable level. He discussed the role of technology, its restrictions and the
fundamental impact of attitudes and cultural aspects.
Limits to Growth Update: language versions and links to the publishers/sellers
Peter Zöllner, President of the Austrian Chapter of the Club of Rome, outlined the connection
between
the difficulties while getting on a sustainable pathway and the economic crisis.
Anton Kolarik, Bank Austria UniCredit Group, and member of the Board of the Austrian Chapter, introduced the
lecture series "Zukunft denken" and
highlighted the cooperation with Bank Austria which has been successful for 22 years.
The event was moderated by Fred Luks and organized by Bank Austria, UniCredit Group
and the European Support Centre/Austrian Chapter of the Club of Rome in cooperation with the initiative Wachstum im Wandel.
MEDIA
Speech by Ashok Khosla
Please view a speech by Club of Rome Co-President Ashok Khosla on the topic of resource consumption, alternatives
for development and options for the economy.
The video is played from the website of Youtube.
Kapitalismus: Weniger ist schwer
Interview with Max Schön,
President of the German Association of the Club of Rome
The interview is available on the website Die Zeit.
OUTLOOK
World Commmons Forum in Salzburg
The problem of unrestricted growth and overuse of natural goods is closely related to the dilemma of the global commons.
Spending of scarce resources is even subsidized in some areas (kerosine is tax exempt in many countries) and polluting the
air and the oceans is still practice - and relatively cheap.
A conference to be held on September 29/30 in Salzburg will address the issue of the Global Commons and will at the same time
take a new approach to the organisation of events:
instead of listening to series of presentations, the participants will be networking by terminals, will collect ideas and proposals for action
children and juveniles will be attending as representatives of the generation which will suffer most from the failure of the present generation.
The event is organized by the Global Marshall Plan Foundation and supported by the European Support Centre of the Club of Rome.
