Don't let 'degrowth' fanaticism derail serious climate policy

“Degrowth” is suddenly popping up in newsfeeds everywhere — it’s an economic and environmental philosophy that claims sustainability and quality of life are its governing principles. But a closer examination suggests degrowth will do more harm than good as the US tries to build a workable climate change policy consensus. 

Degrowth proponents denounce much of capitalism and believe that rather than growing, advanced economies need to shrink to achieve balance and sustainability. It suggests we can only do this through an effort which “requires radical redistribution, reduction in the material size of the global economy, and a shift in common values towards care, solidarity, and autonomy.”

There are three key principles to degrowth. First is to shrink the global economy, though only in the so-called "Global North." The second is to increase localized production, instead of maximizing a balance between efficiency and full costs of transportation. Third is a focus on cooperation and sharing, to the exclusion of competition and ownership — both of which are needed to drive progress.

Degrowth includes several other key tenets, and many of them (and certain aspects of others) sound quite appealing on their own.  Putting these principles into action, however, is a much more difficult and nuanced proposition which degrowth literature seems to gloss over. 

Part of it may be because the very foundation of the degrowth movement is to leverage its absurdity to stand out in a noisy media landscape. As one activist website put it, “An advantage of using a term which does not roll off the tongue easily in English is that it creates disruption. Disruption in a world where the critique of economic growth is a radical position.”

This bizarre stance has earned degrowth a significant amount of attention, with profiles in The Financial Times, The New Yorker, CNN, and the New York Times. It even showed up on the front line of the recent Burning Man environmental protest.

It’s hot, at least in newsrooms. But does it help us get to practical solutions we can use to actually solve these problems?

No. Even worse, it seems to do the opposite. While some of the degrowth philosophy has merit, the important questions it poses are lost in the wake of the unrealistic answers it provides.

One could interpret these radical stances as an “anchoring” attempt — adopting a starting point so far in one direction that it shifts the whole of the conversation. Or, in this case, shifting the Overton Window — the range of political policies the public is willing to consider — to accept more radical climate solutions. But degrowth anchors so far outside of most American’s sensibilities that it is easy to disregard altogether. 

With radical degrowth propositions on the table, solid, sensible approaches are too easily conflated with degrowth and summarily dismissed.

That is the real harm of the degrowth movement. It reads as a right-wing caricature of extreme left-wing environmental philosophy. It is thereby off-putting to both groups.

Americans are inured to the idea that our innovative economic engine can ameliorate serious problems. From critical breakthroughs in food production to the treatment and elimination of diseases with medicines and biotechnology, it’s a playbook that has worked time and time again. This is our remaining hope in combatting climate change.

But degrowth is leading people to dismiss climate change policies as the province of the “kooky left.”

If we, as Americans, don’t get better at engaging each other in real discussion and give-and-take, we’ll continue to flounder with our climate change response. Time is short, and chatting up degrowth in the salons of New York and Washington isn’t going to engender the kind of open and mutual communication required to tackle this issue.

Unfortunately, degrowth’s answers function better as rage-bait than as an honest invitation to debate. And unfortunately, outrage is the most potent fuel that social media engines have to drive revenue. So while its policies are impractically radical, we’re likely to continue hearing more about it.

That said, don’t let the impossibility of degrowth’s answers prevent you from contemplating the vital questions in addressing climate change. First, how do we adjust our financial systems to better capture the costs of environmental impacts? Second, how do we achieve global consensus without disrupting national sovereignty? And third, how do we incentivize ourselves to generate a more sustainable and circular economy?

Ultimately, at the heart of degrowth’s philosophy is a single underlying question worth considering: How do we repair the relationship between our economy and our environment to improve both, as opposed to fixing one at the expense of the other?

Chris Yoko is the founder of Yoko Co and Carbon Off.