Degrowth in the Suburbs

Degrowth in the Suburbs

Author: Samuel Alexander

Publisher: Springer

Published: 2018-09-21

Total Pages: 219

ISBN-13: 9811321310

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This book addresses a central dilemma of the urban age: how to make the vast suburban landscapes that ring the globe safe and sustainable in the face of planetary ecological crisis. The authors argue that degrowth, a planned contraction of economic overshoot, is the only feasible principle for suburban renewal. They depart from the anti-suburban sentiment of much environmentalism to show that existing suburbia can be the centre-ground of transition to a new social dispensation based on the principle of self-limitation. The book offers a radical new urban imaginary, that of degrowth suburbia, which can arise Phoenix like from the increasingly stressed cities of the affluent Global North and guide urbanisation in a world at risk. This means dispensing with much contemporary green thinking, including blind faith in electric vehicles and high-density urbanism, and accepting the inevitability and the benefits of planned energy descent. A radical but necessary vision for the times.


Prosperous Descent

Prosperous Descent

Author: Samuel Alexander

Publisher:

Published: 2015-03-31

Total Pages: 326

ISBN-13: 9780994160607

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Calling for a sufficiency-based culture of 'simple living' to underpin a macroeconomic framework of 'degrowth', Samuel Alexander draws on a remarkable breadth of economic, political, ecological, and sociological literature to explore the radical implications of living in an age of limits. Written with clarity, rigour, and insight, this book will both challenge and inspire. 'Prosperous Descent is a creative and important contribution to a movement with surprising momentum, one that challenges the very notions of progress and wellbeing on which our societies are constructed. It is a radical challenge in the best sense of the term. We can all learn a great deal from Samuel Alexander, both about our societies and about how to live our lives.' - Clive Hamilton, author of Affluenza: When Too Much is Never Enough and Growth Fetish'This timely book reminds us that the good life is the simple life; a life within limits. It is a truly interdisciplinary volume, covering topics from the macroeconomics of a planned degrowth, to the ecology of planetary limits, to the sociology of voluntary simplifiers. A must read.' - Giorgos Kallis, co-editor of Degrowth: A Vocabulary for a New Era'Consumer capitalist society is characterised by a deep feeling of anxiety and isolation. It persists by inculcating a deep sense of disempowerment and diluting our radical imagination. The strength of this book lies in its ability to delicately weave together not only the theory but also the practice of simplicity. It carries with it the moral weight of generations of people who have demonstrated a different way of living and the shallowness of consumer society.'- Peter D. Burdon, author of Earth Jurisprudence and co-editor of Wild Law: In Practice


Urban Awakenings

Urban Awakenings

Author: Samuel Alexander

Publisher: Springer Nature

Published: 2020-11-21

Total Pages: 255

ISBN-13: 9811578613

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This book presents a series of urban investigations undertaken in the metropolis of Melbourne. It is based on the idea that ‘enchantment’ as an affective state is important to ethical and political engagement. Alexander and Gleeson argue that a sense of enchantment can give people the impulse to care and engage in an increasingly troubled world, whereas disenchantment can lead to resignation. Applying and extending this theory to the urban landscape, the authors walk their home city with eyes open to the possibility of seeing and experiencing the industrial city in different ways. This unique methodology, described as ‘urban tramping’, positions the authors as freethinking freewalkers of the city, encumbered only with the duty to look through the delusions of industrial capitalism towards its troubled, contradictory soul. These urban investigations were disrupted midway by COVID-19, a plague that ended up confirming the book’s central thesis of a fractured modernity vulnerable to various internal contradictions.


Degrowth in Movement(s)

Degrowth in Movement(s)

Author: Nina Treu

Publisher: John Hunt Publishing

Published: 2020-05-29

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1789041872

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Degrowth is an emerging social movement that overlaps with proposals for systemic change such as anti-globalization and climate justice, commons and transition towns, basic income and Buen Vivir. Degrowth in Movement(s) reflects on the current situation of social movements aiming at overcoming capitalism, industrialism and domination. The essays ask: What is the key idea of the respective movement? Who is active? What is the relation with the degrowth movement? What can the degrowth movement learn from these other movements and the other way around? Which common proposals, but also which contradictions, oppositions and tensions exist? And what alliances could be possible for broader systemic transformations? Corinna Bukhart, Matthias Schmelzer, and Nina Treu have curated an impressive demonstration that there are, beyond regressive neoliberalism and techno-fixes, emancipatory alternatives contributing to a good life for all. Degrowth in Movement(s) explores this mosaic for social-ecological transformation - an alliance strengthened by diversity.


Food for Degrowth

Food for Degrowth

Author: Anitra Nelson

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2020-11-22

Total Pages: 188

ISBN-13: 1000287351

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This collection breaks new ground by investigating applications of degrowth in a range of geographic, practical and theoretical contexts along the food chain. Degrowth challenges growth and advocates for everyday practices that limit socio-metabolic energy and material flows within planetary constraints. As such, the editors intend to map possibilities for food for degrowth to become established as a field of study. International contributors offer a range of examples and possibilities to develop more sustainable, localised, resilient and healthy food systems using degrowth principles of sufficiency, frugal abundance, security, autonomy and conviviality. Chapters are clustered in parts that critically examine food for degrowth in spheres of the household, collectives, networks, and narratives of broader activism and discourses. Themes include broadening and deepening concepts of care in food provisioning and social contexts; critically applying appropriate technologies; appreciating and integrating indigenous perspectives; challenging notions of 'waste', 'circular economies' and commodification; and addressing the ever-present impacts of market logic framed by growth. This book will be of greatest interest to students and scholars of critical food studies, sustainability studies, urban political ecology, geography, environmental studies such as environmental sociology, anthropology, ethnography, ecological economics and urban design and planning.


Beyond Capitalist Realism

Beyond Capitalist Realism

Author: Samuel Alexander

Publisher:

Published: 2021-01-10

Total Pages: 320

ISBN-13: 9780648840534

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'Capitalist realism' implies that, ever since the fall of Soviet communism in 1989, capitalism has been the only realistic system of production and distribution. Everything else is generally dismissed as 'utopianism' or just naïve dreaming. This perspective points to a worrying failure of imagination, suggesting that it is now easier to imagine the end of the world than the end of capitalism. But here is the paradox of capitalist realism: just as the dominant cultural imagination has contracted into a single vision of what is possible, the existing system shows itself to be in the process of self-destructing, serving neither people nor planet. Whether by design or disaster, the future will be post-capitalist. In his fourth book of collected essays, degrowth scholar and activist Samuel Alexander seeks to transcend capitalist realism. He shows that viable and desirable alternatives are being lived into existence today by diverse but connected social movements. Calling for a 'degrowth' transition of planned economic contraction, Alexander examines and develops this emerging paradigm from various political, energetic, and aesthetic perspectives. Readers will come away seeing plausible pathways to prosperity, sustainability, and resilience that do not rely on the capitalist growth model of progress.


Less is More

Less is More

Author: Jason Hickel

Publisher: Random House

Published: 2020-08-13

Total Pages: 293

ISBN-13: 1473581737

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'A powerfully disruptive book for disrupted times ... If you're looking for transformative ideas, this book is for you.' KATE RAWORTH, economist and author of Doughnut Economics A Financial Times Book of the Year ______________________________________ Our planet is in trouble. But how can we reverse the current crisis and create a sustainable future? The answer is: DEGROWTH. Less is More is the wake-up call we need. By shining a light on ecological breakdown and the system that's causing it, Hickel shows how we can bring our economy back into balance with the living world and build a thriving society for all. This is our chance to change course, but we must act now. ______________________________________ 'A masterpiece... Less is More covers centuries and continents, spans academic disciplines, and connects contemporary and ancient events in a way which cannot be put down until it's finished.' DANNY DORLING, Professor of Geography, University of Oxford 'Jason is able to personalise the global and swarm the mind in the way that insects used to in abundance but soon shan't unless we are able to heed his beautifully rendered warning.' RUSSELL BRAND 'Jason Hickel shows that recovering the commons and decolonizing nature, cultures, and humanity are necessary conditions for hope of a common future in our common home.' VANDANA SHIVA, author of Making Peace With the Earth 'This is a book we have all been waiting for. Jason Hickel dispels ecomodernist fantasies of "green growth". Only degrowth can avoid climate breakdown. The facts are indisputable and they are in this book.' GIORGIS KALLIS, author of Degrowth 'Capitalism has robbed us of our ability to even imagine something different; Less is More gives us the ability to not only dream of another world, but also the tools by which we can make that vision real.' ASAD REHMAN, director of War on Want 'One of the most important books I have read ... does something extremely rare: it outlines a clear path to a sustainable future for all.' RAOUL MARTINEZ, author of Creating Freedom 'Jason Hickel takes us on a profound journey through the last 500 years of capitalism and into the current crisis of ecological collapse. Less is More is required reading for anyone interested in what it means to live in the Anthropocene, and what we can do about it.' ALNOOR LADHA, co-founder of The Rules 'Excellent analysis...This book explores not only the systemic flaws but the deeply cultural beliefs that need to be uprooted and replaced.' ADELE WALTON


This Civilisation is Finished

This Civilisation is Finished

Author: Rupert Read

Publisher:

Published: 2019-03-31

Total Pages: 106

ISBN-13: 9780994282835

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Industrial civilisation has no future. It requires limitless economic growth on a finite planet. The reckless combustion of fossil fuels means that Earth's climate is changing disastrously, in ways that cannot be resolved by piecemeal reform or technological innovation. Sooner rather than later this global capitalist system will come to an end, destroyed by its own ecological contradictions. Unless humanity does something beautiful and unprecedented, the ending of industrial civilisation will take the form of collapse, which could mean a harrowing die-off of billions of people. This book is for those ready to accept the full gravity of the human predicament - and to consider what in the world is to be done. How can humanity mindfully navigate the inevitable descent ahead? Two critical thinkers here remove the rose-tinted glasses of much social and environmental commentary. With unremitting realism and yet defiant positivity, they engage each other in uncomfortable conversations about the end of Empire and what lies beyond.


Exploring Degrowth

Exploring Degrowth

Author: Vincent Liegey

Publisher: FireWorks

Published: 2020

Total Pages: 0

ISBN-13: 9780745342023

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An introduction to the degrowth movement worldwide


The Simpler Way

The Simpler Way

Author: Samuel Alexander

Publisher:

Published: 2020-01-27

Total Pages: 406

ISBN-13: 9780994282873

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Ted Trainer is an Australian scholar-activist who defends an 'eco-anarchist' perspective he describes as the Simpler Way. His vision is of a world where self-governing communities live materially simple but sufficient lives, in harmony with ecological limits. This anthology brings together some of Trainer's most insightful and provocative essays