The Thin End

We have argued in previous articles that growth and world trade are driving forces for climate change. Unless this driver is understood and dealt with, then talk of containing global warming is simply hot air. Politicians need to lead in efforts to get voters to realise that our lifestyles must change. If we want to tackle climate change and protect our future on the Earth, societies will need to adopt a degrowth model, in which we consume less, and use fewer materials and resources. Given how reliant we are on the growth model, this won’t be an easy transition. Now, two researchers in the UK and Sweden have been awarded the latest Atlas Award for examining this current and growing debate on the strategy to tackle climate change from the degrowth angle. The article by Dr Milena Büchs, University of Leeds, UK and Prof. Max Koch, Lund University, Sweden, appeared this month in Futures , published by Elsevier. While degrowth doesn’t mean going back to a prehistoric way of life, it does...

The Thin End considers how growth has become a political mantra and how bad trade pollutes the planet and fuels climate change, and the suggestion that there should be carbon taxes. Subscribe to The Thin End Follow @Ray_Noble1

Whether we leave the European Union or whether we stay, the United Kingdom must put environmental protection and climate change at the top of our agenda.  We must break the link between economic growth and habitat destruction. This is a major political challenge because it requires us all to change our expectations about how we live in the future, and it requires the government to make bold decisions, where currently lip-service is paid.   It means breaking the neoliberal mythology of free markets and growth.  We need a new economic and social narrative. Brexit is not a solution; nor is it a start.  It takes us in the wrong direction - the direction of seeking trade deals at any cost, an not least with the United States. One problem with the financial crisis of 2008/9 is that it focused attention on the banking system as if it could be separated from global economics.  It fostered the notion that all that was needed was to reform the banks and all would be...

President Trump is right. There is something wrong with global trade, and with the deals that make them possible. What we need, however, are the right kind of solutions. Solutions that help the producers, the farmer and farm workers, as much as the consumers. Solutions that help the planet heal itself from pollution and loss of habitats. Solutions that lift people out of poverty. Solutions that prevent the 'need' to grow crops destined to destroy lives through narcotics abuse. a new deal on trade We need a new global deal that produces sustainable economies with social and environmental objectives. The G7 scurry around trying to repair a broken system. They are rightly angry that Trump has given up on that system, but neither Trump nor the G7 have the right solutions. So they fight over the entrails of a broken system. The neoliberal view of 'free markets' meeting needs is a myth.  Markets are neither 'free'  nor good at meeting social and  environmental n...