The following letter by Feasta trustee Mark Garavan was published by the Irish Times on August 21 2024. It was written in response to the article “Capitalism is killing the planet – but curtailing it is the discussion nobody wants to have” by Padraig Fogarty, published on August 8.
The letter below is the original version. The sections in green were edited out by the Irish Times, whose version can be found here.
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Dear Editor,
In his opinion article of August 8th Padraic Fogarty concludes by observing ‘Curtailing consumption is the conversation nobody wants to have’. While this may be a true characterisation of our current political debates, it is less so of emerging ecological and economic thought.
In 2014, Philippe Bihouix’s book The Age of Low Tech was a surprising best-seller in France. In it, he argued ‘Like it or not, there only remains the very rational option to apply the brakes: reduce, as quickly and as drastically as possible, the average consumption of resources per person … The choice is not between growth and degrowth, but between imposed degrowth – because the resource issue will catch up with us in due course – or elective degrowth.’ He shows that the best environmental strategy ‘should not be “how to fill this or that need (or desire …) in a more ecological way?”, but “could one live as well, under certain conditions, without this need?” To achieve this, we will need a new culture which will ‘slow down, simplify, disconnect, reduce.’
Various theories of ‘de-growth’ economics have now become quite prominent. One well-known example is Kate Raworth’s model of ‘doughnut economics’. The seriousness with which this approach is now viewed can be testified by the recent conference in Trinity College, Dublin on ‘Re-thinking Growth’ held in June (https://rethinking-growth.ie/). This was very well attended (including one session with Minister Paschal Donohoe) and had many insightful contributions towards modelling a society centred on well-being rather than economic growth.
The conversation on reducing consumption and de-growing our economies in favour of wider well-being is indeed well under way. The only question is how quickly our wider political and media mainstream realise this and join in.
Yours etc,
Mark Garavan.
c/o Feasta, Cloughjordan, Co. Tipperary.
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