THE CLIMATE CRISIS-THE KIDS ARN’T ALRIGHT

Commentary from Dr Wim Thiery

Scientists predict about 2.4°C of global warming by the end of this century under current policy pledges, compared to preindustrial times. In our studies, we calculated the meaning of that level of warming, in terms of how many extreme climate events a real person in a real location will face across an entire lifetime. Compared to their grandparents, children born today will face 1.5 times more tropical cyclones, 2.6 times more droughts, 2.8 times as many river floods, nearly 3 times as many crop failures, 2 times the number of wildfires, and 7 times the number of extreme heatwaves under current pledges. These numbers illustrate unprecedented increases in lifetime extreme-event exposure for today’s young generations. Without doubt, the increased numbers of lifetime extreme climate events will significantly impact not only people’s lives but also whole societies and economies.

Will children across the world face the same impacts of climate change?

Very strong intergenerational inequities exist, in terms of exposure to climate extremes. The younger people are and the higher the warming level, the greater the number of extreme events they will experience. If 3.5°C of global warming occur, children across the world will face, on average, 44 times more extreme heatwaves compared to people living in a world without climate change. In the Middle East and North Africa, people under 25 will face at least a 7-fold increase in lifetime exposure to all categories of climate extremes which we considered, and new-borns will face a 9-fold or greater increase relative to those in a world without climate change.

In addition to this intergenerational injustice, we also see international injustice. Young people in low-income countries will face, by far, the strongest increase in lifetime extreme event exposures, followed by young children in lower-middle income countries. From 2015–2020, 64 million children were born in Europe and Central Asia, and those children will face a 4-fold increase in lifetime extreme event exposures. In the same period, 206 million children were born in sub-Saharan Africa and those children will face a 6-fold increase. So, not only does the average child in sub-Saharan Africa face a much stronger increase in exposure, but there are also many more children born into that situation. As African countries contribute only minimally to global-scale emissions, these children bear a disproportionate burden of the impact of global warming. Finally, these children are among the most vulnerable. Often, their survival depends on agriculture and their homes are not well protected against climate extremes like tropical cyclones or heatwaves.

There has also been a recent surge in climate litigation, in which people around the world are suing governments and fossil fuel companies for contributing to negative climate impacts or for expressing insufficient ambition in terms of mitigating these impacts. In many cases, these lawsuits are spearheaded by young people, who believe that current policies violate their rights under the UN’s Convention on the Rights of the Child. Together, youth protests and climate litigation are game changers. Young people have, and will continue to play, a key role in the actions taken to protect their own futures.

https://policylabs.frontiersin.org/content/wim-thiery-climate-crisis-kids-are-not-alright?utm_source=sfmc&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=NL+04+2022&utm_term=https%3a%2f%2fpolicylabs.frontiersin.org%2fcontent%2fwim-thiery-climate-crisis-kids-are-not-alright&utm_id=185

COHORT 2040 CHALLENGE

How Can Future Leaders be Better Prepared for a Future of Worsening Environmental Crisis (https://www.ippr.org/files/2022-01/cohort-2040-jan-22.pdf   )

This report from the Institute for Public Policy research(IPPR) is yet another wake up call for all of those who are asking where the leadership will come from to tackle a worsening environmental and social crisis created by humanities unsustainable lifestyles?

According to this timely report many scientists, experts and communities on the front line are warning of this worsening outlook. But these warnings are often treated as projections of a future that can be definitively avoided; and as interventions tactically deployed to spur action in the present. This is particularly the case when they are expressed in intergenerational terms: “Act now to save our children’s future.” But what if these warnings increasingly indicate the future conditions under which the struggle to overcome the environmental crisis will be fought?

Less attention has been paid to another intergenerational perspective: What burden is being placed on the shoulders of future decision-makers by a far more environmentally destabilised world – and how can they be better prepared? The average age of world leaders is 62, dropping to the early 50s across Europe (Asrar 2021); many parliaments have an average age in the high 50s (Watson 2020, CRS 2021). Emerging millennial-age leaders in their early 30s – the median age of the global population is 31 years (CIA 2021) – will reach the age range of contemporary leaders in the 2040s and 2050s. If the inadequate action of today continues, theirs could be a tomorrow of 2C of heating, severe and persistent environmental shocks, and the knock-on destabilisation of societies across the world.

Many of the defining features of this report’s systemic approach to issue of future leadership recognises the huge challenges future cohorts of students will face in a potentially destabilising world. Without building the capacity of future leaders and change agents to enhance their understand the necessity of fundamental change to societies and economic systems to create and unlock a global response that avoids non-linear environmental change and enables an ongoing process of restoring and restabilising the natural world -then growing destabilisation of societies will dominate their future. Focus must be maintained on making a better future as the present gets worse.  Hence those cadres of university graduates who aspire to become transformative leaders must be capable of embracing complexity and developing a sophisticated, systems analysis of the causes, evolution, and consequences of growing destabilisation in and between human and environmental systems to navigate the coming decades. Mechanisms are needed to identify, monitor, and better understand complex and rapid change across systems and to collaboratively respond to threats and opportunities.

 Expanding global solidarity (relational). Greater connection with communities on the front line of destabilisation is needed around the world, ensuring their experience is foregrounded as part of an explicit strategy of creating a greater shared group understanding of the impacts of destabilisation, minimising perceptions of people as being part of an ‘outside’ group. In turn, considerations of equity are paramount, as is maximising the resources and agency of those who are most vulnerable. The chances of an effective global response are limited under conditions of high inequality and, as a result, low cooperation.

 Caring collectively (emotional). The emotional and psychological implications of the worsening outlook are significant, unequal and will have a range of impacts on collective responses. These include elements in social psychology, such as heightening fear or empathy and their consequences for marshalling and maintaining an effective collective response under growing stress, as well as the emotional toll for individuals. Globally, it is essential that leaders can better support communities and entire populations in making sense of what is going on, how it came to this, and what must be done to navigate out, telling stories of focus and hope.

WORLD ENERGY TRANSITION UPDATE

Published today (29 March), IRENA’s  2022 edition of the World Energy Transitions Outlook outlines the priority actions that will need to be taken between now and 2030 to keep the goal of limiting the global temperature increase to 1.5C within reach. 

COP26 President Alok Sharma stated earlier this month, in a journal for think-tank IPPR, that the goal to “keep 1.5C alive” was not guaranteed in the long-term by the Glasgow Climate Pact alone. He described the Pact as a “fragile win”. His article warned that “achievements will come to nothing” unless “promises made are promises kept”.

According to the report, keeping the world on a 1.5C pathway will require ensuring that renewables account for at least 40% of the global annual energy mix in 2030, up from 14% at present.

Electrification will also need to happen at scale to tackle energy consumption – the Outlook is predicated on the global electric vehicle (EV) stock being 20 times larger in 2030 than it was in 2021. Also detailed is the widespread uptake of electric technologies for domestic heating.

Additionally, the report highlights historic under-investment in energy efficiency. Global energy efficiency investment was $0.3trn in 2021 but will need to reach $1.5trn annually. This finding was to be expected; the International Energy Agency has stated that the rate of progress on energy efficiency will need to at least double from 2021 levels to deliver a net-zero world.

Rotterdam citizens concerned with air quality form a club

They will be measuring air quality as a citizen-driven science project

Over 400 citizens of Rotterdam have already registered in a special club dedicated to air quality and called Luchtclub. Part of the activities of the club is the measurement of air pollution on the street with particulate matter sensors. The club aligns with a five-decade-old policy of the Dutch port city to measure air quality and will function as a sort of a citizen science project.

Mapping the air quality in The Netherlands

The first members of the air club in Rotterdam have already received their air quality sensors and the rest will get them in the next couple of weeks. With these devices, members will be measuring the levels of particulate matter (PM2.5) on their streets and will be supplying data for a two-year period.

The municipality and the Institute for Public Health and the Environment will use this data as a basis to map out how Rotterdammers experience their environment and what they consider important. The measurements can already be seen live on an online map (fuelled with data from across The Netherlands).

According to the Alderman for Sustainability Arno Bonte, quoted on the city website, the measurements will be a valuable addition to the existing municipal network, which has been functioning for 50 years already and will help it further improve its air quality. Although 400 members is already a very good number, certain city areas are still not represented sufficiently, so new club members are more than welcome.

Other than measurements, the air club members in other city areas like Rozenburg, Pernis, Hoogvliet and Hoek van Holland can already participate in discussions, exchange ideas online on how to improve the air quality in their neighbourhoods. 

The first meetings started on 3 June and during the first online sessions, Alderman Bonte, assisted by other health and environmental authorities, will elaborate on the purpose of the Luchtclub, the importance of clean air and the added value of measuring it. They will also discuss sustainable urban development and how to make Rotterdam future-proof.

Finally, Rotterdam is taking various measures to improve air quality, such as installing shore-based power for sea vessels, promoting shared electric transport, and encouraging cycling, walking and public transport. The goal for Rotterdam is to meet the stricter standards of the World Health Organization by 2025 at the latest.

Place- Based Learning and Climate Emergencies

 Cities around the globe have a unique and powerful role to play in mitigating climate change and adapting to its impacts. Estimates suggest that urban activities produce 75 percent of global CO2 emissions, making them major contributors to climate change. Yet their growing populations are also extremely vulnerable to climate change, with climate change-induced heat waves, floods, storms and sea level rise, disrupting their basic services, infrastructure, housing, livelihoods and health. As wellsprings of ideas, innovation, and resources, cities are also potential sources of solutions for addressing climate change.

The prominence of this civic role is prompting many universities and cities like the Canadian city of Toronto and the city of Nottingham in the UK to set bold carbon reduction targets (e.g., net zero by 2050 or sooner like 2028 for Nottingham) that align with the Paris Agreements’ recommendations for keeping global heating below 1.5C as well as identifying resiliency measures for adaptation. In the words of Toronto’s climate strategy: “Achieving these targets will require transformational changes in how we live, work, commute, and build”. It will require Herculean effort across the wide array of sectors, industries and levels of government that shape the urban environment. “

The UKs Civic Universities Network (https://civicuniversitynetwork.co.uk/ ) and the Urban Climate Action Network (UCAN) in the US and Canada (https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/urban-climate-action-network-joe-harber/ ) offer tangible evidence that the expertise and capacities of universities can be brought to the table by developing university/city partnerships focused on how cities can best achieve their climate targets. The vision for such a partnership is one of civic symbiosis which leverages the unique capabilities of the university (e.g., students, faculty, research, campus infrastructure) to help the City achieve its climate goals, while university students – future generations of architects, planners, engineers, policy analysts, communications specialists, investments analysts and cultural and social innovators- would become better versed in the concepts and practice of sustainability and climate action.

In the UK- Nottingham is arguably the furthest ahead. The city has reduced its overall CO2 emissions per capita by 52.3% since 2005 and is on track to be carbon neutral by 2028. It has planted nearly 22,000 trees and installed more than 130 public electric vehicle charging points. Just under a third of council vehicles and nearly half of Hackney carriage taxis are ultra-low emission vehicles, and the city has one of the UK’s largest fleets of electric buses. A workplace parking levy on employers providing 11 or more parking spaces for staff generates about £8m a year, which is ringfenced for renewable transport schemes. It also hosts two of the world’s leading universities which are implementing sustainability across their campuses and across their courses.

 For many universities there is a growing understanding that instead of the prevailing siloed curriculum approaches to sustainability, there needs to be an emphasis on influencing individual behaviour and markets.  Hence, teaching which is rooted in the day-to-day interaction of social, economic, and environmental systems, and inseparable from issues of social and environmental justice and of governance-would offer a more grounded learning experience. To understand fully the complex interactions which continue to promote unsustainable practices, an emphasis on the real-world lens of ‘place’ can bring together a wide range of academic disciplines – Geography, Biology and Ecology, Economics and Marketing, Political Science, Sociology, Psychology, Earth Science and Philosophy. This could facilitate a critical search of finding ways to work together across very different disciplinary approaches and methods, using the reality of physical places, with all their complexity and ‘messiness’.

The world’s urban buildings, including homes, workplaces, schools, and hospitals, are responsible for a significant proportion of global carbon emissions. By 2050, 1.6 billion people living in cities will be regularly exposed to extremely high temperatures and over 800 million people living in cities across the world will be vulnerable to sea level rises and coastal flooding. Accelerating the transition to net zero emissions for the world’s cities will therefore be vital to achieving the goal of keeping global warming to close to 1.5 degrees.

By 2050 urban areas will be home to two thirds of the world population, with the speed and scale of urbanisation set to lock in high-carbon infrastructure and inequality if we do not act now.

PEDAGOGIES OF TRANSITION

The times call for pedagogies that cultivate integrated knowledge and global citizenship, yet we continue to educate for a world we don’t want. In the long term, we need educational systems aligned with new imperatives, while in the near term offering innovate curricula and teaching within existing systems. The forward-looking educators on this Forum’s panels—Frameworks and Practices—probe each of these fronts.

This essay was originally published on www.greattransition.org as part of the “The Pedagogy of Transition” Forum in May 2021. 

This is a short introduction to a suite of outstanding papers from an international and authoritative transformative community.

The question for those of us in the business of thinking, propagating ideas, and equipping youth for lives in a confusing and uncertain world is what do we do? Living in the shadows or the sunlight of our legacy, what would our great-great-grandchildren wish us to have done?

Likely, they would ask us to overcome our blindness to what is right before our eyes: heat, storms, fires, floods, desecrated lands, extinctions, and injustices and what these portend for their lives. Perhaps, they would ask us to reckon with the possibility that “our ideas are too puny for our circumstances,” and to think more broadly and wisely about what it means to be human.1 They would surely demand that we stop using the atmosphere as a dump and that we preserve Earth’s forests, rivers, soils, seas, mountains, lifeforms, and grasslands. Certainly, they would ask us to enlarge the democratic vista to include them, their great-great-grandchildren, and other species—an intergenerational, interspecies democracy of sorts. They would expect us to have created a durable foundation of well-considered personal rights and duties, tolerance for differences and dissent, and the wherewithal for truth and reconciliation.

For reasons that Stephen Sterling and others explain, the university as presently conceived is an unlikely source of remedy. It is committed not to transformation, great or otherwise, but more often than not to patching up flaws in the modern paradigm on the wager that it carries the seeds of its own repair and renewal. The educational system with millions of students each year, billions of dollars of research funding, and trillions in capital assets operates with the assurance that goes with its assumed monopoly of solutions to what ails modern societies. It exists unmolested in the world of influence and money as long as it does not threaten the dominant culture and its underlying faith in economic growth and human domination of nature. Its organization often impedes non-trivial conversations across disciplines. Its financial dependency limits serious reckoning with large ideas of justice, peace, interdependence, and ecology. It deals primarily in what E. F. Schumacher called “convergent problems,” not “divergent problems.” The former are linear and thereby amenable to scientific or technological solutions. The latter are more like dilemmas that are, by definition, unsolvable but avoidable with foresight. Increasingly, our basic problems are of the latter sort: they are divergent moral and political questions “refractory to mere logic and discursive reason.”2Too often, colleges and universities have become hives of “busy-work on a vast, almost incomprehensible scale,” and students graduate as careerists, not agents of transformation.

LEVELLING UP WHITE PAPER 2022

 

I wrote this extract immediately below from a blog in July 2020 and was surprised by what seemed to be its impact.  

There is a growing interest in the idea of civic universities. It’s an idea which has a new resonance with many who believe it’s time for a reassessment of what a university is for. I was particularly struck by what is currently happening in the Netherlands to make the connections between a university and its place. They argue that civic universities matter more than ever as “anchor institutions”. They play a critical role in an ageing and automated society in facilitating lifelong learning and will be crucial in helping to deal with both challenges especially in a post Covid world.

The overall performance of universities’ contribution to this agenda in the Netherlands is monitored through a process of Performance Agreements) – now called Quality Agreements . Funding can be withheld if the plans do not meet the criteria. The separate ministries with responsibility for higher education and for city development have recently announced joint funding for “city deals” specifically to support collaboration between universities and municipalities. Most Dutch universities and their municipalities are participating in the programme.

The rationale for such an approach is clear. It is important for a city’s capacity for innovation that it has a strong relationship with knowledge institutes and that researchers, lecturers and students are involved in solving social problems. Not only to strengthen the problem-solving ability of the city, but also because it contributes to the training of the students of the future– who will contribute to shaping society – and gives them a better understanding of social issues. Using the society as a rich learning environment for students is therefore an important theme. The idea is that students formulate the relevant research questions together with researchers and the field (businesses, government, social institutions, citizens’ initiatives), carry out further research into urban problems and evaluate whether assumed problem-solving approaches are effective.

 I hope our new Minister of Higher Education is following the Dutch example?
Guess what? This paragraph appears on page197 in the new White Paper on Levelling Up  (https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-unveils-levelling-up-plan-that-will-transform-uk ):

HE institutions have a vital part to play in supporting regional economies, as significant local employers and through their role as anchor institutions supporting regional collaboration. Examples include Sheffield University and Sheffield Hallam University, working in partnership with Sheffield City Council, on the future design of the city centre around their campuses; or the University of Lincoln’s Institute of Agri-Food Technology which collaborates with the agriculture sector to develop technology which can solve challenges across the food chain in Lincolnshire. In March 2021, DfE part-funded the creation of the Civic University Network through a £50,000 grant to support universities through the creation of Civic University Agreements, placing universities as anchor institutions within their locality to develop the economic, social, and cultural well-being needs of the surrounding community. Innovative new models of skills based HE also have an important role to play in levelling up places. For example, the New Model Institute for Technology and Engineering, opened last September in Hereford, offers a model of skills-based learning drawing from global best practice that emphasises work readiness, as well as self-reliance, community spirit and volunteering.

Quality of the Student Experience and the Levelling up Agenda

 

Since its inception in 2018 the Office for Students (OfS) has not placed any priority on the environmental and social sustainability agenda unlike its predecessors (Higher Education Funding Council; Quality Assurance Agency). So, I was interested to see it announce a new consultation on its next strategy. What caught my attention was the proposition that the quality and standards of provision in the sector should be aligned with the “levelling up” agenda. This new and “emerging “policy agenda has many parallels with the implementation of the UN Sustainable Development Goals which the UK Government signed up to in 2015. I set out below my arguments for how both these policy agendas play a significant part in addressing the role that Universities can play in “building back better” from the Covid pandemic and the impact of Brexit. These and the existential threats of Global Warming and the loss of Biodiversity are inherently and systemically linked to the quality and standards of provision of our universities. Hence this review is an opportunity to apply some policy coherence about the future of our university sector

Our current approach to quality emphasises the role of higher education in serving economic interests, which restricts how quality is defined, understood, and implemented. Hence, value for money, completion rates, graduate employment, and graduate earnings, feature strongly.  Does this mean that a degree becomes equivalent to a share certificate whose value is determined by the issuing university? This is clearly not an adequate and robust way of assessing the quality and standards of a university education.

Universities should focus on how graduate learning contributes to wider social functions such as active and ethical citizenship and shaping a democratic civilised and more sustainable society which is crucial if graduates are to play an active and responsible role in an increasingly complex and uncertain world. No one can predict with any certainty how the world will change over the next few decades, but it is likely to change in many significant ways. An expanding population, increasing globalisation and advances in technology, will bring colossal societal and ecological changes, particularly if our unsustainable practices and lifestyles prevail. This is just a taste of what a graduate’s future might look like.

 Universities have a significant role to play in developing  socially and environmentally sustainability literate leaders and hence optimising their contribution to the future of society, the environment, and the economy.  Sustainability in this sense does not feature in the internal quality assurance systems of many of our universities.  A National Union of Students longitudinal survey carried out since 2011 indicates that 80% of the thousands of students who responded said sustainability should be an integral part of their university course and that this would help them in gaining employment in the future. These results have remained constant; despite changes such as the rise in fees, and the crash of the jobs market, the demand for action by institutions and students’ desire to learn about sustainability has remained constant. A growing number of UK Universities have begun to respond to this agenda, notably the Universities of Aberdeen, Bristol, Keele and Nottingham Trent, Plymouth, Gloucester, and Worcester; but much more needs to be done by all our universities to prepare graduates for an uncertain future.

Many universities are now beginning to address the issue of the currency of the curriculum in the face of many serious and challenging issues society faces in the 21 Century- not least all of those that are encompassed by the UN Sustainable Development Goals(SDGs) and the international and national policy discourse these have initiated (See Measuring up: A National Plan for the SDGs:  https://www.ukssd.co.uk/measuringup   ). They also link very closely to many of the issues raised by the levelling up agenda and some of the initial thinking on the significant regional inequality disparities that underpin this new policy.

The link between quality and sustainable development and the levelling up agenda is probably best exemplified in the following quote:

“Human relationships based on naked self-interest (e.g., greed, envy or lust for power) maintain inequitable distribution of wealth, generate conflict and lead to scant regard for the future availability of natural resources.”  

An education system which mirrors these values is unlikely to deliver a quality education.  Education should facilitate and promote human relationships characterised by justice, peace and negotiated mutual interests, which lead to greater equity, respect and understanding.  It is these qualities which underpin sustainable development/levelling up and a quality education. 

REGENERATIVE THINKING and AGENCY

By Josie Warden RSA

Today, our path has reached a cliff edge. As a species we are disrupting the balance of our Earth and undermining the systems that make our home liveable. At the same time, we are extracting from and exploiting one another. Despite the wealth and technology available in the world today, millions of people remain in poverty, and shocks like the pandemic and climate change reinforce and exaggerate existing racial, gender and wealth inequalities.

To a minority, the only answer seems to be to doggedly stick to the route we are on. But we have another choice. We can remember the other paths around us that we have separated from and choose also to explore those.

A living systems perspective

There are other ways of understanding our world: perspectives that see the Earth as made up of complex living and evolving systems, which acknowledge the relationships between things, and value multiple ways of knowing. These ideas are at the heart of regenerative thinking and are seen in fields from computing to physics to ecology, where theories of living systems are increasingly reflecting a more accurate view of the workings of our planet. Biomimicry expert, biologist and self-proclaimed ‘nature nerd’ Janine Benyus has said that we need to take a place in nature’s class “not to learn about nature that we might circumvent or control her, but to learn from nature so that we might fit in at last and for good, on the Earth from which we sprang”.

To help us to structure our thinking, what mental models might support us to move towards recognising and understanding living systems?

First, living systems are nested. This ‘nested’ characteristic, or holarchy, describes how living systems sit within one another to form larger and more complex systems. Consider your heart, which is a whole system on its own with parts that interact with one another and have complementary functions. But it also forms part of your circulatory system, which sits within your body, you within your family and so on. The layers of nested systems are whole, in and of themselves, but to understand their function you must see them as part of the wider systems they form. Like our hearts, their function is only fulfilled when it is within the wider system.

The British economist Kate Raworth is not alone in arguing that an economy can only fulfil its function once we recognise that it is ‘nested’ within society and that human society is nested within the wider natural world. Disease in your heart affects the overall health of the individual. In a social setting, poor ‘health’ of a neighbourhood, say through lack of work opportunities, poverty or inequality, can have knock-on negative effects for the socio-economic and environmental flourishing of the broader region.

Second, living systems move and change. This sets them apart from mechanical systems, like the engine of a car, where the parts and relationships are static and stay the same over time.

Regenerative development practitioner Jenny Andersson describes this movement as a flow between convergence, divergence and emergence. Resilience is found in the relationship between these dynamics. Too much convergence and a system may become rigid, too much divergence and it becomes chaotic. Living systems will often be operating and finding balance between these two states in order to maintain integrity in the long term. Ongoing adaptation provides greater resilience than rigidity – earthquake-proof buildings, for example, are designed to absorb energy and move in response to seismic events rather than resist them.

Third, living systems are emergent. Because they are made up of nested and interacting parts, living systems have properties that emerge from the interconnections between parts – properties that would not emerge from those parts in isolation. This emergence happens in a non-linear and unpredictable way. In hindsight, it is possible to identify cause and effect, but the multiple possible avenues open at any one time mean that predicting exactly what will happen in advance is almost impossible.

These emergent properties have enabled biological evolution; likewise, arts, language and culture are all emergent properties of human interaction. Jazz music could not have been predicted, but in hindsight its influences can be clearly traced.

Emergent properties mean that, rather than acting and analysing after the fact (by which time the overall conditions are going to have changed), we need to probe, sense and then respond to what we find.

Fourth, living systems favour diversity. Reductionism seeks efficiency, rationalisation and homogeneity. According to the reductionist way of thinking, if we can cut the number of actions or people or costs and still have the same or a better outcome, then we should do things this way.

However, living systems do not follow this rationale. So, for example, rainforests, perhaps the most mature systems on our planet, are not rationalised and efficient, with one type of tree repeated neatly. They are abundant, with a diversity of flora and fauna, some existing within impossibly small niches, others proliferating. For an animal, constant and ongoing competition is an unproductive route; much better to find key differences that allow you to live alongside others. In a world of constant change, putting all your eggs in one basket, even if it looks to be perfectly formed, is a foolish endeavour.

Fifth, living systems build mutuality and reciprocity. They are founded on relationships and interactions that create mutual net benefit. We often think of this in direct, two-way interactions between parties, such as the relationship between peas and other leguminous plants, and the nitrogen-fixing bacteria found in their roots, where the plant receives nitrogen from the bacteria and the bacteria receive sugars from the plant. But mutuality and reciprocity in nature extends beyond bidirectional transactions; we see abundance and generosity, as one species provides nutrients or helps create the conditions for others to thrive as well. Take for example the acorns of an oak tree: some will grow into saplings and others will provide food for nearby animals.

A powerful clip contribution from Josie Warden -the lead on Regentive Futures at the RSA

9 tips for talking to your family about degrowth during the holidays

By: Nathan Barlow

The holidays are special;  a chance to stop working, slow down and spend time with family and friends. The numerous family gatherings will likely involve discussions about the state of the world, politics, climate change, and maybe even degrowth. In case you find yourself in this scenario, we have put together this list of tips and suggestions for how to discuss degrowth with family and friends during the holidays:

  1. Stay respectful

This should be obvious, but unfortunately  when we’re passionate about a topic and think we’re ‘right’, there can be a tendency to tread into the dangerous waters of not communicating with care and compassion to others. So, first and foremost, let’s stay respectful!

  • Listen then speak

Understanding the concerns, frustrations, and passions of those you’re speaking to can help you to highlight the points of degrowth that are relevant for them. It’s a lot to digest at once, so don’t overload them and make sure you find the right entry-point.

  • Keep it simple, and avoid jargon

Many of us in the degrowth movement work and study in academia or have spent a lot of time around universities, and our (over)usage of theoretical language shows it. Try to limit the usage of jargon unless it’s really needed, because you will have to stop the flow of conversation to ‘define’ some of these words and it can create more confusion than clarity. For example:

–          Material and energetic throughput → the amount of energy and stuff used to make something

–          Just transition →  making sure workers in ‘dirty’/’bad’ sectors find a good job in the new economy

–          Social-ecological transformation → a radical change in how we live, organize society, our economic system and our relationship with the environment

–          Entropy → maybe save this until later in the night…

–          degrowth → degrowth – if you have a chance to use this key-word, take it!

  • Highlight real-world issues, not just theory

Think in advance of some real-world issues that exemplify degrowth. For example, food waste. The unsustainability of the current food system is evident to anyone after a few visits to the grocery store dumpster. The injustice of not sharing the excess products with the workers or vulnerable people highlights the need for new ways to organize businesses, the volumes thrown out by a single company reveals levels of overproduction and the limitation of individual recycling & composting, and the invisible nature of this practice to the everyday shopper is shocking once revealed.

  • Provide basic statistics

I don’t personally memorize masses of statistics about the social and ecological crises but remembering some can be very helpful to describe the severity of the situation. This avoids phrases like, “trust me – it’s really really bad!”  For example, in 2019 the Guardian reported that, “41% of global insect species have declined over the past decade”.

  • Relate the abstract to lived experiences

In my hometown there is currently a massive takeover of the roads and parking lots by Amazon delivery trucks that have decided to establish a ‘hub’ here. The drivers are reckless, likely due to  contracts which force them to rush to keep their job. Abandoned shopping centres (and most recently a large lot next to some wetlands) have been converted to parking lots for Amazon trucks, highlighting poor town planning and the limited power of local government in the face of big corporations. The poor town infrastructure (massive potholes, no sidewalks, terrible traffic) are curiously neglected despite the supposed ‘economic benefits’ of companies like Amazon locating here. And of course, more gasoline is used  for more deliveries, more materials for more packages, more stuff to fulfil more orders. Meanwhile, the town’s (official) poverty rate is 8.5%, a few years ago the town’s water was undrinkable, and 200 people have died in the last two years from drug overdoses in a town of just 25,000 inhabitants. Is an Amazon ‘hub’ really what this town needs? How would a degrowth vision address the challenges this town faces? If you can identify a lived experience like this one to contrast with degrowth, do so!

  • Give bridging ideas

While degrowth directly contests ideas like sustainable development, it can be helpful to begin from more commonly understood ideas and then explain how degrowth is different. For example, “degrowth is similar to sustainable development because of its emphasis on improving livelihoods and protecting the environment, but degrowth questions sustainable development’s naïve hope that long-term environmental sustainability can be achieved alongside infinite economic growth ”

  • Avoid individual critique and shaming

Avoid the trap of preaching or critiquing someone’s way of life. Degrowth is not about each of us overcoming our individual shortcomings and acting better, it’s about struggling collectively for new structures in society. I may be vegetarian and cycle a lot, but I also flew across the Atlantic to see my family for the holidays. Always remember these tensions and contradictions in yourself (and in society) when talking with others.

  • Highlight the positives

The holidays should not be a time for doom and gloom, so tell a story of success or hope. While the examples may be limited, incomplete and/or partial,  it can show a way forward and even give your family/friend an idea of how they can get involved and affect change. If these tips were helpful, then please help support this website’s ongoing work through a donation. Or ask your aunt for a small donation on your behalf instead of getting another “I ❤ Earth” canvas tote bag. Or simply share this blog post so more people can talk about degrowth with their families this holiday.

Nathan Barlow

He is a PhD candidate at the MLGD Institute at the Vienna University of Economics and Business (WU). His research areas and interests are degrowth, strategies for social ecological transformation, and understanding how related movements are taking shape on both sides of the Atlantic. He is active in Degrowth Vienna and is currently editing a collected volume on Degrowth & Strategy.