Daniel Lerch

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Articles

Crazy Town 99. Eating the Future: The NY Times Goes Full Ecomodernist on Food and Farming

1 month ago | resilience.org | Asher Miller |Rob Dietz |Jason Bradford |Daniel Lerch

How will we feed people living in the megacities of the 21st century, especially while confronting climate chaos and the depletion of fossil fuels and fossil water? According to the mainstream media: ecomodernism! Massive deployment of technology on factory farms and an extreme ramp-up of industrialization will save the day – right? RIGHT?!?
Earthelujah! An Anti-Consumerist Conversation with Reverend Billy

Dec 7, 2024 | resilience.org | Daniel Lerch

Reverend Billy The character of Reverend Billy was developed in the mid 1990s by actor and playwright, William Talen. Talen grew up in small towns throughout Minnesota, South Dakota and Wisconsin. He left home at 16, moving east with Charles and Patricia Gaines, a writer and painter who encouraged him as an artist. Talen began to perform his poems and stories, hitch-hiking from Philadelphia to New York to San Francisco.
A Dozen Years of Economic Thumb Twiddling

Oct 31, 2024 | resilience.org | Daniel Lerch

About a dozen years ago, I wrote a book (with Dan O’Neill) titled Enough Is Enough: Building a Sustainable Economy in a World of Finite Resources. Around the same time, my friend and colleague at Post Carbon Institute, Richard Heinberg wrote his book, The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality. Both books struck a chord at the time of publication, which came on the heels of the global financial crisis of 2008.
Growth, Degrowth, and Green Growth: A Conversation with Peter Victor

Oct 31, 2024 | resilience.org | Daniel Lerch

Peter Victor is one of the world’s foremost post-growth theorists. His books include Escape from Overshoot: Economics for a Planet in Peril (2023), Herman Daly’s Economics for a Full World (2022), and Managing Without Growth: Slower by Design, not Disaster (2008 and 2019). He is Professor Emeritus and Senior Scholar at York University, Canada, and has worked for over fifty years on economic and environmental issues as an academic, consultant, and public servant.
To Grow or Not to Grow: That Isn’t the Question

Oct 31, 2024 | resilience.org | Daniel Lerch

Recent articles in major newspapers—including The New York Times, The Guardian, and The Wall Street Journal—explore the possibility that deliberately shrinking our economy could forestall environmental catastrophe while still delivering the necessities of life to a populace currently hooked on perpetual industrial expansion. Why is degrowth increasingly in the news?
Buy, Consume, Obey! A Cartoon Gallery to Lampoon the Overgrown Consumerist Economy

Oct 31, 2024 | resilience.org | Daniel Lerch

It’s no secret that comedians offer some of the best political commentary. The Daily Show, The Onion, and Last Week Tonight with John Oliver have become U.S. institutions that provide two critical services: (1) they shine a light on unsavory aspects of our culture and the absurdities of modernity, and (2) they bring lightness, laughter, and a measure of relief to deadly serious topics.
By Design, not Disaster: Gaya Herrington on Business and the Limits to Growth

Oct 31, 2024 | resilience.org | Daniel Lerch

The “Limits to Growth” study (and book) from 1972 projected that business-as-usual would lead to declining production and consumption by the middle of the 21st century, when the global economy runs into limits caused by excessive resource use and pollution.
Beyond Growth: A Journey through the Landscape of Sustainable Economics

Oct 31, 2024 | resilience.org | Daniel Lerch

Growth is a story of success—until it isn’t. In most people’s minds, “growth” is inevitably associated with biological development: food crops and babies grow. In those instances, growth is understood to be good—though we would be alarmed to see people continue significantly increasing their height and weight after they had reached adulthood, or to see individual tomato or cabbage plants the size of Jack’s beanstalk. We intuitively understand that growth is desirable only within certain limits.
Moving Beyond Growth: Curated List of Resources

Oct 30, 2024 | resilience.org | Daniel Lerch

This collection provides ideas (in the form of books, journals, podcasts, and other sources), organizations, and even entertaining media that can help you understand the economics of sustainability, the degrowth movement, and the transition away from capitalism and consumerism.
Discussion: What Can You Do about the Economy? How to Be a Degrowth Practitioner and Activist

Oct 30, 2024 | resilience.org | Daniel Lerch

What can you do about an overgrown economy that is burning too much energy, consuming too many resources, damaging the biosphere, and failing to provide shared prosperity? “Degrowth!” is the one-word answer. But what is needed to organize a compelling degrowth movement? And what on-the-ground actions can breathe life into a thriving and just local economy that works within nature’s limits?