My thoughts on the 3 questions we considered

Thanks for a good discussion - too short!  Here are a few thoughts on the three questions Ulrich proposed.

Resource and Extraction GAP

1)   How should the issues of "resources and extraction" be approached from the core of the degrowth proposal and persepctive?

-       Must start with the question: extraction for what, and for whom?

• OK: to support lives based on buen vivir, simplicity, sufficiency, solidarity (which must connect the people at the point of extraction to the end users of what is extracted)
• Not OK: to make rich capitalist investors even richer, extractivism

-       extraction must be consistent with the concept of buen vivir, which means that it must only cause unavaoidable ecological harm and must completely avoid social coercion or domination, i.e. as little extraction as possible

-       unavoidability is tied to elimination of overconsumption, over-wealth, luxury (e.g. gold and diamonds for jewelry), financial speculation, etc.

-       solidarity and community must bridge the North-South divide; and ultimate goal of degrowth should be to eliminate this divide

-       for fossil fuels, extraction of what, and where, needs to derive from a cautious estimate of "burnable carbon", with a global democratic process (!!) for deciding what to extract and where, aiming for the least ecological and social disruption achievable.  On the ecological side, this should give strong consideration to energy return on energy invested (EROI), so that the greatest energy return possible is achieved; and use of burnable carbon should be focused largely on transition to renewable energy systems combined with drastic decrease in energy demand.

-       extraction related to renewable energy systems should also be tied to the least achievable ecological and social disruption

-       extraction should be funded by the public sector, and nobody should get overly wealthy from financing or working in extractive sectors

2)   How can the hegemony of developmentalism and extractivisim in the global South and the Global North be questioned? And what is the role of the DG proposal in the global North in this?

-       this is a transitional problem – a goal of degrowth is to eliminate this hegemony, which has the effect of making all consumers complicit to some extent

-       debt forgiveness

-       eliminate austerity-based structural adjustment

3)   How can the experiences of struggles and proposals of the global South contribute to degrowth debates and practices in the global North?

- I will think more about this!

Geoff