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‘I’m not buying new stuff any more’: the young people getting into ‘degrowth’
(www.theguardian.com)
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this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2024
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Degrowth - Economics as if People mattered
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A community for discussions and thoughts about degrowth, postgrowth, donut economics and similar ideas to create an economy, which is able to meet every humans needs, without overusing our planets resources, by cutting useless consumption and focusing on appropriate technologies.
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Any book recommendations for Degrowth?
Less Is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World
So you don't have to buy a copy you can just take it out of the library here. http://libgen.is/search.php?req=less+is+more+how+degrowth&open=0&res=25&view=simple&phrase=1&column=def
Libraries are the greatest degrowth asset. We need everything libraries w/ attached repair shops.
No.
It's as simple as stop buying shit you don't need, and rather than buy new stuff, replace/fix/renew old stuff.
Like... stop buying a new car on lease every 2/3 years. buy a car and keep it for 10+ years.
Stop vacationing to foreign countries, go on a road trip. etc
Wow thanks I'm cured... lol
first of all, the irony in this comment is incredible. Second of all, literally just start buying used shit first and foremost (it's already out there, using it is better for the environment) and if you do buy something new, try and buy something that you know you can get a good lifetime out of.
have a proper sit down, and think about what you really need to keep going in life. Focus on that. I'm not saying you should drop every hobby you've ever had, but if you collect newly released shit, maybe pivot into finding older stuff that's interesting to collect. If one of your hobbies has a consumable material/s maybe think about how you can better fill that gap. Perhaps try a different hobby every once in a while.
I've always enjoyed computer hardware, i recently got my hands on a few older thinkpad models. x20 series and an x50 series. Both used, both seen some shit in their day and age. Gave me a handful of usable laptops, most of the parts i bought for them were used. All of them are fantastic machines though.
Rude. My dude was just asking for advice and wanted to learn more.
idk, i was just pointing out that it was somewhat ironic, that we're on lemmy, a result of modern internet consumption (which is yet another problem) talking about the concept of degrowth, and this person was asking about a book about it.
That's pretty ironic. There's nothing wrong in something being ironic, irony is literally just when two counterintuitive things are in the same place (for lack of me googling the definition to properly explain it lol, look more irony)
Regardless, i still provided my thoughts on how it could be done, i feel like i provided something of substance.
E-Books are a thing, as are libraries, which allow you to borrow a book and return it. You also have the option of buying books second hand and then sell it again or give it away. That is really one of the key parts of degrowth. As soon as you share things, you need less things as a group. Hence the impact is much lower.
Besides a paperback book has a climate impact of 1kg of CO2. The average US American emits 4.6t per year just by driving their car. The impact of reading books is a complete joke against that and again no libraries, no second hand or anything else to reduce the impact.
Also books are really incredibly usefull resources. They are much better at actually explaining more complex ideas, then shorter articles.
So please do not just presume, somebody is going out to buy something. For the most part the big choices an individual can make on personal consumption are housing, transport and diet.
i know i just thought it was funny, let me have my 7 words or however many they are, of amusement smh.
I mentioned second hand stuff, as well as other non physical methods of cosumption in my comment, so some of this is quite redundant. The tidbit on carbon emissions is interesting though.
i mean yeah, i just don't know how much one would need to explain the concept of "hey just don't buy things, or if you do minimize the impact of it." But that's just me i suppose.
i guess so, but owning things is an inevitability in a materialist society. Even if you're homeless, you're still going to own something, even if it's just the clothes on your back. Seems like the most obvious first step to the concept of "degrowth" to me. I suppose continual consumption could be a bigger deal, but most of that is unavoidable (eating food for example) though you can still optimize it, i feel like that should be much more obvious frankly, considering how much we do it every day at the very least.
Thats because degrowth is not just anti consumerism although it is part of it, but to limit economic growth to stay within planetary boundaries. This means that degrowth also wants to built up systems to stop over consumption for everybody, while providing everybody with a good quality of life. This is far from simple, since we currently overuse earths resources, while billions are starving, despite us having enough food to feed everybody with ease. So you end up with stuff like universal basic income, forced recycling systems, commons, global justice, measuring well being and a lot more. There is easily enough to write a book about.
that's fair i suppose, i wouldn't call it degrowth though. I'd call it global economic minimalism or something. Degrowth is pretty broad, but then again people probably aren't going to buy a book titled "economic minimalism" are they? Lol.
Same Energy
If you tried to post a picture. You do so by putting a ! in front of the link like:
Then you get:
Hope that helps, if not ignore it.
I did mean to thanks! Couldn't get the damn thing to work haha.
First of all, libraries exist.
that's true, i forget about them pretty frequently on account of the whole modern society thing. I have no idea if they would even have more recent releases tbh lol.
Though i guess you could probably go through your library to acquire it anyway?