It’s hapening already if you look at birth rates.
That’s why I’m skeptical of degrowth actually doing something to effectively reduce consumption. Because some individuals consume 3, maybe 4 orders of magnitude more resources (and the accompanying pollution or ecological destruction, however you want to measure it), I’ve always believed that reducing population runs a significant risk that the remaining smaller population will use far more resources than the previous larger population.
You see it in rich countries. We have low birth rates and high consumption rates, and our consumption grows exponentially even as our population does not. We run a serious risk of being very destructive childless retirees, and consumption and pollution and emissions and ecological impact need to still be worked on, even if we do shrink the population.
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net 6 days ago
Personally, My interpretation of degrowth is more bicycles and less plastic crap. I don’t think legislating birth rates will ever be an efficient strategy.
heartSagan5@lemmy.zip 6 days ago
China would agree.
CapuccinoCoretto@lemmy.world 6 days ago
It’s both fewer people and less consumption.
No one said legislating neccessarily. We’re doing it now anyways. Most people have the sense that the future won’t be kind to their kids and choose to jave fewer/none.
Grail@multiverse.soulism.net 6 days ago
So you’re saying the degrowth movement doesn’t need to do anything because people are having less kids anyway?
CapuccinoCoretto@lemmy.world 5 days ago
No. I’m saying we don’t need to be heavy handed with reproductive rights because people are making the right choices here. Some policy encouragement would be helpful, but people can be free to choose for themselves.
We need a lot of policy work on lowering average consumption. Income inequality/poverty, planned obsalescence, right to repair, fossil fuels, food production, building codes and municipal design standards, public transit and electrification, habitat restoration, chemical and pollution regulation etc, all still need a lot of work.