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Comment by Manuel_D | Hacker News Reader

Degrowth is a euphemism for recession. That's literally what it is: receding economic activity. Degrowth proponents are among the most counterproductive advocates of climate policy, and are a huge source of ammunition for a opponents that try to claim that climate action is just anti-capitalism in disguise. Increases energy usage is not necessarily necessary for increased economic growth. Higher efficiency and less energy intensive lines of business provide growth with the same or even less energy use. Furthermore, increased energy use is only a problem if that energy comes from environmentally damaging sources. Building energy sources other than fossil fuels allows for growing energy use with less environmental impact.

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It's actually our response to Covid that really cemented the idea that we won't solve our environmental problems by asking people to consume less.

People weren't prepared to put on a mask to save their own lives, they are sure as hell not going to vote for a government with policies that result in them consuming less, just so that people of the future wont have to deal with climate change. It's too far away and somebody else's problem.

Degrowth will never willingly happen in a democratic country. In my view its a waste of time discussing.

As you said, we need to find solutions to our environment problems that will make people richer, more comfortable, with more stuff.

I should also add to this comment that I think every individual _should_ review their own consumption and debt, and I have a lot of respect for those that do minimize their footprint.

I also strongly support taxes and regulation that prevents people from consuming more than their fair share, or passing off the true cost of their consumption to others.

I only meant to say that government policies that ask people to consume less across the board will never fly.

> Increased energy usage is not necessarily necessary for increased economic growth

I disagree with this - economic growth has almost always perfectly aligned with increased energy use, however this is not a bad thing.

The history of the human race has been about moving from less dense sources of energy to higher dense ones. From wood, to charcoal, to coal, to oil, to gas, to nuclear fission, to nuclear fusion. Abundance of energy is an absolute must for economic growth.

The good news is that what we have started to decouple our impact on the environment and economic growth.

I would also go as far as saying that economic growth is a necessity for us to combat climate change. The development of advanced technology like fusion, better desalination, higher density and more efficient farming, will all help reduce our impact on the planet.

> The good news is that what we have started to decouple our impact on the environment and economic growth.

I fail to see how this is true in any meaningful sense.

Here's a good explanation and source: https://ourworldindata.org/co2-gdp-decoupling.

It's not just density of energy. In a world of (close to) 100% renewable energy, what will the cost of electricity be relative to today? Framed another way; what's the cost of energy for someone who is "off the grid" today? Someone who is "off the grid" energy wise but connected digitally could have an uncapped impact on economic growth while having a hard cap on their impact on the environment/energy.

Society can combine renewable energy (which have a low per-unit cost) with dense fuel based energies like nuclear to drive the cost of energy towards 0., enabling new kinds of economic growth. For example, Proof of Work style crypto is something that's criticized = today for environmental reasons which, in that future world, would just be a siphon for excess energy. Replace crypto with "Folding@Home" style applications if you want.

Economic growth has been aligned with labor saving. Effiency. So instead of carrying items by hand long distances, we get beasts of burden, eventually machines take over the job in more and more efficient ways. Self driving trucks delivering products massively increase productivity, but does not consume that much more electricity.

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