14 resources on Degrowth for local climate activists
TL;DR: What we can learn from moss about surviving climate disasters. Doing nothing to save the planet might save planet. So do more nothing, intentionally, deliberately. This is a resource list for my zine degrowth: what moss can teach us about surviving the world that’s coming. If you’d like to add extra resources to this, please email me.
As a species, humans have always been defined by our natural talent for expansion: being more, dreaming more, having more, growing bigger. As we know, our (human) society prioritises growth as our number one performance indicator.
which is where mosses come in
In her book Gathering Moss (link below), Robin Wall Kimmerer notes that mosses and humans share the fundamental need for a "boundary layer"—a secure microclimate of warmth, moisture, and protection—highlighting how both seek intimate connection and limits within the world.
She writes that mosses mostly need the same things we do to survive and thrive - but the way they meet these needs is starkly different to our own. If conditions are good, they luxuriate and thrive. But if times are bad, many mosses just stop growing and wait it out.
They don’t die, they just hold on tight & because of this, they persevere.
This is called DEGROWTH.
What is it, exactly? It’s what mosses do: in times of scarcity, they stop producing, stop growing, stop consuming, and just hang in there.
Seen by its detractors as a dangerous idea (probably because it sounds dangerously like communism, oh no!), world governments are starting to wake up to the reality that we can’t consume our way to a ‘greener’ future with ‘clean’ energy.
14 related resources and reads: mosses, climate change, and degrowth as an economic safety measure
This is by no means the full story on degrowth, but it’s my full story:
The Global Degrowth Database by Degrowth.be. For more resources: Explore degrowth
Gathering Moss: A Natural and Cultural History of Mosses (book). by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Why We Need Degrowth Policies:ClimaTalk provides their readers with an analysis of this movement and its rationale as they cover more degrowth policies and ideas.
Emergence Magazineis an online publication with annual print edition exploring the threads connecting ecology, culture, and spirituality.
Ten Love Letters to the Earth, by the late Thich Nhat Hanh, in honour of his passing, and that was my gateway drug so to speak.
Ancient Green: Moss, Climate, and Deep Time, by Robin Wall Kimmerer
Ecosocialism (including degrowth) is the way forward: Ecosocialism does not need to be as counter-hegemonic as the degrowth movement, but as system-changing. Interview with Jonas Van der Slycken.
Prosperity without growth: 10 policy proposals for the new left (The Ecologist)
Degrowth – what's behind the economic theory and why does it matter right now? - The World Economic Forum
When Citizens Take Matters Into Their Own Hands: A closer look at citizen collectives established in 2015 and 2016 in Belgium
Rewilding Magazine(an independent publication dedicated to exploring the people, places, ideas and debates connected to the global rewilding movement)
OECD (2020), Beyond Growth: Towards a New Economic Approach, New Approaches to Economic Challenges, OECD Publishing, Paris. Note: OECD: The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Local is Our Future by Helena Norberg-Hodge (book). It connects the dots between our social, economic, ecological and spiritual crises, and shows how localising can help solve them all.
National Library of Medicine: Nurturing Spiritual Resilience to Promote Post-disaster Community Recovery: The 2016 Alberta Wildfire in Canada
Read more about rewilding in urban environments in my root systems zine series. It explores how ordinary people can help the environment. There are thinking points and practical actions that we out there can take to tackle climate changes in our local neighbourhood and beyond, out there in the world.