The

We don’t have a right to ask whether we are going to succeed or not. The only question we have a right to ask is what’s the right thing to do? What does this Earth require of us if we want to continue to live on it? –Wendell Berry

GDP growth is, ultimately, an indicator of the welfare of capitalism. That we have all come to see it as a proxy for the welfare of humans represents an extraordinary ideological coup.

The interests of capital came to be internalised by the state, to the point where today the distinction between growth and capital accumulation has almost completely collapsed. Now the goal is to tear down barriers to profit – to make humans and nature cheaper – for the sake of growth.

The thing about growth is that it sounds so good. It’s a powerful metaphor that’s rooted deeply in our understanding of natural processes: children grow, crops grow … and so too the economy should grow. But this framing plays on a false analogy. The natural process of growth is always finite. We want our children to grow, but not to the point of

It’s really quite straightforward. Right now, the dominant assumption in economics is that all sectors of the economy must grow, all the time, regardless of whether or not we actually need them to. This is an irrational way to manage an economy at the best of times, but during an ecological emergency it is clearly dangerous. Instead, we should

The international system is already straining, with 65 million people displaced from their homes by wars and droughts – more than at any time since the Second World War. As migration pressures build, politics are becoming more polarised, fascist movements are on the march, and international alliances are beginning to fray. Factor in escalating

Mexico is home to the Peñasquito mine, one of the biggest silver mines in the world. Covering nearly 40 square miles, the operation is staggering in its scale: a sprawling open-cast complex ripped into the mountains, flanked by two waste dumps each a mile long, and a tailings dam full of toxic sludge held back by a wall that’s 7 miles around and as

Forests are critical to our planet’s circulatory system; they are like giant hearts that pump life-giving water around the world.27 As forests die off, droughts become more common, and forests in turn become yet more vulnerable to fire. The speed at which this is happening is frightening. On our current trajectory, most rainforests will wither away