Degrowth is simultaneously much more and much less than an answer to the climate crisis. It is much more than an answer because it is not really about climate at all. It is an anti-materialist philosophy that holds that humanity made its fundamental errors hundreds of years ago, trading the animism of our ancestors for Christianity’s promise of dominion over nature. The problem is not simply greenhouse gas emissions or microplastics. It is Cartesian dualism and American-style capitalism and everything these systems of thought and practice have taught us to value and prize and want.
