The Truly Sustainable Alternative | Julia Steinberger
How we can live well within limits. Rachel Donald from Planet Critical interviews Julia Steinberger.
A flourishing human society doesn’t have to cost the earth. In fact, our wellbeing and Earth’s wellbeing hinge on the same thing: reducing inequality.
Julia Steinberger is a renowned degrowth scholar at the University of Lausanne where she and her colleagues recently produced Living Well Within Limits, which shows there is no tension between human and ecological flourishing.
Yes, ‘good life’ philosophy should inform models of well-being (Aristotle, all thriving is mutual, social flourishing, eudaemonia etc). But it needs extending beyond the narrow humanistic (or theistic) boundaries of many philosophers (we can safely ignore theology). I’m fine with a reasonable balance between universal and cultural elements (‘satisfiers’), although we may be poised on the brink of global culture.
Maldevelopment is implied if not named or defined. War economies are left a bit late (Luke Kemp’s Goliath’s Curse is recommended, and fascism is identified as a major threat), although coercion is touched upon.
Universal public services based on already-understood technologies seems the way go.
But how is the non-human living world to be represented in our political systems? In what ways must the human world be limited for its sake not ours?