{"id":26117,"date":"2017-09-26T06:07:00","date_gmt":"2017-09-26T11:07:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=26117"},"modified":"2017-09-26T06:07:00","modified_gmt":"2017-09-26T11:07:00","slug":"puerto-rico-a-potential-experiment-in-degrowth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=26117","title":{"rendered":"Puerto Rico: A Potential Experiment in Degrowth?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Puerto Rico: A Potential Experiment in Degrowth?<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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I\u2019m sure that some will criticize the insensitivity of the timing of this essay. How can you talk about Puerto Rico, climate change, and degrowth at this tragic time? But what time is better than now? There are only going to be more disasters and more tragic times ahead. And if after each one we spend billions on rebuilding costly infrastructure, the resulting carbon emissions are going to contribute to disasters elsewhere in the future. So when better than now to raise this\u2014before<\/em> billions of dollars are spent rebuilding Puerto Rico (and Houston and Florida too) in the same unsustainable, unresilient way that consumer economies have pursued thus far?<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n
Perhaps the island\u2019s debt crisis combined with this hurricane offers the perfect opportunity for Puerto Rico to develop in a different direction. Perhaps Maria can serve as the start of Puerto Rico\u2019s \u201cspecial period<\/a>\u201d where a simpler, more equitable, more sustainable pathway\u2014and yes, poorer in consumer terms\u2014is chosen.<\/p>\n

In other words, could this disaster serve as the trigger of an intentional redirection of the island\u2019s development? Could Puerto Rico degrow<\/em>, and in the process bring about a more sustainable society?<\/p>\n

The Benefits of Degrowth<\/strong><\/p>\n

First of all: why should Puerto Rico degrow?<\/p>\n

The social and ecological costs of our fossil-fueled consumer culture are apparent\u2014in disease burdens, in obesity rates, in CO2 emissions, and in other ecological costs<\/a>. Choosing to move away from the consumer economic model could reduce obesity and connected disease burdens, reduce ecological impacts, reduce the stresses of modern day busy-ness, and help rebuild community as people once again work together in community and create webs of interdependence.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Puerto Rico: A Potential Experiment in Degrowth? I\u2019m sure that some will criticize the insensitivity of the timing of this essay. How can you talk about Puerto Rico, climate change, and degrowth at this tragic time? But what time is better than now? There are only going to be more disasters and more tragic times […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[203,16162,3824,6665],"class_list":["post-26117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-survival-2","tag-degrowth","tag-erik-assadourian","tag-puerto-rico","tag-resilience-org"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26117"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26118,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26117\/revisions\/26118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}