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The Case for Conservation PodcastAuthor: www.case4conservation.com
The case for conserving nature and its biodiversity needs to be robust and credible. Sometimes that requires a willingness to re-examine conventional wisdom.Monthly episodes of The Case for Conservation Podcast feature introspective conversations with fascinating experts - from ecologists to economists, young professionals to Nobel laureates, journalists to media personalities. Language: en-us Genres: Natural Sciences, Nature, Science Contact email: Get it Feed URL: Get it iTunes ID: Get it Trailer: |
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68. Is degrowth a viable path to sustainability? (Jeroen van den Bergh)
Wednesday, 1 July, 2026
Few ideas are as deeply embedded in how we run our societies as economic growth. Across the political spectrum growth is treated as self-evidently good, and the debate tends to be a tug-of-war between those who want to keep growing and those who argue we urgently need to do the opposite. Degrowth is the argument that wealthy societies should deliberately shrink their economies to stay within the planet's limits. Most of us can probably sense that there's no end to the expansion of human activity, and that something has to give. But how well does degrowth actually hold up when you examine the evidence behind it? And is it a realistic strategy for confronting our environmental crisis, or is it missing the point?My guest is Jeroen van den Bergh, a Research Professor at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona and at VU University Amsterdam, and one of the sharpest critics of the degrowth movement. But as you'll hear, he's an equally sharp critic of growth-at-all-costs. In 2024 he published a widely discussed review of the degrowth literature that concluded much of it is built on conviction rather than rigorous research, a verdict that earned plenty of push-back. In this conversation we dig into the appeal of degrowth, the reasons it's politically radioactive, and what a more evidence-based approach to growth and the environment might look like.Links to resourcesReviewing studies of degrowth: Are claims matched by data, methods and policy analysis? - Jeroen's 2024 paper with Ivan Savin, reviewing the body of work on degrowth.Environment versus growth - A criticism of "degrowth" and a plea for "a-growth" - An earlier (2011) degrowth and a-growth paper by Jeroen.Visit www.case4conservation.com
