Alvaro Alvarez: You know, the fact that some people believe that one single person can have a lot of wealth in their, in their hands. And that it that can be perceived that a successful story that it’s really, really difficult and it’s very, very problematic. So I think we need to present different narratives. I think we need to present different narratives of success. And we need to go back to push back to kind of the individualization of things that has been happening in the last decades, right? So it looks like still now today is everything is about what you can achieve as a person, what you can do in your own private life, you know, usually the collective. It’s put behind. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a second, it’s a second thought. So I think we need to build narratives that present, you know, the, the, the collective management of our resources. In a in a good light and in a good way, and we need to present examples of things that can work better for everybody.

Mike DiGirolamo (narration): Welcome to the Mongabay newscast. I’m your co host, Mike DiGirolamo, bring you weekly conversations with experts, authors, scientists, and activists working on the front lines of conservation, shining a light on some of the most pressing issues facing our planet and holding people in power to account. This podcast is edited on Gadigal land. Today on the newscast, I speak with Alvaro Alvarez. A journalist and video documentarian, Alvarez joins me to discuss his recent project with the BBC, a short documentary on degrowth and its practices in the city of Barcelona. Last year on the newscast, Rachel Donald spoke with degrowth researcher Timothee Parikh on this economic concept which seeks to priorities of the global economy on supporting human necessities and quality of life for everyone while staying within the critical planetary boundaries, rather than focusing on gross domestic product. Alvaro provides his take on how this system is taking shape in Spain and offers real examples of success, such as in the housing market. He also discusses the cultural challenges degrowth faces towards wide scale adoption. And the role that journalists play in questioning the ideal human vision of success.

Mike: Alvaro, welcome to the Mongabay newscast. It’s great to have you with us.

Alvaro: Thank you, Mike. It’s a pleasure being here.

Mike: So, first thing I want to ask you is, why did you decide to make a documentary on Degrowth? What piqued your interest here.

Alvaro: So around two and a half years ago, I came across the book with the title Degrowth in it. The book was called The Future is Degrowth. I immediately became fascinated with the subject. It touched a lot of the issues that I’ve covered in my 15 years of journalism. It touched on social justice and climate issues North and South global trades or relations. It touches on a lot of topics that for me are, are very interesting and for me are very important as a journalist. At the moment, I was in Barcelona. Actually it’s been my time between London and Barcelona. And when I started reading, I kind of like went down a rabbit hole of Degrowth. And at some point I realized that a lot of the people that I was reading, a lot of the people working on Degrowth. We’re based in Barcelona. So for me, that was like a surprise and a great opportunity. And then I thought, okay, I need to grab my camera and go and talk to all these people because they’re just there around the corner. So I pitched this story to the BBC. I’ve worked for the BBC for many years. . They commissioned it to my surprise. They were actually very curious and very interested. And what started as an eight minute short digital video became a half an hour documentary that has been broadcast in in BBC World TV and it’s being screened now in Australia. So yeah it was, um, I was really fascinated by the concert. I thought, I thought they were connecting a lot of the dots. That are really important to connect when we’re facing the kind of crisis that we’re facing today

Mike: Hmm. And, and you know, we were just chatting a little bit before we started this recording and you were talking about. The degrowth movement in Barcelona. I think it’s really important for people to know about that. What, so can you talk to us about that and how that influenced your decision to film this in the city?

Alvaro: Yeah, so so again, so when I started reading about Degrowth I I found that that a lot of the people working on it were based in barcelona I also didn’t want to make a documentary that was purely talking heads I didn’t want to make a documentary only about theory and about concepts that’s not what I do. So I knew that Barcelona offered me the opportunities to actually go and see things happening on the ground and to go and see things happening and in terms of grassroots movements, alternative ways of organizing, alternative ways of seeing what, what an economy, a social economy would look like. So that was a big factor. And also in terms of visualizing things, Barcelona is a beautiful city. So that also helps in terms of,

Mike: It’s gorgeous. Yeah.

Alvaro: Yeah at least I knew that people were going to, were going to watch the images while They were thinking about, about this kind of topics. So, so yeah, Barcelona was, it was a way also for me to kind of like pin down degrowth. I think degrowth is something that is geographically very dispersed and, and there’s a lot of different people working on different issues on degrowth. So for me, it was important to, to, to narrow it down to a place and to pin it down to a place. And, and yeah, Barcelona was my choice both for, both because it’s a place that a lot of things happening and because I spent a lot of my time there, basically, so I knew, I knew, I knew that, I knew that it had a lot of possibilities for me as a filmmaker.

Mike: So let’s, let’s highlight then because we have talked about degrowth on the Mongvay newscast at least about a year ago, but it’s worth sort of rehashing the connection here between material goods, money, and the connection to nature. So can you highlight then what degrowth is saying in a nutshell, how that connects back to the health of nature itself on the planet?

Alvaro: So basically for me, Degrowth is a movement that suggests That we can have endless economic growth on a finite planet, right? So, the idea is that we need to abandon measures like GDP and operate within planetary boundaries.

And the focus should be on increasing well being rather than in economic growth for growth’s sake, right? And, you know, people like Jason Hickel are talking about, well, You know, GDP is just, it’s just GDP is forcing us to constantly produce, to constantly, you know, bring the economy up and that basically it’s connected to exploiting nature, right, to, to extractivism and, and to basically take things away from nature just for us. To have a constant growth in terms of consumption and in terms of material and energy use. So the idea is we need to stop doing that.

Mike (narration): Here, I must suggest you listen to our conversation with de growth researcher Timothee Parikh on this very podcast, which aired last year. In an in depth interview with Rachel Donald, Parikh outlines precisely what de growth advocates for and how it proposes going about achieving it. Something that should be emphasized is that Parikh’s explanation mentions that reducing production and consumption of non essential goods in the global North nations is what helps enable the building of quality of life infrastructure in the global south. If you’re interested in learning more, you can find that episode linked in the show notes.

Alvaro: I think one of the, one of the things that I, that I, that I liked about degrowth, and, and I think it’s, it’s a little bit difficult for people to grasp this, this criticism of green growth, right? This idea that, well, technology alone is not going to save us. We need to look into. stop basically the exploitation of nature in a way, right? So it’s not, if it’s not fossil fuels, it’s going to be something else. If it’s not, you know, it’s going to be rare materials. It’s going to be, you know, it’s this dynamics of extractivism that I think are very much criticized by Degrowth literature.

Mike: And that said, you’re taking this film, which is now, you know, 25 30 minutes, and you’re touring it to different cities around the world. You’ve been to several Australian cities at this point, so like, what other countries are you looking at touring this documentary to, and why are you choosing these locations?

Alvaro: Well, let me say that the Australia thing is I hope this sounds, this doesn’t sound bad, but I am here because of personal reasons. My partner is from Brisbane, so this started as a, as a holiday. Basically, we came here to visit family. And then when we came here I, I got in touch with a lot of people who are working on degrowth here in Australia. And I was really impressed by the reaction and by how interested they were to, to put together screenings and to, and to bring into the Australian audience. So, it’s not that I’m here just for the degrowth tour. I’m here on a, on a personal, because of personal reasons. And also because there was a huge interest in the documentary. So, um, so I, I, I got in touch with, with people from, from, that are working on Degrowth in Australia. And yeah, it has been amazing. I’m doing some media also. I’ve been doing some media in the country. We’ve been to Canberra, Melbourne Brisbane, and we’ll be in Sydney. So I thought, I thought it was a good way of, of bringing this kind of issues to the Australian audiences. And, and I see a lot of a really nice. A really nice reaction to it and a little bit I think a little bit more than what I expected It’s not that I didn’t expect any Any reaction, but I would say maybe, maybe I have a little bit of an Eurocentric mindset. Like I thought, you know, in Europe, there’s, these things are, are, are very, there are being discussed a lot. And, and I found out that also in Australia, it’s, it’s a place where, where things are happening in this, in this type of topics and, and people are. People are really hungry. People are really hungry for solutions and people are really hungry to find alternatives. So, so yeah,

Mike: Yeah. and I’m, I’m actually quite curious to hear what people have told you or how they’ve responded to the documentary. So what have been some of the responses so far you’ve gotten and about degrowth? What kind of questions are they asking you in the Q& As? Mm hmm.

Alvaro: So it’s, it’s, it’s all super interesting. It’s always sparking, you know, conversations and, and people are very. Everyone is really kind of like trying to, to figure out what to do. There’s a lot of questions about Australia that unfortunately I can’t answer because I’m not that familiar with the country. But, you know, a lot of people are asking about, well, you know, Australia is mostly a rural, well, not mostly, but there’s a lot of rural communities around Australia. You know, so how can we, you know, how can we get rid of things like, you know, everyone driving on an SUV, you know, that’s so kind of like ingrained. It looks like it’s very ingrained in a lot of places in Australia. They were asking also about housing. One of the, one of the things that I covered on the documentary is cooperative housing. And I know that here in Australia it’s a big issue. So, so to be honest, housing has become a big topic after the documentary. After people are seeing that, you know, oh, you know, people are approaching housing from different, from different places and in different ways in Europe. How could we do this here? People are talking about, you know, maybe the laws are not very It’s not very easy to bring something like a cooperative housing to Australia, even though there are um, uh, examples some people are, are, are saying, well, we’re not sure if all these kinds of solutions that you’re presenting Can be basically translated into the Australian context, but, but yeah, there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of discussions and people are very, very willing to engage with this type of ideas. And I would say maybe the housing the housing thing is is is a big one people trying to To figure out how to get out of this huge crisis that it’s going on here, right?

Mike: Yeah, I’m, I’m totally not surprised to hear that people asked you about that because it really is the issue front and center here. But I want to know from you, what, what surprised you the most in researching degrowth and conducting these interviews? Like was there anything that like shocked you or took you aback?

Alvaro: I don’t think so. I don’t think I was shocked by anything because I mean as I mentioned before so i’m I’m originally from Argentina. Even though I grew up in Spain, I’ve been always very familiar with kind of like, you know, topics of social justice these topics of kind of like climate issues. So for me, the, the most interesting things of Degrowth is how they are connecting all the dots, how they are connecting all the, what some people call polycrisis things together. Right. So the idea that. you know, climate justice is, is very, very connected to, to, to social justice, how climate justice is connected to, to, you know, global relationships between the North and the South, how climate justice and climate change is connected to inequality and to the different ways of organizing the economy. So, so for me, it was more about how, how they brought all these issues together. And also this kind of approach of, you know, kind of like systems thinking that is connected to the fact that all our systems are intertwined and in order to change one, you need to look into the others, right? So for me, it was more like a conceptual thing. Because I think a lot of these solutions and a lot of these answers have been there for a while. It’s not, it’s, a lot of these concepts are not new. But, you know, they have been they have been neglected in a way. You know, we are in an economic system that prioritizes just mostly one thing. And this is the system that we have for a few decades already and it doesn’t look that it’s working very well. So, so for me, it’s kind of like, okay, how do we, how do we, how do we look into other types of solutions? And Degrowth is offering a lot of answers, in my opinion.

Mike (narration): Hey listeners, thank you as always for tuning in. We greatly appreciate your support of our work. If you’re new to the podcast, or even if you aren’t, we highly recommend you subscribe to the show on your favorite podcast platform. It’s the best way to stay up to date on our most recent episodes. And if you’re interested in supporting our nonprofit journalism, you can donate to us, head to Mongabay.com and click on the donate button in the upper right corner of the screen. Thank you very much. And back to our conversation with Alvaro Alvarez.

Mike: A lot of the critique that I hear from people just in my own personal life or online centers around what they believe degrowth will disrupt. So, like, technological innovation, medical science, quality of life, prosperity, welfare programs. Where I’ve actually heard degrowth scholars argue it’ll do the opposite of that. But, do you agree or at least sympathize with any of the concerns that people have?

Alvaro: Of course, of course, I, I completely, I completely understand the concerns and, and actually in my, you know, I’m a journalist, I’m a filmmaker and a journalist. So I am not giving solutions. It’s not my job to give solutions to people. It’s not my job to have answers. I don’t have the answers. I just present things that I think are important and worth looking at. And for me, degrowth is something that it’s worth looking at. I totally understand the concerns and and I think some of those concerns need to be looked at. There’s some people who are criticizing Degrowth in my documentary, which I included and, and for me, to be honest, I think so. So these people have been looking into it for a long time, right? So it’s not like they just came up with this idea and kind of like put it there. So you are talking about very, very serious scientific research. You’re talking about very serious research. Scientists doing their work. So this is not just something that they just came up with. They’re using a lot of numbers, they’re using a lot of data, and, and, and all that it’s presented it, it looks very solid. For me, probably one of the most difficult challenges is actually how are we gonna change people’s mindsets. It’s a very, very difficult one. So it’s about changing that mindset that we have right now. That’s what success looks like, right? What does success look like in our society? Well, it appears that for a lot of people, success is about having a bigger and a bigger house or having a better car or being able to buy more stuff or being able to take more flights and go somewhere else, right? So if this is the idea of success that we have now, it’s, it’s, it’s not that easy to change that. And I think Degrowth. Wants to change that mindset. I will, I will put an example. One of the places that I went to that is shown in documentary is a housing cooperative. And at some point, one of the members says, well, you know, I’m a member. So I don’t, I don’t own this flat where I live in. I I’m just here. I use it. So she’s talking, she’s actually saying, actually, I cannot sell it, you know? So I kind of get speculate with housing and that’s a good thing. So that is a big change in mindset, right? So for example, if we, if we think about assets like housing as profit making. Then, you know, we are all in trouble, but that’s what we have. People buy a house so they can sell it and they can get more money. Right. But that’s a big change in mindset. How do we, how do we change mindsets to understand that maybe if we all think of things like assets and commodifying everything, it’s not going to be great for the collective in general. So for me, again, it’s more like. A change of mindset that I believe it’s, it’s, it’s a little bit challenging,

Mike: Let’s let’s drill in a little bit more into that housing example, because this is a real life example of de growth in action, and it’s not just, it’s not just conceptual, it’s actually practical, it exists in reality, it’s happening now as we speak. Tell us the nuts and bolts of this housing cooperative, how it works. And how exactly it’s different from sort of the commodification of housing that we see in other nations like Australia or the U. S.

Alvaro: So let me also say first that this model of cooperative housing is actually growing paradoxically it’s growing, but it’s growing a lot in Barcelona, you know, what Degrowth talks about scaling down, you know, Degrowth doesn’t say we need to just. Decrease everything. Some things we need to increase, right? And one of the things is public housing or different forms of housing. So this kind of solutions are growing a lot in Barcelona because again, people have a lot of difficulties accessing a place to live, which should not be the case, right? Like last time I heard shelter was a human right. Well, it’s doesn’t seem to be a human right anymore. So basically this kind of cooperatives work in the following way. They have the right to use it for 75 years, so this is public land, and the council, basically the city council, has given them the land for 75 years in order for them to put up this project, right? After 75 years, it’s not, so What, what, what I’ve been told is that they will basically have to kind of like reassess the, the agreement, but for now, the agreement is 75 years. And what they do is they work as a cooperative and they work with cooperatives that are the ones who basically help building the house. So there is an architectural studio, which is a cooperative. There is there is an insurance also company that is a cooperative. They worked with an energy cooperative as well, so they kind of like, you know, get better prices and what they do is they come all together and they organize and they make decisions on how they want their, their block of flats to be built and how they want it to function and and yeah, it’s what happens is basically the monthly payments are below market in Barcelona. Yeah. And the deposit is also below market range. So it’s not an, it’s not an easy, I don’t want to paint it as a kind of like, Oh, the ultimate solution. It’s not, it’s not without its frills. Like there has to be a lot of assemblies. There has to be a lot of decision making together by that. Also, as they, as they say in the documentary, that also bonds community, right? And creates community. And the idea is that when people are able to organize to collectively manage things like, like housing things go in general, go much better for the well being of everybody. When you not have just the idea of, oh, we need to make profit or we need to grow or whatever. When the idea is to satisfy the needs. of the members. There are several studies that say that it actually benefits everyone’s well being. So, so yeah, this was a very interesting case. I, I, I wanted to go there. I wanted to see how it works. Everyone seems to be pretty happy with, with how it looks like and how it works. And yeah, I mean, this is a radio, so you guys cannot see it, but, but it looks pretty good in their commentaries. Like it’s, it’s a nice building.

Mike: Yeah, I saw it, and I have to say it looks better than most apartments I’ve toured here in Sydney. So, I mean, it’s really beautiful, actually. So what are some other examples? in Barcelona of degrowth in action that you saw that you,, that you wish more people knew about.

Alvaro: Yeah. So another, another example is this place called La Bruguera de Pobol, which is a house around two hours away from Barcelona which is run by Mike Duff. This is kind of like a degrowth lab where he kind of teaches. a lot of these ideas of degrowth and permaculture. So, you know, kind of like how to grow your own food in a regenerative way. How to, you know, be a little bit more conscious about using and reusing. And he’s connected a lot of also different cooperatives that, you know, that he buys food from. It’s kind of like a little bit of a lab where people can go and see some of. These things in action in terms of like, yeah, like I think he’s, he’s more focused on, on, on food and, and kind of like type of regenerative food supply, which, you know, it’s, he’s, he’s trying to, to, to show that growing your own food is not that difficult and it’s, it’s pretty, it could be pretty easy and it could be pretty, pretty rewarding. Of course, he has a lot of solar panels. So he’s like, he’s not off grid, but there is a lot of renewable energy going on there. And and yeah, this idea again, a little bit more like he’s trying to change mindsets. He’s trying to, you know, make people think that. Maybe they can live with a little bit you know, less stuff, as he, as he says.

Mike: So you tell the story in this documentary from the point of view of the degrowth practitioners and proponents. And there’s a portion of the film where you interview Critics do you find any of their critiques to hold any water? Are there any parts of that where you think those concerns have yet to be addressed?

Alvaro: Well, yes, I think, I think specifically the, the idea of degrowth in the global south, right? So there is a lot of discussion in the, in the degrowth literature about You know, well, of course, they mentioned the countries that need to degrow are the countries that are in the global north, right? And the global south still needs to needs to grow and to reach levels of, of well being that they’re still not there. But but I think there is still a little bit of challenges in terms of how to do that and how that would work in an international level. You know, it looks like we probably need some kind of. Global, you know, government, global world federation in, in order to be able to, to do this in a planned and in a careful way, because yeah, I think that still the global north global south relationship, it’s, it’s a challenge that needs to be looked into it. And some of the, I mean, some of the criticisms I understand that, you know, they’re talking about decoupling. I don’t know if it’s, I don’t know if it’s worth it talking a little bit about decoupling these ideas.

Mike: Right. We’ve definitely explored that on the podcast before and rather than rehash it, I’ll go ahead and drop in a soundbite on decoupling for folks if they want to learn about it. We covered decoupling, and why absolute decoupling has not been achieved.

Mike (narration): This was in our conversation with Hannah Ritchie. Here’s a brief explainer that I recorded. This warrants an extra note here. Researchers published a study in Environmental Science & Policy in 202.They reviewed 179 articles on decoupling published between 1990 through 2019. Stated in the highlights of this research is that there was no evidence of economy wide national or international absolute resource decoupling, no evidence of the kind of decoupling needed for ecological sustainability, and in the absence of robust evidence, the goal of decoupling rests partly on faith. But, in regards to what Richie is referring to here, specifically decoupling consumption based emissions, another study was published in Advances of Applied Energy in 2021, and states in its highlights that 23 countries achieved absolute decoupling.  Between GDP and consumption based emissions, but only between 2015 and 2018 and decoupling is temporary. Decoupled countries may switch back to increasing emissions

Mike: But from what I understand that. You know, ultimate decoupling isn’t something that we’ve achieved. And seems pretty difficult to actually do

Alvaro: Yeah, and even the people who are, you know, some of the critics, even they recognize that it’s not happening fast enough, right? And it’s not really doing much. So, but there are discussions around that, which I, I think are interesting. But again, for me, it looks like that the biggest challenge is the change of, you know, mindsets of people. And a lot of people are also a little bit. You know, some, some people talk about the language and the terminology and how degrowth can be seen as a negative thing, right? So if we just, if we think about degrowth, a lot of most people that are unaware of the concept might have a negative reaction to it in the beginning, but then when you unpack it, then a lot of people would probably find that a lot of it is common sense and a lot of it are things that can be that can help us move forward, right? But yeah, there is a discussion in terms of the concept. There is another interesting argument. It’s like some degrowth scholars argue that degrowth, it’s very difficult to be, it’s very difficult for it to be co opted. The word degrowth, it’s very difficult for the system to co opt it and to kind of like make it tame it or make or watered it down. We’re seeing a lot of these things happening right now with this greenwashing everywhere. There is a lot of problems with the world sustainability as well that it’s, it’s becoming a little bit complicated and we see a lot of people using it in ways that maybe are not what what, you know, what, what we should be using it. So a lot of people say that Degrowth is a word and some ideas that cannot be copped because is. intrinsically questioning the status quo and the system that we have now.

Mike: That’s an interesting, point. I heard there’s an Italian MP named Lorenzo Fiorimonti, and he says that, you know, he’s very sympathetic to degrowth, he respects the work of the, of the researchers behind it, but he also, like you just mentioned there, says that it, it can kind of send the wrong message and maybe sort of create a misunderstanding about what degrowth actually is. And he argued that more of a focus On economic activity being centered on well being is what needs to be pushed or advocated for. I don’t know if there’s a specific term that could be put behind that other than degrowth. Like what, what is a term that could summarize that that’s more palatable? But is that something that you came across in your work on this film?

Alvaro: Yeah. Yeah, totally. So I’ve, I’ve seen that there’s overlaps, you know, between concepts like wellbeing, economy concepts like Donald economics as well is a, is a very important one and one that is gaining traction. And there’s a lot of overlap between these different concepts that have different names, but they have a very, very similar approach towards. Basically, what is our current economic system, right? I understand, I understand all sides of the story. I guess as a journalist, I need to look into all sides of the story. And, and yeah, I understand that for some, degrowth can be a little bit of a negative. It can bring a little bit of a negative feeling or reaction. So, you know, maybe something like well being economy could work a little bit better. Um, But I also understand the, the argument of, the degrowth argument in the sense. Of, well, the, maybe the change that we need is a systemic change. Maybe, maybe we need a change that is that is just that it’s more than tweaks in the system. And maybe the change that we need needs to come from, from a concept and from language that questions in a very, very, you know, very profound way. What kind of system we have now. So I would say Degrowth is a, is a word that attacks in a way or questions very profoundly how we organize ourselves now. And I understand that some people think that maybe that’s what we need at this point because you guys know it very well in Mon Bay. Like things are not getting any better and you know that things are urgent. And we, we really, we are in a, in a moment that we, we need to act. Now, I mean, we’re already late, but we need to start really acting in ways that are are profound.

Mike: One of the researchers in the film said that most people probably wouldn’t label themselves as A degrowth sympathizer. But when you probe their values or, you know, question them about where they derive fulfillment, a lot of the time it’s really in line with degrowth. So I found that to be, to be really interesting because I feel like if you went around and just walk down the street here where I live and ask people, you know, would you be in favor of access to more affordable housing, medical care, or all this critical life infrastructure, I think most people would probably tell you, yes. And those are all things that degrowth is advocating for. So I found that pretty interesting that that point was brought up in the film and kind of further might be a point in the, in the argument pile for a different term other than degrowth. But my next question to you is, I’m interested in how the greening with air quotes, the greening of spaces today in the current system we have still produces gentrification. So the researchers in the film mentioned that participatory democracy is crucial to degrowth and keeping public spaces public and preventing the usurpation. And that felt like a really important vector to highlight, especially in this moment, given the political circumstances that we, that we see you know, with the rise of like populism and embracing of dictators and rising inequality in many nations. So, is it possible that degrowth here could be an antidote to authoritarianism or oligarchy, do you think?

Alvaro: It’s a very, very important question, Mike, and a very…that we could do a master’s degree just if we could answer.

Mike: Haha!

Alvaro: But yeah, let me also let me just let me just mention what you were talking about, because this this is work done by Isabel Angelovsky, which is the director of the Barcelona Lab for Urban Environmental Justice and Sustainability. And yes, so they have been doing a lot of work around green gentrification. And they have been doing a lot of interesting studies that relate to, to how greening now is. It’s basically kind of like, it’s not great for everyone. You know, if you have seen it, I mean, I’m, I’m based in London, you know, and, and gentrification happens there in a speed that it’s like a crazy, like, I guess also in some cities here in Australia, it’s happening really, really quick. And you can see that. People are being displaced from neighborhoods that they’ve lived always all their lives. And yeah, one of the solutions that they are proposing is, is basically, you know, like participatory democracy and, and people being more in, in charge of. Of what happens in the neighborhoods, I think that it’s really important. And I think that’s a very, it’s a very simple point to, to, to understand, you know, now I, one of the, that section, I actually titled it democratizing the economy, because I think one of the key concepts needs to be that one is to be for people to be able to collectively decide. On the resources that are, you know, that are there for everybody. Like, one of the things that Degrowth talks about is the importance of the commons. And and the commons are basically all the resources that we have there for everyone to, to to enjoy, right? Like, so, so, so green spaces or uh, you know, just access to water, access to housing. So, the Degrowth literature says that. And again, when people are able to collectively manage these resources, usually it, that translates into a better wellbeing for everyone involved. If you have like, I don’t know, real estate agencies and landlords taking, you know, kind of like being. Co opting all these things and and basically just thinking about the shareholders That usually does not translate in people’s well being bed when when you have a group of people that are collectively making decisions Usually that translates into more well being and more ecologically sustained solutions. That’s all the studies that are there that says and where people are able to decide. Most of the times they decide in ways that have very much in consideration planetary boundaries. That’s a

Mike: this is a thing that I feel like gets a little bit glossed over, what you just mentioned, is that when, public assets are not in control of the public, they are in control of private corporations or an individual, and this sort of rise of of wealth inequality. You know, we just saw Elon Musk gain, I think it was something like 100 billion since the inauguration of Donald Trump.

Mike (narration): An Oxfam report from 2019 explains how that in that year, billionaires increased their wealth by 2.5 billion per day. There is a cost to this. Oxfam emphasizes less money in capital for public services for everyone else who isn’t a billionaire. Billionaires are indeed paying lower rates of taxes than they have in decades. Privatization of services essentially disadvantages anyone who’s not wealthy enough to pay for them while giving access to the few can afford it. In a study on 13 nations developing critical infrastructure, increased spending on education and healthcare accounted for roughly 70 percent of the reduction in inequality in those nations. At the time of this report, the ultra wealthy were hiding 7. 6 trillion from tax authorities. Jeff Bezos, at 112 billion, was the richest man when this report was created. His wealth today stands at $241.9 billion. However, Elon Musk hoards $384 billion, which is a $120 billion increase since the election of Donald Trump to the US White House in November of last year. At one point, Elon Musk’s net worth was almost roughly the same as the GDP of South Africa. A common argument when increased spending on things like education or healthcare is on the table in nations like the United States, the opposition often asks, How are we going to pay for it? The answer is simply Taxation of the Ultra Wealthy Oxfam shows Their report says that if you simply increase the taxes of the Ultra Wealthy by 5 percent You could raise enough money to educate the 262 million children that were not in school and save the lives, yes, the lives of 3.3 million people. at the time of this report.

Mike: Why is it, do you think, that people seem so resistant or hesitant to tax wealth more aggressively? What’s holding us back here?

Alvaro: Very difficult question. But as a, as a person who works. It’s in media and as a person who works with narratives, same as you do, I would try and go into the direction of, I think what is presented as success right now in this society is problematic. You know, the fact that some people believe that one single person can have a lot of wealth in their, in their hands. And that it that can be perceived that a successful story that it’s really, really difficult and it’s very, very problematic. So I think we need to present different narratives. I think we need to present different narratives of success. And we need to go back to push back to kind of the individualization of things that has been happening in the last decades, right? So it looks like still now today is everything is about what you can achieve as a person, what you can do in your own private life, you know, usually the collective. It’s put behind. It’s, it’s, it’s, it’s a second, it’s a second thought. So I think we need to build narratives that present, you know, the, the, the collective management of our resources. In a in a good light and in a good way, and we need to present examples of things that can work better for everybody.

Mike (narration): There’s no shortage of government examples where stuff like this exists. Let’s take the United States for example. The National Park Service, NPS, provides critical services to the public for the access and care of public lands The National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, NOAA gives you free weather alerts, provides scientific research on the environment and climate change that countless countries across the globe rely on. The Federal Aviation Administration, the FAA, is critical for aviation safety and regulation, not just in the United States, but also globally. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the CDC, Again, isn’t just critical to the research and first response to human health threats in the United States, but also in nations across the globe. All of these things manage public resources in a way that benefits everyone and their reward for this effort. Staffing and budget cuts from the current presidential administration in the United States. But we don’t need to stop there. Many nations implement national health care services funded off the tax dollars of citizens. Again, This is another way of using public resources in a way that benefits everybody.

Alvaro: And yeah, yeah, it’s a, it’s a tricky one. I, I think we, I think we definitely need to change narratives and we need to present this kind of solution. Some of the solutions that Degrowth argues for as an opportunities rather than in sacrifices. I think we can all agree. And I have figures from Oxfam in the documentary about this that. If just a few people are the ones who handle most wealth on our planet that doesn’t go very well.

Mike: I, I do want to, because this is a Mongabay podcast, I do want to make my last question to you about the planetary boundaries, because you’ve mentioned them several times on this discussion. What do you wish more people knew about how degrowth specifically works within the planetary boundaries. What’s the point there that you want more people to get?

Alvaro: I think it’s very important to question the ideas that we have now about how to make the energy transition happen. Right. I think that it’s important to question if technology will, on itself, it’s Only going to take, you know, technology only is going to take us out of this problem. I will very briefly give you an example. I think I said it before. I’m originally from Argentina, right? I’m looking into an issue in Argentina, which is happening right now with is lithium mining. Lithium, it’s, it’s everywhere basically, in all our devices, in all our gadgets. It, and it’s in, electronic cars, right? So lithium is very important for the energy to energy transition, and we should transition to a to to a world where we use mostly renewable energies, but I am looking into how the lithium mining is happening in the north of Argentina, and it’s not really great. And there’s displacement of indigenous communities. There is damage of the environment, and all this is in the name of yeah. You know, the renewable and the green transition, right? I think we need to question and we think to think about how we transition into a world where maybe we need to stop, you know, this kind of like rush for extra, extractivism rush. Do we maybe need to understand that we need to, you know, keep the earth we need to stop maybe exploiting the earth as we have been exploiting it for, for hundreds of years. Just because we, you know, do we really need another iPhone every six months that will have consequences in even if we do an energy transition, it’s still demanding things from earth, right? So maybe we should question how we want to do this transition. And maybe we should question that maybe we should include some of these ideas of, we need to maybe put a little bit of a limit in what we want and how much stuff we want. And how much stuff we consume and focus more on well being and focus more on non material stuff and focus more on community and well being. That is not just about how many things we have or how much stuff we do have as, as, as communities and as, as a society, right.

Mike: I just wanted to mention, that sounds like a conversation I had with Jessica Richter at Lund University in Sweden. And she talked about again, what are people’s needs? You know, we need to be examining what do we need. And what are the costs to fulfill that need? And that’s very much in line. And she wasn’t even talking about degrowth. She’s just talking about how to use resources in an energy transition. But you could apply that to every other facet of your life potentially. But Alvaro, it has been a pleasure speaking with you. I hope to see you at the screening and yeah, best of luck to you.

Alvaro: Thank you very much for having me, Mike. Yes. Thanks a lot.

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