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Mar 7, 2019

Dan Young interviews Don Fitz and Stan Cox, two long-time environmental activists and writers. For many years both Fitz and Cox have advocated that solving not just global warming but other major environmental crises will require an overall reduction in the size of economy and industrial production. Now they are concerned that the Green New Deal recently introduced in the U.S. Congress is premised on major EXPANSION of industry and the economy.

Fitz and Cox feel that this so-called “green growth” would be unlikely to stop global warming, and would only worsen numerous other global environmental crises. Though they support a rapid changeover to renewable energy coupled with economically egalitarian reforms, they believe this needs to come along with a major reduction in industrial production. Some of the potential changes they talk about include a shorter work week, and new regulations aimed at guaranteeing higher quality products and eliminating planned obsolescence, the process of manufacturing consumer items with the intention that they will quickly break and need to be replaced. 

Additional reading:

How green is the Green New Deal? by Don Fitz

That Green Growth at the Heart of the Green New Deal? It’s Malignant by Stan Cox