Environmentalist blog Treehugger has published an exchange between the author of an anonymous new Twitter manifesto that outlines in 25 points the need to combat the capitalistic notion that endless growth is the only option for modern industrial societies. Patrik Schumacher and others are mentioned as examples of the industry’s bad side, with groups like Architects Declare and thinkers such as Tim Jackson, Jason Hickel, and Open City director Phineas Harper being cited as the clarions of a movement the latter says is more or less inevitable.
"We use 'degrowth' because, as architects, we sometimes get to control the consumption spigot a bit," shares the author and architect, who wished to remain anonymous during their conversation with Lloyd Alter of Treehugger. "Someday architects may be called upon, first and foremost, to make spatial interventions that create value for society and for future generations—more like caretakers or repairmen, and less as heroic form-givers who function primarily as the marketing arm of the real estate industry."
The author also made the case for applying the AIA’s updated Code of Ethics more proactively to environmental justice concerns, along with the need for clients to adopt a more aggressive stance in favor of ethical procurements and fair labor practices. They also decried "forced labor or environmental criminality embedded in their supply chain" (a mantle also taken up by Grace Farms founder Sharon Prince).
When asked if they are part of a larger group or organization, the anonymous American "architectural worker" explained to Alter:
"I wrote it and posted it myself. However, I'm very plugged into the activist architecture community, and my intention has been to synthesize and reflect what I am hearing as a wellspring of frustration among many architects, especially young ones who not only increasingly struggle materially, but perhaps more significantly, increasingly sense that the profession is intractably complicit in climate degradation. I meant it polemically, as a provocation, but there have been a couple of people who have asked about signing on, so maybe it will evolve into something like that."
During their exchange with Alter, the author explained, "this was all meant to provoke and inspire." The full manifesto's full thread can be seen in its entirety below.
A Degrowth Manifesto for Architecture
1. We refuse to accept the dominant response of the AEC industry to urgent environmental and human rights injustices, which we see as inadequate, accommodationist, diversionary, and, in some cases, opportunistic.
— ARCHITECTURE DEGROWTH MANIFESTO (@m_hotmessgandhi) June 26, 2022
34 Comments
I appreciate this as a manifesto. Putting it all into practice takes some time - although admittedly we don't have a lot of time in terms of climate change - but I think it's important to get ideas out there in manifesto form to make the conversation happen.
Also this is a really good point made by Phineas Harper in the article: As critic and author Phineas Harper has noted, "Fundamentally, degrowth is coming sooner or later. The challenge we’re putting to designers is: let’s get there by design rather than just inevitably collapsing into it."
Totally flawed, and anti-worker, read for counter narrative.
"But the degrowth solutions offered are highly flawed and their brand is not likely to be welcomed by the global working class, even as it attracts sections of the professional class.[1] Degrowth proponents commonly fail to unpack the qualitative aspects of economic growth, lumping all in one basket; i.e., sustainable/addressing essential needs of humans and nature versus unsustainable, leaving the majority of humanity in poverty or worse. Degrowthers point to the relatively privileged status of workers in the global North compared to those in the global South as a big part of the problem, instead of recognizing that the transnational working class will not only benefit from growth of sectors that meet its needs in both the global North and South but must be the leading force to defeat fossil capital."
More here.
Degrowth is, in essence, a form of ecological austerity for working-class people [10]. Stated simply, by focusing so much on the consumption habits of workers within capitalism and so little on the conditions and relations of production, proponents of degrowth end up reproducing Malthusian ideas of “natural limits.”
I would hope that degrowth would be linked with equity. We honestly have to *completely* remake the way we live.
Degrowth, as I understand it, will disproportionately impact the global poor developing nations, and will only benefit western mostly economies better able to manage the transition.
For architects the material site of our production is a site of consumption, often mobilizing enormous quantities of material and energy. Our strike, our refusal to work, is a disruption at the site of production which is degrowth. As for privation, we are libertine technophilic futurists skeptical of paleo-anarchism. Austerity for us comprises ascetic self-mortification for the purpose of enhancing pleasure, it is not to be confused with IMF disciplining, which is profane.
-AMD
So, we've moved from elitist archi-speak, to elitist PhD speak. Bullshit. You've given up the ghost with this American centered approach when you bring up Patrimetric, and the AIA.
If you improve the material conditions of the workers actually doing the construction, you'll improve the conditions of places they reside. Then they'll build the things they need, for the people.
This from the article I cite sums it up well;
"Degrowth takes a non-class approach towards consumption and production. It is true that some of the more privileged sectors of the working class, particularly in imperialist countries, consume excessively and wastefully. Degrowth, however, fails to account for the class that takes wasteful consumption to almost unimaginable levels and the system that produces these production and consumption patterns. An increasing portion of the labor of the working class is wasted on supporting the consumption habits of the numerically small capitalist class. No amount of preaching self-limiting morality is going to convince the capitalist class to consume less, expropriate less, or oppress less. Once we can get rid of the parasitic imperialists, then human needs and desires can be met through a planned economy led by the working class.
Thus, the solution to these multifaceted and compounding environmental crises is not “degrowth”, but rather, as Mandel formulates it, “controlled and planned growth:”
“Such growth would need to be in the service of clearly defined priorities that have nothing to do with the demands of private profit…rationally controlled by human beings… The choice for ‘zero growth’ is clearly an inhuman choice. Two-thirds of humanity still lives below the subsistence minimum. If growth is halted, it means that the underdeveloped countries are condemned to remain stuck in the swamp of poverty, constantly on the brink of famine…
“Planned growth means controlled growth, rationally controlled by human beings. This presupposes socialism: such growth cannot be achieved unless the ‘associated producers’ take control of production and use it for their own interests, instead of being slaves to ‘blind economic laws’ or ‘technological compulsion’”
Oh, another thing; we architects don't build a fucking thing. We're a pencil, not a hammer.
I don’t think “degrowth” equals “zero growth”, does it? In my mind (my brain fog addled mind) degrowth MEANS “planned growth”.
Must be nice not to have to worry about making a living. I too would like to be a full-time contrarian teenager but I live in this world, not one of my own creation.
Donna, you might be giving this too much credit. As per the above ramble, zero means nada. I'd much more prefer this jive it is was a guerrila-approach to late 90s new urbanism. At least there would be "something" other than jargon to discuss.
There already exists a Marxist approach to this, as cited above, that takes class into account, and doesn't place the burden on workers needing to survive. Degrowth is an axe, when a scalpel is what is necessary.
Beta, your quotes could use some degrowth editing. We are degrowthers who are also socialists, active in GND, unionization, public power, and deprofessionalization for architects. We believe Huber et al provide an essential refocusing on labor and production, but that dg (a contested terrain) and ecosoc can coexist, diff strategies for diff contexts and audiences. We could go on listing our bona fides but should we have to? Also, why so spicy? Good comrades should argue passionately, but you need to unclench and breathe.
You're last point is good, and I will try. My chief complaint, and the thing that makes me passionately respond, is that this topic has been written about at great length, and here we have yet again another one-sided take, without acknowledging the Marxist position against degrowth. This seems like another instance where architects are taking a position, without real depth of understanding.
We use “degrowth” to oppose the dominant climate strategy of the AEC industry which has been to rely, nearly exclusively, on market innovation. We consider this self-serving, insufficient, and opportunistic. We believe that strategies to reduce emissions such as lifecycle accounting, product provenance, electrification, efficiency improvements of envelopes and building systems, etc, while significant steps in the right direction, alone cannot reduce the rate of material and energy throughput sufficiently to mitigate climate catastrophe, without reducing economic expansion, i.e. speculative over-development which serves profits over basic needs. In fact, despite its title the manifesto doesn’t really talk at all about degrowth. It’s really more about acts of refusal for architects. I don’t really know if that’s truly degrowth, socialism, or just a reflection of some kind of deep existential burnout. As I suggested before, there are aspects of degrowth that are not our focus or that we don’t agree with such as de-industrialization, just as there are some aspects of some socialist thought we don’t agree with, notably, the glorification of “jobs”, which we oppose categorically (although I'll note for Non Sequitor that we ae sorry to disappoint but that we have a normal shitty architecture job). Again, we don’t see a conflict with socialist strategies such as public ownership of utilities, and the transitioning of fossil fuel and building trade workers. We hope that as architects begin to organize in the workplace, these campaigns, and further alliances with trade unions around climate issues will strengthen. -AMD
I've noticed that the most developed (and energy using) societies are naturally degrowing their population right now -- like the U.S., Europe, China, Japan, which are all declining in young population. Meanwhile Africa, India and South America are booming--a large chunk of the global working class. At lot of this ends up looking like elites wagging their fingers at the global poor -- especially academics at universities with hysteria that ends up sounding like religion.
If you fly over much of the U.S. and world, you will see most of it is empty. The biggest issue is energy supply as well as urban design, not warming, because there is only about a 100 year supply of fossil fuels left. Society will figure out how to build more efficiently, create new sources of power (hydro, small nuclear, retrofited urbanism), and self-regulate population because the market is still the best way to price goods according to supply and demand. We are just missing design in popular media and technology that can connect consumers with better options instead of McMansions or McUrbanism garbage being built. Don't count on the arch profession to do the world any favors, architects are going to have to go out on their own. A design renaissance.
For architects, the material site of our production is consumption, often mobilizing enormous quantities of material and energy. Our strike, our refusal to work, is a disruption of production which is degrowth. As for privation, we are trade-union libertine modernists who are skeptical of, but occasionally enjoy, paleo-anarchism. Austerity for us comprises personal ascetic self-mortification for the purpose of enhancing pleasure, it is not to be confused with the profane disciplinary technology of the International Monetary Fund. -ADM
"Ascetic self-mortification" your use of religiously charged language is either a complete Kauffman-esque attempt at humor, or some kind of cultish grift. Either way it's funny as fuck.
Beta, it's good satire on the typical clueless academic "manifesto". No one can really be this serious tho... right?
Branko
I don't know, b3ta, That article accuses others of magical thinking while making a bunch of assertions without offering any basis in *why* those assertions are true. Example: "People indeed can live happy lives with much less “stuff”. That is true for some special people like Christian or Buddhist monks...But this is not true for the remaining 99.99% of the people who are not attracted by monastic lives" But no one said anything about monasticism being the end goal of degrowth.
Or this: "...nor can they reasonably argue that incomes of 9 out of 10 Westerners ought to be reduced." But why not? Why *can't* we argue that 9 out of 10 uses of cars, for example, could be stopped?
I mean I guess one could argue that ending personal vehicles means a MASSIVE investment in other greener mobility infrastructure, and this construction would in NO WAY be "degrowth", but it would be, as Phineas Harper said, a *planned* rearranging, not falling into chaos because we didn't try anything.
If "Ascetic self-mortification" isn't a pseudo monasticism, I don't know what is.
No just a kink
Good to see you have a sense of humor. Andy would be proud.
Yeah, sorry: when I said "no one said anything about monasticism" I was referring to the idea of degrowth in general, not the comments of ADM in particular. But ADM wrote a manifesto - by its nature it's not especially *realistic*.
But I think if you read the above piece, and others, you'll see that this is what's required under degrowth.
Personally, I don't buy into manifestos. They may bring intriguing points which is the main idea to trigger one to think and ponder but not to indoctrinate in whole but may inspire one to think and ponder about and potentially take action even if it is not exactly what the manifesto proposes.
NOTE: THIS IS A LONG POST ABOUT ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT, GHG, IDEAS ABOUT WHAT WE NEED TO DO.
First step: (This is where Architects and other Building Design professionals are involved in)
Designing houses to maximize on passive solar and other solar-based heating/cooling technologies.... and I technically place geothermal heating & cooling in the category but more peripheral but it is based on the solar energy contained in the ground using a process of heat exchange. (Geothermal heating & cooling is a ground-source heat exchange process) In the looseness of what I said, you might say that wind would fit my loose definition expressed but I'm drawing a line here because wind generation is mainly for electrical power generation than heating & cooling which I am referring to in context to the above.
The premise of point is, basing our design to optimize on the heat, passively and then as needed through active heating/cooling systems, is that it will reduce demand on fossil fuels. This will contribute to reducing some of the carbon emissions.
Some of this can be effectively applied to some non-residential buildings.
Architects/Designers, however, is not going to be able to address all the problems with carbon emissions, other GHG emissions, and climate change. Now, lets get this straight, climate change itself is the nature of the world since it has been turning. We can't possibly, scientifically, stop climate change, without it potentially becoming an extinction event. Our very existence is due to climate change. Our way of life is a result of climate change, namely in the global warming. It was happening since before we have industrialize and because of the warming and melting of the glaciers on the planet for the past 10,000 to 25,000 years, we gained easier access to numerous fossil fuels including natural gases. This is why I don't place the creation of climate change on humans. It's not scientifically sound to make *that* claim. However, we did impact climate change through contribution of greenhouse emissions and other environmental impacts. It is what the consequences of industrial impact that is placing us in potential dangerous territory and our concern is what unprecedented RATE of emissions from industrial activities that has climate scientists concerned. Naturally, the planey goes through rhythms of glaciation and deglaciation but they are cycles but if we emit too much GHGs, we might not even begin to glaciate. On one hand, we might argue that we don't want another ice age. It would destroy countries, cities, etc. Nature doesn't care about geopolitical issues at all. It doesn't "care" to begin with. However, if we don't have a re-glaciation, and more melting then we have rising sea levels. This will be a problem for ALOT of civilizations. 80-90% of civilizations lives near oceans, seas, and large lakes and other large bodies of water. This will impact our coastal communities. Los Angeles will eventually get a perpetual state of flooding when the water levels rise enough. Sure, there will be high ground. Sure, the high rises won't be totally under water but its ground level floor and floors below grade would be subjected to possible flooding. This can result in disasterous consequences. A lot of cities currently above sea level will be flooded over. New Orleans may be lost. It already is below sea level with only a limited barrier but that as it is right now, will not be enough.
Technically, we should be about to be entering into a shift where the earth will ultimately be heading towards another ice age but there is a lag time between when it begins that at the cosmic level to when glaciation begins to take effect. However, our GHGs we emit at industrial level may prevent glaciation from kicking in and we continue the melting.
The solution is ultimately going to require a change in lifestyle. Either, we cut down human population with means that doesn't leave the planet inhabitable for billions of years, OR we change our lifestyle to pre-industrial level. The planet was balanced when humans were only in terms of millions on the planet AND we were hunters & gathers. Once we became civilizations, we were beginning to do negative impace to the environment, although much less than now but was at the local level and some of those civilizations were lost to time. In any case, it is the only way. We need to reduce civilization to about 500 Million to 750 Million and revert back to the averaged scale of environmental impact of civilizations were in 1000 A.D. This doesn't mean we need to become barbarians.
How do we keep our environmental impact to the averaged scale of civilizations in 1000 A.D.? It's going to be the inconvenient truth that our way of life is going to impact in a negative way. Los Angeles, ultimately is going to need to resettle about where Pasadena is at the central point. Then we will need to use desalination facilities to make drinkable water from the ocean water. We may need to actually build down instead of up so our buildings are in a more stable temperature zone. Then we spread laterally instead of over densification because we would be in the desert so high density can be overtaxing any local water and we can't be tapping the Colorado river anymore. We need to disconnect from the Colorado river because Los Angeles area is singularly the reason it doesn't reach the gulf of california. Additionally, there may need to be redistribution of population. Some places are overly dense for their environment and L.A. had done harm because its population level exceeds its natural environmental capacity of ready fresh water. However, the ocean, is not naturally ready fresh water can supply sufficient fresh water through some processing. This would be better alternative to draining the Colorado river dry to the point where it stops at the point where the aquaduct from Colorado river to Los Angeles connects.
The essence is we may need to degrowth in areas strategically and develop smarter. However, I am hopeful we can find a solution that can sustain our population and lifestyle (relatively... although some adjustments for environmentally sustainable practices in our lifestyle) and reduce our impact sufficient for a more sustainable future. We may be able to engineer a way to keep New Orleans even when water levels rise. Using methods that does not emit GHGs but able to sustain our lifestyle would be great.
In addition, industrial GHG sequesting and capturing from the atmosphere may be a way to get ourselves back into alignment so glaciation cycle can occur.
Now, Canada and Alaska is at the greatest risk to glaciation in North America. Canada is lucky that most of its higher populated areas are close to the U.S. border and is farther from the main glaciation area but even then, parts of it is within past glaciation zones. Even where I am is at that potential. Now, I don't think we need to have the planet glaciate as much as the last ice age but it needs to do some 75% of its last area it covered. (That's a guess on my part) This way, we can be within reason of some. We definitely don't need it to be a snowball earth which is an extreme case but the next 2-3 ice ages, it should be between 70 and 80% of the last ice age glaciation footprint to be ok without it getting too out of control.
Now, the first steps, is enviromentally and environmentally sustainable architecture. At least what we can do. Beyond architects is the same principles when it comes to manufacturing. A part of it is going to be in lifestyle. We want good architecture. The ultra rich elites may still be excessive BUT they only represent a very small percent of the impact. While we should encourage them to be more sustainable, they alone are not going to be the biggest impact because even with their mansions, its very small impact compared to the whole of the mass majority of people. We as a people need to be more conscientious of our environmental impact including climate change impact such as GHG emissions.
Another area is in our vehicles we drive. Electric cars are a fair option. I'm also would find vehicles that uses water and molecular separation and use of the hydrogen and oxygen for combustion processes. The oxygen itself would not be burned except maybe only that which is needed to facilitate the combustion of pure hydrogen. Series of filtration processes can potentially keep most of the non-hydrogen and non-oxygen molecules out so we have a fairly clean and purified 'fuel' components. The byproduct of pure hydrogen is hydrogen and the purified oxygen that is not used is used for any combustion process, would rebond to the hydrogen to form pure water. Now, post combustion introduction of regular air may include N0x but it can just be oxygen. Any pure oxygen that is burned may be just carbon that can be filtered at a post-combustion phase. If regular atmosphere is introduced post-combustion, then it would just be air going out along with the water but maybe traces of impurity in practical systems but if you are using non-depleted oxygen (as in not 'energy' depleted) to hydrogen, you can in theory recycle. However, there is probably a loss factor in any system less than an absolute perfect system to can prevent absolute zero loss factor. However, the emission of only traces of GHG can be effectively much less than any regular fossil fuel. Additionally, we can use the system for electric generation instead of combustion as a conventional combustion engine.
There are ways to go about this and the fact you can use water, clean water with a decent filtration system to filtrate the crap from what you want to use, so it's clean, you can potentially use just tap water and such a system would work. Now, imagine this, if we can implement in homes and elsewhere a system that can filtrate the water so clean that it is pure and store it in a container that can then be sent over to the vehicles as fuel. In this case, you won't need as much batteries as a regular electric car. The electric generation can be sufficient and your primary fuel being hydrogen contained in the form of water with a portion in fuel cell with hydrogen and oxygen separated but not in huge capacity as you shouldn't need it if we can as the vehicle is in operation process the molecular separation of hydrogen and oxygen and generate electricity from the hydrogen and then be recapture it as water stored in a secondary tank to allow for cool down part of the loop so we can maximize the use but eventually there will be a refueling point. How many miles can that be? It would be interesting to know how far we can go on such a system with vehicles.
Vehicles, currently, is another significant source of GHG emission as well as industrial processes.
Aside from opinion and personal interpretation, elements are derived from information in the various documents (Working Groups reports and the Synthesis Report documents) that composed of the whole IPCC Fifth Assessment Report, as well as other supplemental sources relating to long term studies of climate change in history through ice core samples and other associated research:
Primary Reference:
IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Report (AR5)
Everything about how we live on this planet is collectively part of the problem. We may end up having to give up our way of life in order to survive in the long term with climate change. We might be able to find more efficient way to do things but will it be a "day late, a dollar short" of the critical deadline that may be the point of no return? To sustain our way of life would almost certainly require a massive reduction of population to be able to be sustainable. A prospect that is not particularly pleasant to think about considering what that means.
However, what we can do to be significantly more sustainable and environmentally friendly, the better for the climate and better the outcome can be but tough changes may need to happen and we will HAVE to adapt whether we like it or not because the climate doesn't think... it does. It doesn't care because it doesn't "feel". It is science and not about our feelings.
We can dick around arguing about it like arguing about a manifesto or we can act with science guiding us, to a more sustainable future. That's what matters.
Cut to the essence:
Everything we do in our lives comes with an environmental impact. It is the collective impact and the planet's threshold to the impact, the impact of other life on the planet, and everything in the holistic view of the ecosystems. There's no free lunch when it comes to our life style and the impact. How we mitigate and manage the impact through more environmental friendlier methodologies, sustainable practices, and if necessary, adjustments in how we settle, live, etc. on this planet. The inconvenient truth is, for some people, it may be unpleasant but it is much less pleasant than going extinct.
The essential question is: Are you going to dick around or going to act with science guiding us... to a more sustainable future? Which is it ?
https://earth.org/data_visualization/a-brief-history-of-co2/
Another interesting article on CO2 emissions in U.S. -
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/science/5-charts-show-how-your-household-drives-up-global-greenhouse-gas-emissions
Most CO2 emission driven by U.S. households overseas is through product manufacturing for U.S. consumption. U.S. household emission isn't just emissions in the U.S. but also outside the U.S. Our consumer electronics, many of which is made in China, will have certain degree of emissions for manufacturing of the products imported into the U.S. We have footprint of GHG emissions outside the U.S. that is driven by our U.S. lifestyle so it needs to be considered when looking at our lifestyle's footprint.
The core problem here is how do we do any of this when the powers that be have no interest in making the changes necessary. I don’t see a Marxist approach being viable in the near term, as the political environment in the United States is exceptionally fragile right now. If we cannot turn back the tide of neo-fascism, none of the other goals, however laudable, will be possible.
The fragility is what could make the Socialist paradigm a reality.
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