Anthropause: The Beauty of Degrowth

Cox (The Path to a Livable Future), a former senior scientist at the Land Institute, offers a magisterial summary of modern ills, from obnoxiously loud leaf blowers and light pollution to humanity’s growing dependence on large personal vehicles and a food production system that prioritizes profits over affordability and quality. He argues that humans must do away with all facets of their dependence on fossil fuels and that preventing “ecological collapse by deeply altering our values and curbing our material production and consumption” will lead to far happier and healthier lives. He envisions a world in which personal cars no longer exist, air travel is phased out, the work week is no greater than 21 hours, parking lots and roadways are turned into gardens and parks, factory farms vanish, and the military-industrial complex is dismantled. He recognizes that this ideal society, while easy to envision, will be incredibly challenging to achieve. Unfortunately, his solution—to create degrowth movements at the local level—comes across as both naive and unlikely to result in such huge societal changes. While Cox succeeds in quantifying the problems of today, readers will be left without a meaningful course of action. (Jan.)