Emilio Santiago Muiño (Ferrol, 1984), anthropologist and author of the book Against the myth of ecological collapse; and Luis González Reyes (Madrid, 1974), Doctor in Chemical Sciences and author of the book Degrowth: from what to how: proposals for the Spanish State, represent the antagonistic currents that coexist – with many frictions – in the environmental movement: the clinging to the Green New Deal and ‘degrowth’. Both approaches agree on the severity of an ‘ecosystem’ crisis (climatic, biodiversity, energy, material, social) that threatens many of the pillars that support global capitalism. But they differ in other diagnoses and, above all, in the strategies to reverse the crisis.
The supporters of degrowth (González Reyes), in summary, see no other way out than a rapid and planned reduction of the material and energy consumption of the economy, an inevitable systemic transformation – the future of a new social order – as a consequence of being surpassing all planetary limits. They maintain that “there is no time” for the ecological and energy transition.
On the other side, the defenders of the Green Pact (Santiago Muiño), are committed to the strategy of promoting ambitious public policies to achieve an ecological modernization of the economy. That is, a new production model based, mainly, on energy decarbonization.
Engulfed in this “very toxic” debate on social networks, as both authors admit, environmentalism seeks, at the gates of the European elections, to get out of the crossed accusations (‘collapseists’, some; ‘green capitalists’, the others) to focus the discussion on a specific threat of the here and now: the “advance of ‘ecofascism’” and the emergence of “scenarios of democratic regression” that can be devastating for the environmental struggle.
What is the state of Spanish environmentalism today? A perception: there is much more social awareness due to a climate crisis that is no longer abstract, but in parallel there is an internal tension that harms the movement.
Emilio Santiago Muiño: I think that in the last five years there has been a leap in the level of social awareness, which has allowed some progress to be made, although they are still insufficient. Internally, in a way not very different from other social movements, I believe that we are in a moment of ebb that makes organizations and entities perhaps weaker regarding the climate wave of 2019. Furthermore, some debates may have become tense. more than necessary, for two reasons: the lack of organic structures that allow us to have common responsibilities and standards; and, on the other hand, the dissonant effect of social networks.
Luis González Reyes: I share. There is a moment of social awareness that does not translate into actions. There is more receptivity, but this does not end up becoming practice. A leap is missing in this sense. In parallel, there is an increase in the anti-ecologist response, at a social and political level. I think there is less ebb in the environmental movement than in other movements. And, regarding the tension, I believe that the debates are not new, they have been going on for decades.
Is there self-criticism for favoring this tension with certain virtual fights between environmentalists?
E.M.: Diversity in a movement is always a sign of health. The discrepancy has to do with different diagnoses. No one has an exact map of how the coming social change is going to happen. There are also discrepancies in the strategies to follow. The debate is not problematic, the problem is that it takes on toxic forms.
L.G.: There are different diagnoses, strategies and ways of understanding the situation and how to deal with it. If we remove the noise, the debate is real. I share that the forms can put back many debates, but we must understand that we have no certainties. No matter how much everyone defends their position because they consider it correct, in reality we can be wrong.
Although you are located in different trenches within environmentalism, the feeling is that the differences are not so much in diagnosis, but in strategies.
L.G.: One element of discrepancy is time. We have different perceptions of the deadlines we have to carry out the necessary transformations at the social level. Emilio proposes greater margins of temporal maneuver than I do. Another difference lies in what risks we consider society should assume. I understand that Emilio proposes a more lax precautionary principle, in which certain risks are worth it because it is politically possible. From my perspective, that precautionary principle is stricter: there are risks that have tremendously dangerous implications. An example: thinking about a massive deployment of renewables implies a massive extraction of minerals, cement and steel. This has an energy cost that we cannot afford given the acceleration of the climate crisis.
E.S.: I think that it is not so much the question of time that separates us, but how we decline it. I think we have a very narrow time frame to confront the climate crisis. The budget to avoid reaching 1.5ºC is at its limit. But the climate priority has imposed itself on a scenario in which we thought that the energy shortage was going to make some issues easier for us. Now the priority is to cause a peak in demand and not suffer a peak in supply with fossil fuels. While it is true that renewables have impacts, all human activity has them.
Santiago, what do you respond to the different precautionary principles that González points out?
E.S.: I share that we have different visions, but I would turn it around. I have a more lax principle of action in the metabolic or biophysical question. I am putting into play a more alarmed social precautionary principle, which has to do with how we manage to square the puzzle so that this entire process of systemic turbulence does not end in a process of democratic degeneration and political involution with terrible consequences. How do we prevent this from leading to ‘eco-facist’ scenarios such as those already predicted? There is an enemy there.
L.G.: We are equally concerned about an ‘eco-fascist’ scenario with or without environmental preservation policies. It is one of the most terrible scenarios. Because, in reality, how we face the climatic, systemic and material emergency will not depend so much on the physical conditions that exist, but on the social conditions. An example: Who would have thought that the issue of ‘degrowth’ was going to become an element of debate in the parliamentary political framework? It is true that right now, by proposing a program of total rupture, you probably will not win an election, but what is politically possible evolves. It’s a part of the game.
There is a word that triggers many of these harsh debates: collapse. Because? You, Santiago, define it in your book as a myth.
E.S.: I think that the ‘collapseist’ comrades use a hypothesis about the type of historical process that comes with the ecosocial turbulence of the ecological crisis, which is not only demobilizing in political terms, but they incur some analytical errors that, in my opinion, judgment, they are problematic. I speak of myth as a way of pointing out that the collapse, stated in this way, is not going to happen. It is more likely that the rise of more authoritarian systems will occur that combine the increase in the degradation of material living conditions with an increase in inequalities and political violence. But that’s not a collapse. Preparing for one thing or another requires radically different strategies.
González, do you consider yourself ‘collapsed’?
L.G.: Not at all. I think that the word ‘collapse’, as Emilio uses it, disqualifies. I identify myself as an environmentalist and as a ‘degrowthist’, but not as a ‘collapseist’. The collapse for me is an analysis of the context in which we are. I think we are in a process of collapse. What would the collapse be? Well, an important change in the cultural, economic, social and political orders, the result of different factors in which we have a significant loss of social complexity. The collapse is not a sudden event. It is a process that will last decades. Let’s live in it. It is not something that is going to happen overnight. I think we are going to go towards technological reduction and more rural societies.
E.S.: Luis uses a definition of collapse that seems a little problematic to me. Predicting a collapse is, to say the least, hasty. Perhaps some social sectors collapse or some countries collapse at the expense of others not doing so. Perhaps we will encounter war dynamics. That we are headed for decades of turbulence? Yes. About collapse, I don’t know.
Santiago, do you feel that a sector of environmentalism has a ‘desire’ for a collapse?
E.S.: Mostly no. The term often feels bad because it seems like one is saying that they want the collapse. Absolutely. They give it as a very probable fact or that it is happening. Even so, some circles do not deny its tragic dimension, but they put a lot of emphasis on the window of opportunity.
L.G.: If we take ‘eco-dependence’ seriously, our climatic, material and energy requirements are very compromised. How fast this is going to be, we don’t know. But I do think this can be considered a collapse. You may not want collapse and at the same time understand that this process can open political doors. I don’t see it as close things.
Why do you think, González, that we are going to come out better in a collapse scenario?
L.G.: I can go so far as to share that the probability that we will turn out well is less than the probability that we will turn out badly. But probability is not the most relevant thing in this entire movie. Because there is a possibility that we will come out of here better than we entered. It may be tiny, but it exists. To the extent that it exists, there is political room for action.
E.S.: Totally. The difference is that I believe that, if we really collapse, that margin narrows. That is why I say that the discourses of collapse are politically problematic. Popular common sense hears the word collapse and it smells like trouble. Sometimes I feel like we don’t realize how hard this plays in our imaginations.
How much is the extreme right taking advantage of this theory of collapse?
E.S.: I don’t think these sectors are taking advantage of the debate about the collapse, it is very niche, but I think there may be unintentional communicating vessels. Let me explain: a very harsh ‘collapse’ discourse can cultivate the ‘anti-politics’ that the extreme right draws from. If there is a use, it is indirect. I do think that a feeling of fear, of no future, of political impotence, can favor the rise of the extreme right.
L.G.: I disagree with the idea that this debate is niche. It is a debate within environmentalism that transcends the social level. This feeling of the end of the era is something that exists within society. But I also don’t think that the extreme right is using this within their political strategies, which does not mean that they are going to use it. We will have to be attentive.
Returning to the rhetorical and discursive question, why is the term ‘degrowth’ so repellent? Why have many authors turned to the term ‘post-growth’?
E.S.: I think that the term ‘post-growth’ may be more mainstream, although it is true that degrowth has gone from being very marginal to a bit mainstream [popular, mass trend], with a conference in the European Parliament with Ursula von der Leyen debating However, I believe that the term can still have a spontaneous reception that wrongly associates it with the capitalist crisis, with recession, with impoverishment. With ‘post-growth’, what is proposed is a much more sectoral than comprehensive approach. It is not attacking the logic of growth for all, because it places you in political impossibility. What we aspire to do is detect those sectors in which it is politically possible to imagine a reduction in energy and material consumption without compromising a certain quality of life.
L.G.: I am not particularly attached to the term ‘degrowth’, like collapse. I use the word because I think it is the most correct within the framework. The degrees of overreach are so great that degrowth is inevitable. There may be sectors that continue to grow, but in total terms, there will be a decrease in material and energy consumption. Furthermore, it seems to me that degrowth has a provocative part that is interesting. It puts its finger in the eye of a central variable of capitalism such as growth.
