Giorgos Kallis = GK.

Mehdi : I’ve seen on your CV that you had a diploma in chemistry and in environmental engineering science, that you have a PhD on environmental policies in Cambridge. So far you have worked on water waste. My first question is: what did you bring to degrowth?

GK: It’s a particular subject I didn’t know before meeting an Italian student who worked on his PhD here in Barcelona with François Schneider. He was really motivated and wanted me to learn about degrowth. But I mean the all concept resonated with many issues I was facing in my research on water wasting. I realized that many environmental issues couldn’t be solved only with engineering solutions or technological solutions. What’s more, lots of these problems are linked with our economy of consumption and growth. For example when I was studying water, in most cities, the water consumption keeps growing higher and higher, and it creates problems cause you have an ecological impact and an impact on others cause you have to build dawns. So in this field, many of my colleagues were wondering how come we manage this problem, how come we save water. But I realized despite these nice words there was little done, and that the problem was indeed the increasing of the consumption of water and the reasons of it: because of the whole system that makes us consume more and more, get a better toilet, a bigger bath, a bigger garden, a swimming pool. So I understood, that if I want to stop the increasing of the water consumption in the cities, so we can leave more water for the nature consumption, or for other users, the only way to change this is by changing the whole society and makes it degrowth rather than focusing on the water recycling.

M: You wrote on the ICTA website, that you are “ interested in particular on the political reforms and changes in democratic institutions necessary for a transition to a de-growth society”,So you’re working on political issues now?

GK: I am interested in that too cause I think the main problem is that concretizing de-growth is really difficult because the political parties and the institutions tail the idea of growth, so it makes change really difficult. This is the first problem. The second problem is, I think, that we should build a society that would not be based on profits and continued growth etc etc. We need to build a different structure for democracy, and decision making can’t be just “ I vote every four years then I can expect that They will care...” There should be a more local democracy in which everything should be in continual debate so that the people could assimilate it. But I think there is a political danger because I don’t wanna to say that because we need to de grow, we need some dictator to force the people to degrow: this is a wrong path. Some men argue that because people are not ready to degrow, we should force them because it is necessary to degrow, and it’s for the people own good. That’s why it’s really interesting to think of the kind of democratic institutions that could make us degrow in a voluntary way.

M: Now I’d like to talk about the Barcelona’s conferences you’re organizing with François Schneider. First and for most: what’s for such a conference? What will it add to the Paris conference of 2008?

GK: Well, we’re trying to build a scientific community of people who would like to work on these issues, and there are a thousand questions without any answers. And to build such a community you need to gather the scientists so they can share what they found. Well it’s been two years since the last conference in Paris, so it’s time to make another one.

M: Because it’s a new movement isn’t it?

GK: Well most of us are also part of other communities, so they’re doing their stuff, but to put together our works under the umbrella of degrowth, that’s new! I mean we’re not new scholars, without any experience, we do other things. What’s new, is that we’re gathering and coming together to work on degrowth. And I think this is really important. Plus, Paris was smaller, there were 70-80 participants, now we re waiting for 300 participants in Barcelona. And there has been lots of demands of people who wanna work for degrowth

M: And do you think that the economic crisis is part of the reasons why more and more researchers are interested in degrowth?

GK: Well definitely! Because a lot of scientists feel that the system has failed environmentally and economically. It also shows that a lot of scholars are fed up with the actual system. It’s for sure a better period to talk about degrowth than 15 years ago or 10 years ago.

M: And the scientists you’re waiting for are mainly Europeans? Americans?

GK: I think degrowth basically started in France and Italy. We bring it to English people. And there is some problems due to language. For example since the conferences here will be in English, less French scientists will come than in Paris. Now there will be lots of Americans, of Spanish and of

English scientists. There are also others communities which are working on the same issues, but which don’t call themselves as degrowth scientists.

M: I have wached the sponsors of the sponsors and among them, there is “Fondation pour une Terre plus humaine “, and researching in their website, I realized that none of the people in the executive team is a researcher. They are activists; there is even an artist and a therapeut. Is the degrowth movement more a scientific movement or more a political or associative movement?

GK: I think it’s both... My concerns our more scientific. But we have invited activists also in our conference. Because we won’t believe that science is the only language, or the only way to change. We need collaborations with others. But sometimes it’s not possible to do everything together.

M: Well, when you read your website, it seems that the collaboration is difficult. Quoting from the barcelona’s conference’s website : “The bulk of French and Italian activists in the décroissance and decrescita movements have perhaps read a few articles by Georgescu-Roegen but not his books on energy, materials and the economy (1966 - introduction, and 1971). They are not available in French or Italian, and they are anyway hard to digest. Nevetheless, this does not stop them, as activists, from singing the praises of Georgescu-Roegen. Nothing to criticize in all this - painful to scholars but in the nature of social movements.”

GK: In fact this is an article, this is not our collective approach... It’s true that the books are really difficult to read. He was the first to use the term degrowth and then the activists used it probably without knowing what it meant. And even for scientists it’s really hard to understand what he meant.

M: But does it mean that to some extent the activists don’t always follow what the scientists stand for?

GK: No, I don’t think he wanna say so. There are always frictions, and if you go to an activist meeting, for a scientist it might seem a bit simplistic, than I guess some activists think we are to abstract and we can’t achieve anything.

M: But what’s the backbone of degrowth that make scientists and activists gathering? Is it right sizing the economie? And what would it mean? Right sizing? Downsizing?

GK: The idea is that we could consume and produce less, and live better, happier. The activists try to live in another society than the consumer society. And the scientists try to see why it’s necessary to degrowth, why we cannot grow infinitely and also, how it’s possible to degrowth, what are the different ways to degrow. And secondly, we all criticize the power of money. The common idea is that we should find a way to live better together, and without always thinking of how much my neighbor should pay me so I can help him. There should be more social relations.

M: From where do you find funding to be able to work on degrowth? Is it the government? Europe?

GK: no we don’t have funds here. In France I think this is the foundation that you mentioned which finances researches. But for our conference here, the ministry of science and the government of Catalona gave us 15 000 euros to invite people. Well we applied here for a big European project last year, but we lost even though we got a good evaluation...

M: The scientists who are part of this movement: do they have some influence politically speaking? Do they work for the European union? For governments?

GK: Well, directly I don’t think so. But some of us have links with the EU and are influential in different ways, but basically we work for universities. There are scientists who can influence politicians, but others are too radical to do so. But some of us especially those who worked for sustainable consumption, have done a lot of research for the EU, regarding sustainable development, they wrote policy papers for the EU so they must have some influence. Actually last spring there was also a work done in Brazil, which the Green party had demanded

M: There is some difference between the Green Movement and the Degrowth movement. Do you think that the so called greening of the economy is the sign that degrowth ideals are gaining momentum? Or that it has nothing to do with it?

GK: Well I think that the Green movement started with degrowth ideas but then in the 80’s, they felt that these ideas were too radical and they thought they should just try to green the economy, with new technologies etc etc. And now the crisis has reframed this idea of the Green growth. And to some extent everybody is favorable to the Green Growth. My point of view is that Green growth is not possible. And even if you invest a lot on new technologies, it’ll make the GDP decrease.

M: Because you think that degrowth will happen whether we want it or not? Is this something we’ll have to get along with?

GK: Yes, this is how we see it. But there are people who don’t believe it, they think that with the write investments, we can keep growing and make the economy greener, so we can solve the environmental problems.

M: By the way, are you teaching some of the degrowth theories a school?

GK: not really, it’s more about ecological policies, it’s called political ecology.

M: It’s about green growth?

GK: No, we’re studying ecological conflicts, and we try to explain some geopolitics with ecological reasons. It’s on local issues and global issues

M: are ther thinktanks which subscribe to degrowth?

GK: Not really, you should look at the new economic foundation: they criticize growth, but they don’t want to be part of degrowth. One million people upload their report. They have some impact on the British society. And they are in contact with local government. Well we re trying to influence the politics with Medias, not directly but...

M: Well for example, I know that in France, with the Stiglitz report, the government wants to change de measurement of growth, criticizing the GDP. Will there be some degrowth in those kind of committees?

GK: Well to be honest, I don’t think that the critics regarding the measurement of growth concern directly degrowth thinker. In the beginning it was criticized by degrowth scientists, but now, everybody criticizes it, but they don’t want to change the society, they just want to measure the

growth in a better way. The degrowth critics are more broad. It’s not just about how we should measure growth, but how we should stop it.

M: What do you personnaly think about the grassroots movement that is taking place in France and in Italy? Do they represent well what the researchers are working on? Or are they more radical? Some of them call for an eco-socialism. They propose a society ruled locally by little groups that would be part of bigger groups which themselves would be part of bigger groups... And there are 6 levels or 6 sizes of groups... Well what do you think of there proposals?

GK: To be honest, I don’t know the details; I can’t say anything precise about them. But from what I understand of your story, it seems to be plausible. Actually the social organization of degrowth is a subject in which scientists and activists work really closely. We, as scientist, can bring some knowledge about political theories, and the activists can bring some ideas about how really to make it. Now the question is: are they extremists? Really it depends on how you define extremism. If it means we should be violent, I would ever agree with them. But if it means that we should try a thoroughly different type of life, with different type of organizations, and then I am in! And to some extent, degrowth is really an extreme movement, because it’s out of the mainstream philosophy.

M: Well, it might not be in the center of the degrowth preoccupations, but I’ve read the latest book by Elisabeth Badinther who is a French philosopher and an feminism activist, and she argues in her book, that the new face of dematerialism and eco-awareness is hurting women rights because, when they decide not to bread their kids with natural human milk, they are tacitly accused of being bad mothers, and to some extent, irresponsible women. So ecology deny them the right to be free from breading their kids how they want to. In a sense, ecology could be a tyranny and reduce liberties.

GK: It’s true this is a big danger, and it’s interesting that you quote a women rights activists, because we would like to see a degrowth movement similar as the women rights movement of the 70’s. Because in those times, philosophers were leading activists. And together they succeeded in inform the population that women should be able to control birth, to live as men, to work etc etc. And politically speaking, they were supported by new kinds of laws. And everything was done peacefully, so we’d like to see it happen for degrowth. But it’s true that maybe some liberties should be reduced such as travelling 1000 times a year, or earning 100 000 times more than necessary! But we cannot oppress people to live in a good way, there is no model of life, just recommendations.

M: What do you think of the allegations of Claude Allègre who says human growth has nothing to do with global warning, and we should keep growing to fight poverty, hungry, to reach full employment? He even says that the CO2 emissions could be controlled if we put them underground, because he thinks CO2 emissions trouble ecological systems, specially the oceans, because it unable the sea water to be salty enough.

GK: This is a common argument, and many economists stand for it. There are two questions: one is to know if growth really reduces poverty, and the other one is to know whether climate change is human made. For the second question, I think we cannot claim whatever we want and I don’t know about climatology, but I am forced to trust the majority of scientists who argue that we are in part responsible of the global warming. And once climate change was really difficult to deny, the next step for those who didn’t want to change, was to deny the fact that it was caused by humans. And they

try to relative the actual climate change by changing the time scales. And it’s true that what could seem incredible comparing to what have happened in a century, could look ludicrous in a million year time scale. There is an organization called the IPCC, and they gather all the papers of scientists to see what is the dominant view, well, it’s true that some argue that the IPCC makes mistakes, some also say that they are part of a conspiracy, but come on, if out of one hundred you find 98 theories which are saying basically the same thing, then I cannot focus on the two left. And it’s true that it’s a difficult subject, cause it’s not really clear whether or not you are responsible for climate change, you cannot see it immediately. And apart from the global warning, growth has had a terrible impact on nature; with water pollution, deforestation, soil spoiling, desertification...

Now, does economic growth solve poverty? –silence- This is questionable. For example in China, the country has gotten richer and you can’t deny it. But many of the Chinese still are poor and maybe even poorer. But apart from India and China which have taken profit on growth, it still remains Africa and Middle East, and those regions tend to get poorer and poorer. And it shows that the economic model, the growth, has not worked in those countries. It has worked in Europe and in the US, but does it mean that it will work in Africa? And in the counties where it worked, what should we want to grow again for? Let’s say: yes it did work, and we got happier, because we got richer. But now, we’re not happy trying to get richer and richer, we should think of other occupation to reach happiness. And in our counties, the truth is that growth has worked for the richer, it has not enable the poorest in the rich countries to improve their situation: so this is a limit of growth. And if we still have so many poor people in rich countries, it’s not because of poverty but because of policies. For instance, the people living in ghettos in the US, materially, they might be ok, they have a house, they have water, electricity, and they are not poor as in Africa. But, they are poor in other senses, they are poor because they suffer discrimination, insecurity, because they don’t have education. And these problems cannot be saved by economic growth!

M: Isn’t it because poverty is a relative question? You are poor comparing to your neighbor, so if he gets richer, you feel poorer when in fact you are still as poor as yesterday. And isn’t it a good thing to make some get richer, even if you can’t solve poverty as a whole issue in only a few years?

GK: It might be true for the middle classes: you are never satisfied, because your neighbor got a bigger car, and you cannot find a meaning in your life, the only thing that motivates you is earning more and more. And the whole industry society moves around, fueling this feelings of consumption that reassure the middle class. But then for the poor, I won’t say it ‘s just a relative feeling of poverty. They do have real problems in their every-day life. And their life is crappie, without any comparison. And they may be materially richer than some of the poor in Africa, and lead a poorer life because money and comfort are not always enough to live well. Poverty is a broader issue than just measuring the incomes. And that’s why the growth of total incomes, the growth of GDP has not solved poverty.

M: Thank you for receiving me./