solo

Just to be clear, of course I believe green energy should be implemented more. Still, I believe there is room for criticism and this is what this report does (btw I'm definitely not a fan of Greenpeace). Actually, I believe this sort of criticism is necessary because we live under capitalism.

A kinda similar example I could give from Europe would be in relation to some protected areas called Natura 2000. Briefly, in some of these places wind turbines are installed by the thousands and the locals are protesting against that and they say stuff like "No to wind turbines". I would not expect, nor need from these people to talk about the benefits of wind turbines.

Those bicarbonate ions are great for combating ocean acidification

In this context tho, what you say reminds me of geoengineering and I consider it to be an extremely dangerous approach.

There are definitely valid criticism of neo-colonialism, but I don't see how it ticks the greenwashing box.

To my understanding, the greewashing part, is more related to the title of the article, not the report itself.

In MENA, traditional/ancestral ways are not exactly femininist.

Two things in relation to that statement:

• Muslim places have never been homogeneous, nor are they now. The position of women has been very different from place to place, but through time as well. For example, in the past women in Islamic law had the right to divorce long before the European ones had, and they had the right to property. That said, I am not denying that, just like Christianity, it is a patriarchy-based religion.

• The way I read the title is quite different: Pursuing Feminism and People-First Wellbeing Economies through Leveraging Communal, Traditional, and Ancestral Models

You know what is absent in that report? Discussion about the climate impact of transtioning from hydrocarbon industries into renewable.

It does talk quite a lot about renewable energy. Personally, I don't have the need in this talk to include the term "transition" because so far, policies talk about transition and what they do is "addition", because extraction is not diminishing.

Edit: This is a very interesting read on Marriage, Money and Divorce in Medieval Islamic Society

The method essentially speeds up the natural process of silicate weathering. In this process, CO2 in the atmosphere dissolves in rainwater to form a weak acid. This reacts with common minerals in rocks called silicates, breaking them down into other compounds such as bicarbonate ions (HCO3–), which flow into the ocean and stably store carbon for thousands of years.

Although the carbonation process took weeks to months to occur, it was still thousands of times quicker than natural processes.

If I understand this correctly, it sounds like a terrible idea because this method speeds up a natural process and sees the ocean as a sort of a stable dumpster. If I got this wrong, please let me know.

Btw:

Guide to Investigating Fossil Fuels: Greenwashing | Global Investigative Journalism Network, Feb 2025

The fossil fuel industry promotes solutions such as carbon capture and storage, liquefied natural gas, hydrogen, and renewable natural gas, which critics argue are far more focused on preserving industry profits than significantly reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The tactics they use include funding university research that skews public discourse and policymaking in the direction of their preferred solutions. They have hired management consultancies to conduct skewed analysis supporting those solutions and funded lobbyists, and advertising and public relations firms to promote them.

I like this. I'll definitely take a look into Two Cheers for Anarchism.

What a lovely and helpful project!

I read the article you linked but I don't see how it backs your argument that degrowth could be compatible with some form of capitalism (as you mention in your first sentence). It seems to me this article does the opposite.

Personally, I can't think of any kind of capitalism that is compatible with policies / goals / objectives related to:

Tax justice for social ecological justice

or

Redistribute land, labour, capital and resources within and between countries

or

Direct activism and sabotage For example - anti-capitalism malware program

or

Restrict platform capitalism (e.g. AirBnB); Promote decentralised platform cooperative models

etc

(found in the Appendix A. Thematic synthesis of degrowth policy proposals)

For me degrowth is potentially one way to get rid of capitalism.

What byproducts are there?

I'm not aware of any. In relation to plastic degradation, typically the fungi break down the chemical bonds of the molecules with the help of enzymes.

How do we prevent it spreading to plastic we don’t want decomposing?

I remember one research from europe (I can't find it for some reason) that they were collecting the plastic first and then in a controlled environment they introduced the plastic-eating fungus. It's not that the scientists just threw the fungi in the ocean.

Degrowth is absolutely not compatible to capitalism because as an economic system it has growth embedded in its model. One of the biggest problems is that this economic system has taken over the decision making processes of human societies all over the globe (ie representative democracy). Like models of the past they portrait themselves as invincible, like kings thought of their situation, slave owners etc. I believe we should first be able to imagine a world without capitalism in order to achieve this goal. Btw I don't have the answers, we do.

So the way I see things degrowth is fully compatible with humans and human societies (sorry I can't use the term "human nature" but I suppose that's another topic), personal growth and societal prosperity because it is anti-capitalistic.

So I also thought of sharing a 15-min video from a few years back:

New Economies: How Degrowth Will Save the World with Jason Hickel

You can find some relevant book titles in this audiobook community and download them from Anna's Archive

I loved Braiding Sweetgrass and now can't wait to check out the Moss one.

I thought of linking a recent podcast from The Great Simplification:

Jean-Baptiste Fressoz: “Always Adding More: The Unpopular Reality about Energy Transitions”