We living beings - humans, animals, plants - stop growing at some point. The economy is different. It grows and grows and grows. But with it, our mountains of clothes and garbage grow too. And the sea level. We have exceeded six of nine planetary boundaries. So do we need to shut down our economy? Or do we need economic growth? It's strange: we live in contradiction. Most governments in the world promise prosperity through economic growth. At the same time, growth leads to the climate crisis, species extinction, deforestation and eight million deaths a year due to environmental damage. The damage occurred shortly after the phenomenon began. From the 1950s onwards, the economy grew, but from the 1960s onwards, so did garbage, rivers were poisoned, and the sun became dusty in industrial areas. In 1972, the Club of Rome published the study "The Limits to Growth". "If we do not slow growth with our own measures, nature will do it for us," explains author Dennis Meadows. Our focus on economic growth, i.e. growth in gross domestic product, ignores the costs to nature and people. For example, the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico caused the US gross domestic product to rise due to clean-up costs, but people and nature suffered damage. The gross domestic product also only measures paid work, not unpaid work such as housework, family work, volunteer work or self-sufficiency. Whether we are doing well, have enough, share everything well - the gross domestic product says nothing about that. How do we get out of the dilemma? Our government revenues currently depend on economic growth. "If that collapses, jobs, tax revenues, social security are at risk," explains economist Irmi Seidl, and green growth has failed, according to studies, because resource consumption is also increasing with new technologies. So do we have to slow everything down - and is that possible worldwide? Documentary by Julia Fritzsche (D 2022, 25 min) Sources and further links: Since when has there been economic growth? We lived for 300,000 years without economic growth, it only really took off in the 1950s. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/wo... What does infinite growth do on a finite planet? It destroys the foundations of our life https://www.pik-potsdam.de/de/aktuell... Here is the timeline from researcher Johann Rockström at his TED conference: • Let the environment guide our develop... Eight million people die every year from environmental damage. https://orf.at/stories/3247371/ What goes into the gross domestic product? In Germany, drug residues in wastewater cause environmental cleanup costs of 1.2 billion euros: Also part of the GDP. In France, 45,000 people die every year from fine dust and ozone: 48 billion euros are spent on medical costs and work absences due to air pollution - and increase the gross domestic product. https://www.zeit.de/mobilitaet/2022-0... https://www.spiegel.de/wissenschaft/n... Can we just keep growing, but in a green way? It looks rather bad: https://www.researchgate.net/publicat... Should we reduce? If we want to meet the 1.5 degree target, according to a study in the journal Nature, reversing degrowth would help more than relying on technological change. https://www.nature.com/articles/s4146... The most recent IPCC from 2022 mentions consumption reduction, voluntary and politically initiated, in Chapter 5 (p. 32). Such ways of degrowth could be crucial to making mitigating the climate crisis technically possible and meeting social development goals. https://report.ipcc.ch/ar6wg3/pdf/IPC... What if we reduce our working hours? Some countries are experimenting with it, here is an insight https://www.ardmediathek.de/video/bet... 70 percent of shift workers in the metal industry would rather have more free time than pay in surveys https://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/unt... #wirtschaft #rezession #konjunktur Video available on YouTube until 29/10/2025 Follow us on social networks: Facebook: / arte.tv Twitter: / artede Instagram: / arte.tv