Cédric Durand
Thursday 21 March 2024
Summary: The lack of plausibility of green growth, the impossibility of making the most of industrial ruins, the lack of time and overall perspective, the uncertainty of profits… The promises of green capitalism are as far from reality as there are shale gas drillings in the Permian Basin in Texas.
The impasse in the fight against global warming illustrates a fundamental contradiction between capitalist valorisation and nature. Because it exists independently of our social life, nature cannot accommodate the demands of capitalist valorisation. We need an alternative.
Faced with such a challenge, consumers’ eco-actions alone will prove powerless. It is the economic structures that need to be transformed to reduce the ecological impact of human activities. Ecological planning based on less exploitation of nature, environmental justice and economic democracy can do just that. This conference will outline the fundamental principles.
Biography:
Cédric Durand is an economist at the University of Geneva. His research focuses on changes in contemporary capitalism and the challenges of planning. Co-authored with Razmig Keucheyan: Comment bifurquer. Les principes de la planification écologique, published this spring (La Découverte). He is also the author of Le Capital fictif (Les Prairies ordinaires, 2014) and Technoféodalisme (La Découverte, 2020).
