Biology Lessons In Degrowth

Every economy which fails to manage its growth eventually destroys itself. Humanity has embraced continuous expansion, a concept no different than cancer.

Pausing or stopping growth altogether is essential for all living organisms, and this is why every species on this planet comes with genes dedicated to managing growth. Degrowth is an ancient natural process older than humanity itself: so incredibly essential to life that no living organism can exist without it. As this civilisation runs out of road, the hints and reminders of how degrowth can save us are everywhere, if we only woke up from the glycemic coma of our economic diabetes.

When faced with drought, plants immediately activate elaborate emergency procedures which take them through a drastic, yet life-saving process. These genetic protocols not only conserve water within the plant, but dictate exactly how each of the plant’s remaining resources is reallocated, down to the last molecule. The amount of detail encoded in these protocols is so vast that it takes up a sizeable proportion of the plant’s DNA. The fact that evolution went through all the trouble to create extremely detailed emergency procedures for a controlled slowdown, highlights just how vital degrowth has been to the survival of life on this planet over the past 4 billion years.

Degrowth is in fact so important that, organisms routinely shut down elements of their body altogether, as a “maintenance and rest” routine procedure – regardless of whether there is a real need for it or not. Whether we are taking a nap, taking a break, or taking a hike, degrowth is simply healthy, in the same way that a fast is.

The best type of degrowth is practiced as a pre-emptive measure at a time of health and abundance, not when it is too late, to ensure that maximum resource is conserved for the difficult times ahead. Deciduous trees shed their leaves in the autumn, bringing their metabolism to a screeching halt way ahead of the incoming bad weather. In this way, degrowth is not a painful process for the tree, as it is practiced in a slow, planned and controlled fashion, when the tree is actually at peak health, right after a robust growing period.

By contrast to this subtle, controlled cycle of natural degrowth, human economies go through extremely painful boom and bust cycles of growth and collapse. This is because in-built degrowth mechanisms do not exist. Profit never knows when or how to slow down, and this is why profit is by its own nature self-destructive.

Some of nature’s millions of degrowth processes involve the termination of healthy cells within the body, so that the rest of the organism can survive. Deciduous trees would not make it through the winter if they didn’t shed their leaves, as these leaves would be voracious energy consumers at a time in the year when energy production is close to zero. The leaves must be terminated so that the tree can consolidate its resources and rest. When deciduous trees shed their leaves in the fall, there is a specific degrowth pathway taking place: PCD, which stands for Programmed Cell Death. Programmed Cell Death is also called apoptosis: a Greek word derived from “ptosis”, which literally means “to fall”. Once the small layer of cells connecting the leaf to the tree trunk is terminated via PCD, the leaf simply drops, after all its essential nutrients have been sequestered by the tree. The beautiful scenes of foliage swirling in the wind that we see in autumn is one of nature’s biggest annual demonstrations of planned, painless, natural degrowth which ensures trees will survive through another winter.

But even outside of winter, plants always have emergency procedures in place to cut down on their resource spending and investment on new projects: in the face of drought, heatwave or frost, any green shoots are stopped dead in their tracks. Next are flowers and fruit: they are extremely expensive for the plant to produce, so they are either completely aborted, or become much smaller but with perfectly formed seeds inside, so that there can still be a next generation.

Now that the plant has stopped growing and dropped fruit and flowers, it actually has significantly lower water and energy needs, which means that it can afford to lose some of its energy factories: its leaves. Although this sounds suicidal, it helps the plant minimize evapotranspiration, which overwhelmingly happens through leaf pores. By dropping leaves as a measure of last resort, plants manage to essentially lower their monthly bills down to almost zero, avoid complete dehydration, and survive the long wait until rains arrive. Beneath that yellow, parched summer lawn, there are healthy, living grass roots. Grass is a plant that can go through multiple apoptotic cycles in just a few weeks, constantly alternating between PCD and active growth depending on the weather. Grass does this so effortlessly and efficiently, completely at peace with the reality of hanging at the edge of death without breaking a sweat. And this is how it gets to see better days.

There is so much we need to learn from trees, from grass, plants and animals who practice degrowth with their eyes closed. Because our civilisation is not entering a temporary drought or winter event. It is entering a permanent depletion of the resources it has been taking for granted. Our society must live and breathe degrowth on every level, every minor detail of this complex economy, if it has any chance of surviving.

The traditional economic approach of “growing” out of a crisis is the fastest way for this civilisation to commit suicide, yet this is exactly what all of the “energy transitions” and “green new deals” are proposing: mammoth-scale manufacturing, energy use escalation, jobs and prosperity, all euphemisms for toxic growth, at a time when humanity should be tightening its belt. More profit and more capitalism have never helped to solve the problems of profit and capitalism. Continuing on a path of growth and consumption is equivalent to feeding an advanced-stage diabetes patient high-fructose corn syrup, then putting them on a treadmill to give them a heart attack.

The problem with growth is that it has become dogmatic, supported by centuries of religious, colonialist and consumatronic propaganda. It is time we begin tearing down the biggest misinformation campaign which has been at the center of our civilisational lie: growth. Apoptosis is part of the natural life cycle of every living being on Earth: from tulips that crawl back into their bulbs each year to tumbleweeds who die just at the right time to be picked up by the wind and disperse their seeds throughout the desert, to a banana that turns brown. It is time we begin to pay attention to these life forms which appear to be orders of magnitude smarter than us.

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George is an author, scientist and researcher covering the polycrisis

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