The new environmental and energy challenges and the ecosocial transition

Abstract

Anthropogenic climate change, the destruction of ecosystems, the increasing extraction of resources, and the zenith of fossil fuels, can place global capitalism before challenges never seen in a few decades. When energy and material availability change, human societies are enabled to move from strategies that maximize production per unit of time to strategies that optimize efficiency, but the institutional lock-in and cultural frameworks are weakening the reaction capacity of contemporary societies. The growing social mobilization in favor of an ecosocial transition should try to break lock-in, and demand an ecosystem regeneration that makes societies more resilient. In the political debate on the transition, we identify four narratives, labeled as: techno-optimist economism, green capitalism, Green New Deal and degrowth. The article discusses the strengths and weaknesses of the last three positions. The more collapsing positions of degrowth are self-condemning to political marginalization, for absence of an explicit and realistic plan for the transition. On the other hand, a future Green New Deal could serve as an umbrella under which convergences between scientists, workers, activists and politicians could develop, which would mobilize the transformative forces and facilitate the creation of niches or nucleation centers of potentially disruptive practices in a foreseeable future scenario of limited growth. It would also provoke a division in the elites of power, with a part of them seeking an alliance with workers, scientists and activists. These factors, according to Goldstone, favor the success of mobilizations that seek important social changes