The Fridge-less Kitchen in Hyderabad, India

This article was generously donated by Subhorup Dasgupta, who lived without a fridge in the hot and dry climate of Hyderabad for 3 years. He now has a 130 litre compact and still keeps most food out of fridge. In Canada, I think that living without a fridge is easy since it is almost always cold but here are some really amazing tips for any climate.


Living Without A Refrigerator

One of the things that seemed like a big challenge was getting by with a reasonably nutritious diet without a refrigerator. I grieved that I would have to miss out not only stuff like chilled drinks and icecreams, but also not have access to storing vegetables and meats and dairy products. Further, leftovers would be a liability and likely go waste. However, as I went on, I discovered ways of getting around this, and now, several months down, I have a diet where I am not impacted in any way by not using a refrigerator. As I set about trying to put my discoveries down, I came across another wonderful post on this same topic over here. Here are some of the things I personally discovered along with some of the wisdom already shared in that post.

My challenges were butter, milk, cheese, eggs, stocking up on vegetables for a week or more, green leafy vegetables, stuff like mayo and other dressings, toppings, and other processed pastes, and of course, leftovers.

Rice, Lentils, Omelets, and Ghee
As I struggled initially with a rice, lentil, and omelet plan, I started out by by adding clarified butter (ghee) to my diet. Ghee does not need refrigeration. Later, I added butter which stays perfectly fine in a covered bowl of water, the water needing to be changed every couple of days. Also, it saves cooking time in most recipes as you dont have to wait for it to reach room temperature. For those not comfortable with the water on the butter (it really is just a drop or two), you can put it in a small wide mouthed jar, and slip the jar into a ziploc bag and put the bag in water.

Milk, and Yoghurt
I am not a big consumer of milk, so the only use for it is with tea or coffee and for recipes that call for milk. I keep an emergency pack of UHT milk that you can buy in a tetrapak. For cooking, you cannot make out much of a difference between this and fresh milk. I tried making yoghurt with UHT milk, and contrary to what they claim, it doesnt taste the same as fresh milk. For yoghurt, I have switched to buying packaged fresh yoghurt. I do make it a point to check the dates on the packages, and it works fine. For any other use, I usually buy fresh milk from a dairy or use a dairy whitener for tea and coffee (since I dont take milk in my tea, this too is only for emergencies).

Cheese
Cheese, I started out by learning to do without. Later (when the withdrawals were too severe), I settled for single helping cubes of processed cheese. Usually smaller stores (the neighborhood kirana stores and the mom & pop outlets) will sell you these singly whereas the supermarkets will not. These stay good for up to a week if packed and ziploc'ed and placed in water. Most firm cheeses stay fine for weeks on end. If you are a cheese fanatic, and need to get by in warmer climate without a refrigerator, pick up the likes of parmesan, mimolette, pecorino tuscano, romano, and most cheeses that have grana in their name (grating cheese).

One good thing I found was the practice of frugality and moderation that comes with fridge-free living. I was forced to buy only as much as I could consume within a time frame.

Earlier, a visit to the supermarket meant stocking up (usually bad fats and carbohydrates) for the month or months. Now, I pick up one wedge of cheese, enjoy it till it is over, and only then go for the next, and this time, I usually pick up a different variety.

Eggs
Eggs stay perfectly fine for up to a week. I usually buy no more than two half dozen packs, and they stay good up to 10 days. A word of caution, a spoiled egg can give you a real bad case of loosies, so here I have linked a simple test. Being paranoid, I do this even with freshly bought eggs, since I am never convinced about how long they have been in the store before I bought them, but you can do this with eggs that are more than 5 days old after you have bought them. Fill a pot with water, place the egg in it. If it floats, or if it stands on the smaller end and the larger end bobs up, trash it and buy yourself a fresh supply, if it sinks to the bottom, or if it stands on the larger end and the smaller end bobs up, it is fine.

Cilantro and green chili

For green leafy veggies, the main items that I struggled with were cilantro, green chili, spinach and curry leaves. Small bunches of cilantro (with the roots) stays fresh for up to one day if kept standing with the roots in glass with some water. Another way is to wrap a large bunch of cilantro with the roots in newspaper and fold the ends so that it is kind of airtight, store in a cool dark place, this too will stay for up to one day. When using, sort through and trash the ones that are starting to spoil. Letting cilantro soak in cool water for up to 30 minutes before use will restore them to their original crispness even if they seem to have wilted a little. For green chili, the trick is to de-stalk them, taking care not to injure the flesh while doing so. I usually buy a large handful each time, that lasts me for up to 10 days. After washing, drying and de-stalking, sort the ones that have started showing signs of ripening (a tinge of yellow or orange, or sometimes just a hint of lightening of the green towards yellow) and the ones that have blemishes or injuries on them. These go into a jar that will be kept on the shelf with other spices to be used for immediate cooking. The rest (fresh, bright green, intact flesh) gets packed air tight but loosely in newspaper, and the newspaper packet placed in a ziploc bag, and then kept in a cool dark place. This will stay for up to two weeks, but take care to change the paper packing once every three four days as it will sweat up and if not changed will cause the chili to spoil. Once my at hand chili is exhausted, I pull out the packet, sort and pick the ones that are closest to ripening, and replenish, at the same time changing the paper packing. Being a chili fiend, I usually have two or three types of chilis at hand, and this helps me not to have to waste just because it spoiled.


Spinach and Curry Leaves
Spinach is not too tolerant of heat or time, and will not stay beyond three days even with greatest care. Sort them as soon as you get them home, removing all the leaves that are bruised or mutilated. Leave the stalks on, they seem to keep better that way. Making sure they are dry (they sometimes comes with moisture and even water from the shop), loosely pack them into a large ziploc bag, and wrap the bag with a wet napkin, making sure that the napkin is kept moist at all times. While they stay green and alive for more than three days, the flavor seems to disappear when cooked if kept more than that.

Curry leaves are good for up to five days if kept on their stalks and dry in a ziploc with the air squeezed out.

I also turn curry leaves into a powder which stays good for up to a month in an airtight jar. Links to recipes are provided below. This works great for livening up a dal or a khichdi or even a curry, just throw a spoonful in and the taste changes.

For stuff like mayo and dressings, I have not found a fix better than making it fresh each time you want to use. I keep all my dry spices (pepper, clove, cinnamon, etc.) and dry herbs whole, and lightly roast them before use, letting them cool before grinding them. For fresh herbs, miniature versions of square foot gardening helps with basil, sorrel, thyme.

I end up eating more fresh food and foods without preservatives, and they taste oodles better than the canned stuff.

Nearby Stores
I have searched and found multiple fresh vegetable outlets near my place of work and near my home, so that at the end of the work day, I go across and pick up fresh vegetables, making sure to get a fair spread of colors, fiber, nutrients in my bag. Potato, onions, garlic, ginger have a long shelf life and can be bought in larger quantity. Vegetables like Beans, Carrots, Cabbage, Ladies finger, etc., stay good for up to three days if stored in a cool, dark and dry container. Hybrid tomatoes can stay good for up to seven days, while the wilder variety keeps for lesser time. Cauliflower stays good and crisp for up to two days, but can be used for up to three or four days. Once you have a hang on how long freshly bought veggies will keep before they start losing on texture and taste, you can plan your purchases accordingly.

Meat, fowl, fish
With meat, fowl and fish, one has to choose between fresh and frozen. If buying frozen, for meat and fowl, up to 12 hours ahead of cooking is okay, keep in a covered container in a cool place. For frozen fish, 8 hours is good. For fresh meat, fowl or fish, cook within four to six hours of buying. It is challenging to plan meals like this, but it is also rewarding to cook and have the food fresh.

Leftovers including rice
Leftovers need to go within 12 hours if you are in a hot but not humid climate, whereas in more humid places, even if cooler, food tends to spoil faster. One of the easier ways to preserve leftovers is to initially serve when just finished cooking and then to cover the container air tight and not touch it till it is to be eaten again. For pressure cooked items, try to do the final cooking in the pressure cooker itself, and after serving, immediately put the lid on, put the pressure weight on and bring the leftover to a whistle, and then let it cool, only opening it when ready to reheat and serve the next time.

Rice that is left over can be soaked liberally in water, and left covered.

The next day, drain the water and warm either over a flame, in a microwave or in a pressure cooker, and it tastes just like freshly cooked rice. If soaked for more than 12 hours, there is a slight fermented taste and smell which is easily removed by washing the cooked rice in a few changes of water before reheating it. Food preparations that are high in oil and salt keep longer than water based preparations. One trick that I use for watery stuff is to cook them till the water dries out, toss a little oil and cook it, and then reconstitute when using the next time. Stuff that has semi cooked or fried tomatoes or other such fleshy vegetables in them tends to spoil faster than you would estimate.

Sprouting: easy and longlasting
Another good living food habit that doesn't need a refrigerator is sprouting. Most beans, grains and nuts can be sprouted easily and simply at home and the yield is not only delicious, but has a shelf life of two to three days in addition to a lead time of one to two days, and is very, very healthy. Ann Wigmores wonderful book The Sprouting Book is a great storehouse of information. Whole Moong, Lobia (both red and white), Whole Masoor (brown), peas, groundnuts, horsegram, etc., make excellent basic sprouts. For spicing them up, you can try sprouting almonds, mustard, radish seeds, fenugrek, sunflower seeds and mix them in small quantities with the basic sprouts. You can add salt and pepper, lime, red chili powder, finely chopped raw onions, and a dash of mustard oil to make your sprout mix more spicy. Or you can have them straight and savour the enzymes and the sugars as they share their being with you. Sometimes you can saute them lightly and throw in some spices to make a crunchy healthy snack. More often than not, I end up with more sprout than I planned for, and this goes excellently into the next dal or khichdi or even vegetable curry you are making, enriching it with taste and nutrition.

Overall, living without a refrigerator has taught me to plan ahead, to purchase, prepare, and consume food in moderation, to have a healthier choice of food, and to have a slimmer power bill and at the same time feel good about not contributing to pollution.

Recipes:

http://subhorup.blogspot.com/2008/05/curry-leaf-powder-podis-make-for-quick.html


How to Decipher the Freshness of an Egg:

http://www.ochef.com/789.htm

Writings by Subhorup Dasgupta
On Music: opnotes.blogspot.com.
On Parenting: thestoryofparth.blogspot.com
On Food: sitakirasoi.blogspot.com
On Social issues: subhorupdasgupta.blogspot.com
Miscellaneous: subhorup.blogspot.com

Subhorup Dasgupta

Subhorup Dasgupta is a Hyderabad based writer, fine artist and musician. A student of Literatures from Jadavpur University, his pursuits have been diverse and include Eastern mysticism, interfaith studies, photography, linguistics, artificial intelligence, alternative medicine, healing sciences, and food. Having spent his early working years with the terminally ill and their families after training with global thought leaders in the healing arts, he moved on to become one of the country’s most respected domain experts in healthcare documentation. After spending “a third of my life” pursuing a corporate career, he recently chose to give up his job to return to his first love, the creative arts. He presently describes himself as a self-employed tea drinker.

The slow trickle of poetry that he has published in the past, though critically well-received, is often dark and cynical, and all his work, including those self published by him, are tagged as unpublished, “a joke lost to all but myself.” It takes a while to realize that the more lighthearted writings of his are those that, at the end of the day, speak of his deepest anguish.

A self declared atheist, his prose (which is more forthcoming in the various blogs that he posts on) delves deep into the common well of spirituality and brings forth the universality of the human condition in the context of present day culture and civility, or as he puts it, “lack of it.”

Hilarious Video: We need more bike lanes!

BKS Iyengar: Our duty to Adapt to Nature

I love this quote by BKS Iyengar, prominent yoga teacher and yoga practitioner of 60+ years. It so deeply touches on the reciprocal relationship of health between humans and nature when humans are willing to adapt to the natural world, rather than coerce nature to adapt to us in the short term.

"As mammals, we are homeostatic. That means we maintain certain constant balances within our bodies, temperature for example, by adapting to change and challenge in the environment. Strength and flexibility allow us to keep and inner balance, but man is trying more and more to dominate the environment rather than control himself. Central heating, air conditioning, cars that we take our to drive three hundred yards, towns that stay lit up at night, and food imported from around the world out of season are all examples of how we try to circumvent our duty to adapt to nature and instead force nature to adapt to us. In the process, we become both weak and brittle. Even many of my Indian students who all now sit on chairs in their homes are becoming too stiff to sit in lotus position easily." BKS Iyengar, Light on Life

This quote, while certainly a challenge to us all, illuminates how clearly our energy imbalances are seen through the eyes of a person who has endeavored to live in harmony with nature for a lifetime. It serves as another reminder that the simple ways of integrating with nature, may hold the most joy, and health for us all.

When More is Less: De-Growth, an Interview

This interview was generously shared by Rex Weyler. It, and other excellent articles by Rex can be found at the Deep Green Column of Greenpeace International, and on Rex's blog. Links to both are at the bottom of this article.


"Growth is natural, but even in nature, growth is limited...When our
cells don't stop growing, we have cancer...Growth can become a liability...Modern advocates of degrowth are not against social diversity or innovation. The degrowth movement is simply cautioning society about the historic link
between economic growth and ecosystem destruction. Wishful thinking won't change this."


Interview
“GDP, the so-called measure of economic growth, does not separate costs from benefits.”
Herman Daly, World Bank Economist, author of “Steady State Economics.”

In 2008, economists and scientists met in Paris to discuss “Economic Degrowth for Ecological Sustainability and Social Equity.” The Degrowth (Décroissance) movement grew from this economic revolution in France. In 2010, a similar conference convened in Barcelona. For the last two years I have helped organize the Degrowth Conference in Vancouver, Canada. Journalists and traditional economists have asked why a degrowth movement is necessary. Here are answers to their questions:

Why focus on ending growth? Isn’t growth natural?

Yes, growth is natural, but even in nature, growth is limited.

The Degrowth movement addresses the growth of human consumption, driven by economic growth, population growth, and the impacts of resource extraction – oil spills, polluted rivers, atmospheric carbon. System feedbacks such as melting permafrost and methane releases, add to the impact. We can call aggregate human consumption and waste “throughput.”

We now hear talk of “decoupling” economic growth from material and energy throughput, which would be desirable, but we must be realistic because we possess very few actual examples of such decoupling. Historically, economic growth leads to increased energy and materials throughput. For example, some people once claimed that computers would “save paper” but this did not happen. Human society today uses six-times more paper than we did in 1960. Computers accelerated economic growth, and although this yielded benefits to certain sectors of society, the growth required more consumption, ecological devastation, and social inequity.

But don’t we want certain economic sectors to grow, like renewable energy and developing economies?

Yes. But to achieve ecological balance and social justice, we need to respect the limits nature places on material and energy throughput. A social transition can take place without total system growth, but even solar panels and windmills require materials and energy, rare-earth metals, copper, steel, silicon and so forth. We don’t mine copper or silicon with solar energy, we mine them with hydrocarbons.

We need to appreciate the magnitude of the transitions we contemplate. Today, the rich 15-percent of Earth’s people consume about 85-percent of the resources. Meanwhile, our population grows and nations expect their economies to grow by 3-to-4-percent annually. Projecting these growth rates to 2050, a world of 9 billion people with social justice and better living standards, powered with renewable energy would require about 30-times more resources than we consume today. We would be fair and wise to ask: Is that possible?

Furthermore, energy systems – windmills, solar arrays, dams – have fixed life-spans, so even if we built enough renewable energy to power a world of 9 billion people, that infrastructure would have to be built again, and again, forever, to be “sustainable.” In nature, desire does not equal capacity. We have to start with Earth’s capacity and design our cultural transition based on that capacity.

Therefore, the key policy of any ecological energy plan must be conservation, the only solution that does not require material growth. Conservation has to start with wealthy nations. If rich consumers reduced energy consumption by half – possible since rich economies waste so much energy – then the rest of the world could double energy use, and we could still reduce total world energy use. But if we attempt to power the wasteful, consumer culture built on fossil fuel for 9-billion people, we encounter some inconvenient laws of physics, thermodynamics, and ecology.



But can we not become more efficient through innovation?

Yes, but we will need to question our assumptions. Historically, humans have made millions of industrial efficiency gains without reducing consumption. When society achieves efficiency with a resource, it becomes cheaper, so we tend to use more, not less. This phenomenon, documented by William Jevons during the coal era, is known in economics as the rebound effect. Efficiency could reduce consumption, but humanity has a poor track record of doing so. Historically, efficiency gains increased profits or reduced consumer costs, but do not save resources. We can change this but we should not be naive.



But growth is a natural biological and evolutionary impulse.

Yes, growth is not innately evil. However, growth is not innately “good,” and can become destructive even in nature. When our cells don’t stop growing, we have cancer; if our bodies don’t stop growing, that is obesity. Successful species grow until they overshoot their habitat capacity. Growth can become a liability.

Throughout history, certain dominant societies grew until they depleted their habitats. A few learned to simplify, degrow, and endure. Modern advocates of degrowth are not against social diversity or innovation. The degrowth movement is simply cautioning society about the historic link between economic growth and ecosystem destruction. Wishful thinking won’t change this.

Photo: Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell as Marie Antoinette. Photo Illustration by Marge Collins.

Diversity and complexity grow continuously. Does Nature really have a limit on growth?

The word “growth” does not mean the same thing in different contexts. Non-material qualities – species diversity, innovation, or human ideas – can “grow,” but this is quite different from the growth of material things such as populations, cell phones, or power plants.

Even non-physical qualities – beauty, love – require physical foundations with limits. Nature can produce five species of finches or fifty species but nature imposes limits on the total biomass of finches, or forests, humans, or human technical artefacts. Forests reach a limit that we call “maturity,” at which point the forest reaches dynamic homeostasis, roughly stable biomass with shifting diversity.

Humans can create virtually unlimited musical styles, but only a limited number of maple cellos with ebony fingerboards. A biophysical supply chain makes “non-material” social innovation possible. Dreaming up innovations may require near-zero material throughput, but the practical application of those innovations requires energy and materials.

The infrastructure of knowledge – education, books, Internet, conferences – that nurture an environment of ideas, requires throughput. For this reason, cultures that have dominated in technical innovation also dominated in resource consumption. The Internet may feel like “free” information but requires massive materials, energy, and waste sinks. Growth of difference (diversity) is not the same as growth of stuff. We’ll need to be precise about claims that economic growth can avoid throughput growth.



But the biosphere has grown its energy and material throughput for billions of years with no sign of stopping.

This needs to be qualified for two reasons: Growth rates and natural collapse events.

Nature’s growth rates remain tiny compared to human economies. Nations typically attempt to grow their economies at 3-4-percent annually. Since about 1750, this equates to a doubling of human consumption every 20 years. On the other hand, over the last 500-million years, Earth’s biomass has doubled about every 50 million years, 2-million-times slower than human economic and consumption growth. Growth is natural, but not anywhere near the rate that bankers and neoclassical economists want economies to grow.

Secondly, collapse appears frequently in the fossil record and in human history. Biological diversity reached capacity limits not only during the famous “five extinctions” but in thousands of minor extinctions. About 600-million-years-ago (mya), free oxygen allowed cells to extract more energy from the ecosystem, unleashing tremendous diversity growth. However, this growth reached habitat limits many times between 550mya and 200mya, as species diversity crashed, recovered, and crashed again. Growth does stop in nature, and reverses. The rate of diversity growth peaked during the Cambrian era, 550-500mya, and has not been equalled since. Diversity is not a one-way progression; it grows, stutters, collapses, and recovers based on environmental capacity and conditions.

Today, human sprawl reduces Earth’s biological diversity. Humans occupy and impact habitats, replacing and obliterating species. If natural growth was unlimited, then these other species could survive human expansion, but human expansion fills and depletes ecosystems, exposing nature’s limits.

Likewise, we witness cultural diversity growth and simultaneous cultural loss. Industrial growth has diminished cultural diversity as well as species diversity. Historical anthropologist Joseph Tainter has shown that when societies grow, they inevitably face problems related to habitat capacity. To solve these problems, they develop new technologies, but these solutions tend to create new problems (irrigation causes salinization, nuclear energy causes leukemia, and so forth.) Highly complex societies eventually experience “diminishing returns” on their innovations, which Tainter explains in The Collapse of Complex Societies. A few societies overcame this dilemma by simplifying their systems, but most overshot their habitat and collapsed. Growth is not a solution for societies in overshoot. Rather, solutions to overshoot involve reduced consumption, simplification, and a return to fundamental rules of ecology.

Human social complexity has grown over the last 100,000 years, punctuated with collapses and ecosystem decline. Human success clearly incurs ecological and social costs. Economist Kenneth Boulding called these ecological and cultural losses the “metabolic costs” of growth. Donella Meadows, and others simply pointed out the “Limits to Growth.” Since human impact now threatens global ecosystem balance, we don’t know if human complexity will continue to grow.

Degrowth advocates suggest that the best strategy to ensure maximum human diversity is to stabilize our consumption and expansion. Dynamic homeostasis, nature’s genuine sustainability, makes demands on growing things, and simplicity proves as important as complexity. The notion of degrowth is not intended to destroy human society, but to preserve it.



If our growth economy recycles as nature does, are we not more sustainable?

Yes, of course, but we need to understand nature’s costs and limits regarding recycling. Human economies should attempt to approach 100-percent recycling, but recycling itself requires energy and materials. In nature, recycling is a cost of life, not just a solutions. The laws of energy transformation teach us that there is no such thing as 100-percent recycling, even in nature, because of these throughput costs.



Attacking growth is counter-productive because people expect growth, and want to find hope.

In the autumn, when leaves fall and the air turns cold, it is not “pessimism” to point out that winter is coming. If hope is delusional, it is futile.

The degrowth movement does not “attack” growth, which has its appropriate place in nature. The degrowth movement simply exposes the pretence of celebrating the benefits of economic growth while ignoring the costs. Rich nations typically ignore the costs of growth by exporting those costs to poor nations and to nature: Sending city garbage to the country, dumping toxic waste at sea, exploiting workers to make products cheap, and devastating the landscape in resource mining. A large portion of China’s CO2 emissions, for example, are really European and American CO2 emissions, because those nations consume the products of that pollution.

Naturally, people resist the idea of limits on their consumption. The instincts to grow were forged in natural evolution, but those instincts don’t make limits disappear. Even in non-human nature, instincts can become counter-productive. Aggression, for example, exists because it had survival value, but in certain contexts aggression becomes destructive. When the context changes, instincts can be harmful. Once a species reaches its habitat limits, the instincts to grow and expand become a liability.



Aren’t ecosystems destroyed just as thoroughly in poor nations as wealthy ones.

Yes, but usually because those nations are plundered and exploited by the rich. Sheer numbers of inhabitants anywhere can deplete an environment, but wealthy-nation industrial expansion is the leading cause of global ecological destruction. Many cultures were sustainable for thousands of years, and could have endured many thousands more, until colonized by industrial nations, which took their resources, took slaves, waged war, practiced genocide, and so forth. In the industrial era, rich nations export destructive resource extraction, waste disposal, and social costs to the poor nations. Africa is not ecologically depleted and poor because Africans consumed too much stuff; it is depleted and poor because Europe and North America plundered it to fuel their economic growth. Now, China, Japan, and other industrialized nations have joined the plunder of poor nations and the global commons. Nature limits population growth, but for humanity, wealthy consumption and economic growth remain the primary causes of ecological destruction.



Rather than degrowth, should we not focus on preserving ecosystems?

If our social, political, and economic planners actually understood ecosystems, we might avoid a lot of problems we face.

But degrowth is not just a rallying cry or a trivial idea. Degrowth is an important, natural concept that our society needs to understand, whether we call it Degrowth, Limits to Growth, Costs of Complexity, Overshoot, Carrying Capacity, Metabolic Costs, Diminishing Returns on Innovation, Entropic Limits, “The Meek Shall inherit the Earth,” or “Richer lives, simpler means” as Arne Naess said.

The problem for our society is not that these ideas are too complex or wrong, but that they are annoying and inconvenient for the wealthy and powerful. Everyone wants more. Millionaires want to be a billionaires. The more that individuals grab and horde, the less there is for everyone. On the other hand, as we learn to share and live modestly, our ecosystems can recover and provide us with nature’s bounty.

The best way for poor nations to avoid deeper poverty is to protect their ecosystems from plunder.

The Degrowth movement advocates richer, more rewarding lives with less material stuff. Our economic efforts should focus on providing basic needs to everyone in the human family, rather than enriching a few, while others starve. Beyond basic necessities, happiness does not come from consuming more stuff. Happiness comes from friends, family, community, creativity, leisure, love, companionship, and time spent in nature. These things can grow without much material throughput. These are the qualities of life we should be helping to grow.

This may be the most important public dialogue of this century. And we better get this right, because humanity may not get many more chances.



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Rex Weyler Blog: http://rexweyler.com/blog-placeholder/

Deep Green Column: http://www.greenpeace.org/international/en/news/Blogs/makingwaves/deep-green-why-de-growth-an-interview/blog/35467/

Useful resources:

Degrowth Research: Recherche & Décroissance

Albert Bartlett on Exponential Growth: “Arithmetic, Population, and Energy” video lecture

William Catton, Overshoot

Donella Meadows, et. al., Limits to Growth (D. H. Meadows, D. L. Meadows, J. Randers, W. Behrens, 1972; New American Library, 1977)

Herman Daly, Steady-State Economics (1977, 1991)

Mark Anielski: Genuine Wealth

Lourdes Beneria, Gender, Development and Globalization: Economics as if People Mattered

Kenneth Boulding, The Economics of the Coming Spaceship Earth, 1966

Ivan Illich, Energy and Equity, 1973, Le Monde also discusses the negative social and ecological impact of high-energy society.

Nicholas Georgescu-Roegen, The Entropy Law and the Economic Process, (1971).

T. Gutowski, et. al. (“Thermodynamic Analysis of Resources Used in Manufacturing Processes,” Environ. Sci. Technol. 43(5) pp1584-1590, 2009).

K. De Decker, (2009) “The Monster Footprint of Digital Technology” tracks the embodied energy and material resources of silicon based technology.

Arne Naess, Ecology, community and lifestyle

Wendell Berry, Solving for Pattern, on appropriate solutions