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Frontmatter -- CONTENTS -- Introduction: Why Limits? -- 1. Why Malthus Was Wrong -- 2. Economics: Scarcity without Limits -- 3. The Limits of Environmentalism -- 4. A Culture of Limits -- 5. The Limits of Limits -- Epilogue: In Defense of Limits -- Acknowledgments -- Notes

The term 'degrowth' has emerged within ecological and other heterodox schools of economics as a critique of the idea (and ideology) of economic growth. Degrowth argues that economic growth is no longer desirable - its costs exceed its benefits - and advocates a transformation of economies so that they produce and consume less, differently and better. Giorgos Kallis provides a clear and succinct guide to the central ideas of degrowth theory and explores what it would take for an economy to transition to a position that enables it to prosper without growth. The book examines how mainstream conceptualizations of the economy are challenged by degrowth theory and how degrowth draws on a multifaceted network of ideas across disciplines to shed new light on the economic process. The central claims of the degrowth literature are discussed alongside some key criticisms of them. Whether one agrees or disagrees with degrowth's critique of economic growth, Kallis shows how it raises fundamental questions about the workings of capitalism that we can no longer afford to ignore.

El Dr. Jason Hickel (Goldsmiths, Universitat de Londres) i el professor Giorgos Kallis (ICTA, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) han publicat un article titulat "És el Green Growth o creixement verd possible?" a la revista New Political Economy. L'article examina com s'articula les polítiques del creixement verd en els principals informes del Banc Mundial, l'OCDE (Organització per la Cooperació i el Desenvolupament Econòmic) i el Programa de Medi Ambient de les Nacions Unides, i prova la teoria contra evidències empíriques i models de relació entre el PIB i les emissions de materials i CO2, tot desestimant polítiques de creixement verd per fer front a l'emergència ecològica. ; El Dr. Jason Hickel (Goldsmiths, Universitat de Londres) y el profesor Giorgos Kallis (ICTA, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona) han publicado un artículo titulado "¿Es el Green Growth o crecimiento verde posible?" a la revista New Political Economy. El artículo examina cómo se articulan las políticas del crecimiento verde en los principales informes del Banco Mundial, OCDE (Organización para la Cooperación y el Desarrollo Económicos) y el Programa de Medio Ambiente de las Naciones Unidas, y prueba la teoría contra las evidencias empíricas y modelos de relaciones entre el PIB y las emisiones de materiales y CO2, desestimando así políticas de crecimiento verde para hacer frente a la emergencia ecológica. ; Dr Jason Hickel (Goldsmiths, University of London) and Prof Giorgos Kallis (ICTA, Autonomous University of Barcelona) have published a paper titled "Is Green Growth Possible?" in the journal New Political Economy. The paper examines green growth theory as articulated in major reports by the World Bank, the OECD (Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development) and the UN Environment Programme, and tests the theory against extant empirical evidence and models of the relationship between GDP and both material footprint and CO2 emissions, dismissing this way green growth policies to deal with ecological emergency.

This review essay introduces three recent contributions to the issue of deforestation from a political ecology perspective. The case studies examined, Western United States, Indonesia and India, exemplify the power relations and the distributional issues that surround the practices of forest management in these geographical contexts. Thus one common focus of the books is who benefits and who loses from the processes of environmental change induced by forest management. ; Aquest estat de la qüestió introdueix tres contribucions recents al tema de la desforestació utilitzant la perspectiva de l'ecologia política. Els casos d'estudi examinats, l'oest dels EUA, Indonèsia i l'Índia, palesen les relacions de poder i les qüestions distribucionals que envolten les pràctiques de gestió forestal en aquests tres contexts geogràfics. Un punt focal dels tres llibres és, doncs, qui se'n beneficia i qui hi perd pel que fa als processos de canvi ambiental generats per la gestió forestal. ; El presente estado de la cuestión introduce tres contribuciones recientes al tema de la deforestación utilizando la perspectiva de la ecología política. Los estudios de caso examinados, el oeste de los EEUU, Indonesia e India ejemplifican las relaciones de poder y las cuestiones distribucionales que rodean las prácticas de gestión forestal. Así, el nexo de unión de los tres libros es quién se beneficia y quién sale perdiendo en los procesos de cambio ambiental inducidos por la gestión forestal. ; Le présent état de la question propose trois contributions récentes sur l'étude de la déforestation selon la perspective de l'écologie politique. Les études de cas examinés, l'ouest des États Unis, l'Indonésie et l'Inde, fournissent des exemples sur les relations entre le pouvoir et les questions distributionnelles concernant les pratiques de gestion forestière. Ainsi, le point de concordance des trois ouvrages présente les bénéfices et les pertes au sein des processus de changements environnementaux liés à la gestion forestière.

This paper investigates how the prefiguration of an alternative future by social movements produces new space through a processual dynamic. A case study of the Indignados movement in Barcelona shows how mobilizations evolved from symbolizing an alternative future in the square to constructing alternatives in the city in the post-encampment period. In the alternative projects forged during the post-square period, activists re-appropriated urban spaces and transformed them, wanting to live differently and to produce a radically different city, now. We conceptualize these new spaces as 'prefigurative territories', integrating the seemingly divergent anarchist-inspired theory of prefiguration with Lefebvre's Marxist theory of space production. This integration helps to capture how participants strategized the type of evolution of the movement after the square as well as the type of space being produced. While the square's encampment was a détournement of a capitalist space with limited spatial creativeness, in post-square counter-spaces the prefiguration of a different society takes an offensive stance, setting concrete objectives to counter-plan the state's organization of space. Counter-spaces arise through a dialectical movement that preserves the first two dimensions of prefiguration, a consistency between means and ends and a proleptic foretaste of the future society, that realize and become the third dimension of created alternatives. This dialectical movement unfolds through three processes: experimentation, demonstration, and proliferation through 'open prefiguration'. Prefigurative territories, we argue, signal strategic horizons, but members struggle with conflicts when opening up.