(Below at the notes for my talk at the Torbay Festival, Western Australia, in October 2024. Due to time constraints, I gave an abridged version of the talk, however the feedback from attendees was very positive and I hope this opens the door for further local community collaboration on Degrowth in WA's great southern).
Hi, my name’s Michael Bayliss, and I have been blessed to call Albany home for just over 3 years.
Aside from being a musician and a volunteer for the Friends of Yakamia Boodja, I work as the Communications Manager for Sustainable Population Australia. I guess I could say I work in a niche industry. The core of what I do involves questioning our globalised, growth based economy and the often negative consequences this has on our communities and our natural world while exploring alternative ways of living. I host a podcast with my co-host Mark Allen who is here in the audience, called ‘Post-Growth Australia Podcast’, which explores many of these ideas.
The Festival of Torbay today has been filled to the brim with encouraging talks and workshops, all pointing the right way toward a sustainable future of grass roots, local community based voluntary simplicity.
We all know this is the way forward, so it is a terrible shame when festivals such as this are the exception and not the norm.
We have learnt much on the native flora and fauna of Tor Bay, and have been up skilled across many gardening and homesteading skills. Energised by all of this, we will all head home mostly to find that the majority of our communities continue to march in the opposite direction.
Mining companies will continue to knock on the doors of farmers insistent on fracking on their land. Resource hungry ring roads will be built to justify the ever expanding mining operations. The remnants of native bush, such as Albany’s Yakamia forest, will be mowed down for the sake of more poorly planned, poorly built urban sprawl, all in the name of ‘growth and jobs.’
I am definitely not saying this to be a party pooper or take away from any of the brilliant talks and workshops today. However, we must put this into context. Without system change, we find ourselves in a tiring and exhausting cycle of putting out spotfires while the scale of the problem escalates.
I was going to ask a rhetorical question to you all around whether anyone thinks it is possible to have infinite economic growth on a finite planet, however I believe we all know this this is physically impossible. It is David Attenborough who said that anyone who believes in infinite growth is “either a madman or an economist.”
Australia’s GDP has been increasing by 2% every year, which means a doubling of our entire economy every 35 years. In the land of exponential growth things escalate quickly to the point where the size and scale is untenable, despite what our politicians and experts might try and convince us otherwise.
I recently found another excellent quote online: “You have to ask yourself: if our economic system actively destroys the biosphere and fails to meet most people’s basic needs, then what is actually the point”. This quote is from Jason Hickel who is an anthropologist at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and author of “Less is More.”
Katherine Trebeck, Senior Strategic Advisor for the Wellbeing Economy Alliance, says (with slight paraphrase) “Our Western societies needs to come to terms with the fact that we have ‘arrived’. We don’t actually need to keep growing.” She is co-author of the book ‘The Economics of Arrival.’
It has been nearly 55 years since the book ‘The limits to growth’ was released in 1972. In it, they used computer modelling to explore the consequences of pursuing exponential economic and population growth, resulting in a collapse of society by mid 21st century. So far our trajectory has eerily followed the models of the ‘business as usual’ scenario outlined in this study.
This decade, to what we call ‘the decade of consequence’ in the podcast, the environmental consequences are definitely tangible. Globally, we have breached almost all planetary boundaries. In the age of anthropocene, the numbers of non-human or non-livestock animals are in freefall (the number of humans, not so much). Subsequent Federal State of the Environment reports detail our natural world in severe decline. Human interference is always cited as the main culprit, with urban expansion and population growth now the predominate drivers of local environmental decline. The last federal State of the Environment Report was almost not released, perhaps by the shame of hard truths held in those pages. I don’t believe that WA has released a ‘state of the environment report’ since 2007, which is telling.
If we can agree that infinite growth on a finite planet, a finite continent, a finite south-west, are not inherently great ideas, what are the alternatives? Thankfully, many viable alternatives have been proposed. These include the Steady State Economy from the late Herman Daly, the Doughnut Economy championed by the great Kate Raworth, or planned Degrowth as championed by the Post-Growth Institute.
The Post-Growth Australia Podcast has explored many of these ideas. We have interviewed Ted Trainer, who advocates for voluntary simplicity. We have interviewed Charles Massy and David Holmgren, two very well known Australian advocates of permaculture and regenerative farming. We have interviewed John Seed, where we explore the idea that our broken economic systems stem from a deeper problem arising from our collective disconnection from the natural world. Only by relearning to place ourselves as part of the natural world, rather than trying to dominate it, can we live in sustainably and in harmony.
PGAP also focuses on grass roots game changers here in WA. We have interviewed Murray Gomm from Oranje Tractor winery. We have interviewed spokes people from The Friends of Yakamia and Save Perth Hills who are active in stemming the tide of the latest land release or overdevelopment project. We have interviewed Larry Blight, Menag cultural educator. Last but not least, we have interviewed Professor Anne Poelina, a Nyikina Warrwa woman from the Kimberley region and chair of the Martuwarra Fiztory River Council, and lead author of the book “Declaration of Peace for Indigenous Australians and Nature”.
So, many great minds and ideas out there, but what can we do as Davids against the Goliaths of psychopathic multinational corporations and the politicians who serve time as their apologists for a few years in the promise of a cushy job in the gas industry? This is where I invite you to think about where from here and let’s have the conversation. Firstly, if the concept of ‘degrowth is new to you I strongly encourage you to do your own research and investigation, I am happy to give you some pointers. Secondly, it would be great to see some of us come together, to create united front advocating for post-growth in the great southern. While we continue to engage in our respective causes, we must work toward some common cause of systemic change so that we’re not constantly battling spotfires while losing sight of what the underlying symptoms are – that there are 8 billion of us as part players in an exploitative economic system. This is where Holistic Activism, a movement founded by Mark, can help join the dots. He can tell you more after the talk. If population growth in the South West is a concern of yours, I’m happy to tell you more about Sustainable Population Australia and their efforts to encourage a hygenic, non-divisive perspective to the debate.
At the very least, it is important that there is some united blow back from the community every time our leaders excuse ever more degradation of our beautiful communities in the name of progress, development and growth.
Thank you.