Economic Degrowth as an Alternative to the Global Ecological Risk

Abstract

The recent global health crisis caused by the new coronavirus (COVID-19) has proved to be an ecological crisis. This is ultimately due to the side effect of the reflexive global environmental risk. This article seeks to analyze the connection between the pandemic, ecological risk in modernity and the degrowth theory. As an alternative to (un)sustainable development, we seek to propose degrowth as an economically, socially and environmentally sustainable strategy for greater resilience to ecological risks or even suppression of their causes. The research problem involves how it is possible to think about environmental sustainability in a development system harnessed to economic growth. It is concluded that the emergence and dissemination of new zoonotic species will be likely if there is not a reassessment of the current pattern of human economy. This is due to the maintenance of the logic of economic growth which, as part of the concept of sustainable development, means that environmental sustainability is engulfed by the economy. In the preparation of the text, the inductive method was adopted as a research methodology and the bibliographic documentary research as a research technique.