There's so much disagreement in politics right now, but one thing that basically everyone

can agree on is that growth, i.g.p. growth is good. The more growth, the better. And the real

dividing line between left and right, Democrat and

Republican, Labour and Conservative is what you do with that growth. But the growth bit, that isn't

up for debate. As Kirstama recently put it, his agenda is growth, growth, growth.

Today's guest could not disagree more with that proposition or with that general worldview.

He thinks that the mindless pursuit of endless growth isn't just a bad thing, but actually

it's leading humanity to catastrophe. It can only lead to a very, very devastating outcome, not just for us, but for our planet, too.

His most recent book, Less is More, How De Growth Will Save the World, is fantastic.

One of my favorite books the last five years.

He's written about geopolitics, the political economy of development, foreign affairs.

Pretty significantly in recent years. You can find his work on substack. I am so looking forward to this conversation. Jason Hekel, welcome to downstream. Thanks very much. Nice to be with you. I have waited so long for this conversation. Me too. I have to say. I'm looking forward to it. Your work is fantastic. Your recent books are fantastic.

Your substack is fascinating.

We're going to cover so much material from all of those.

I want to jump in right at the deep end though because of course you are one of the big voices out

there on what climate collapse actually means, deep growth, the solutions,

etc. We're going to go on all of that. But let's start with the kind of diagnosis which underpins

all of it. Where are we headed by 2100 with regards to climate change if we carry on with the

present trajectory? Yeah, so the news on that is not good.

According to the last IPCC report, which comes out periodically, our current trajectory is

for about 3.2 degrees of global warming by the end of the century, above pre-industrial temperatures.

Looking at current policy trajectory, like policies that have been implemented,

...