Degrowth

geteilt von: https://feddit.org/post/1531175

Universal Basic Services (UBS) is an alternative case to UBI.

Under UBS, the provision of free public services must go beyond health or education to cover other basic necessities (e.g., housing, care, transport, information, nutrition).

UBS can be more egalitarian with a strong redistributive performance and impact on income inequalities.

UBS can also be more sustainable by decarbonizing the economy in a just way - rather than disproportionally loading the costs on the lower income brackets - and by supporting sustainable consumption corridors.

More info here: https://overshoot.footprintnetwork.org/newsroom/country-overshoot-days/

Tourism is a product of capitalism and only serves to destroy the planet. Tourism seems innocuous enough. People get to see the world… and then what? In which way does it benefit the world? Don't get me wrong, there are people who study or work and so need to travel, but for the vast majority of people, they're just accelerating the death of the planet with their plane travel and hiking up prices for locals with their tenure, in many cases even causing homelessness. Recreational travel is a problem for everyone and by limiting it, we can reduce flights by at least half, rent prices can be slashed and food and beverage prices can come down.

I would like to recommend a book. It's a short read, but food for thought.

cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/22272048

"In the largest public sector trial of the four-day week in Britain, fewer refuse collectors quit," reports the Guardian, "and there were faster planning decisions, more rapid benefits processing and quicker call answering, independent research has found." South Cambridgeshire district council's controversial experiment with a shorter working week resulted in improvements in performance in 11 out of 24 areas, little or no change in 11 areas and worsening of performance in two areas, according to analysis of productivity before and during the 15-month trial by academics at the universities of Cambridge and Salford... The multi-year study of the trial involving about 450 desk staff plus refuse collectors found:

• Staff turnover fell by 39%, helping save £371,500 in a year, mostly on agency staff costs.
• Regular household planning applications were decided about a week and a half earlier.
• Approximately 15% more major planning application decisions were completed within the correct timescale, compared with before.
• The time taken to process changes to housing benefit and council tax benefit claims fell.... Under the South Cambridgeshire trial, which began in January 2023 and ran to April 2024, staff were expected to carry out 100% of their work in 80% of the time for 100% of the pay. The full trial cut staff turnover by 39% and scores for employees' physical and mental health, motivation and commitment all improved, the study showed. "Coupled with the hundreds of thousands of pounds of taxpayer money that we have saved, improved recruitment and retention and positives around health and wellbeing, this brave and pioneering trial has clearly been a success," said John Williams, the lead council member for resources...

Scores of private companies have already adopted the approach, with many finding it helps staff retention. Ryle said the South Cambridgeshire results "prove once and for all that a four-day week with no loss of pay absolutely can succeed in a local government setting".

Our World in data has already updated their charts using the current UN world population prospect:

Fertility rate:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-per-woman-un

Population projections:

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/population-with-un-projections?tab=map&country=~CHN

Some of the highlights are. Nearly all countries in the Americas, all countries in Europe and most countries in Asia have below replacement fertility rates. The only continent with a fertiltiy rate above replacement is Africa with 4.07 in 2023. Besides Afghanistan all countries with fertility rates above 4 are in Africa. Even above 3 is rarer outside of Africa and Central Asia. China is at a total fertility rate of 1. That means every new generation is half the size of the previous one and the population has a fairly high chancing halving over within this century.

According to the data the number of births globally has peaked in 2012. Since then it is down a bit.

We will likely see large regions have structural population declines in the coming years. Especially rural areas in middle income countries will loose a lot of people. Due to the young ones moving to cities, with a stable to falling population. At the same time migration will always be a big topic. Especially since racism is much stronger for black people then for brown ones. So with Sub Sahrah Africa being the region with the most births, this is really the only region able to provide enough migrants to prevent population decline for other regions.

Anyway good news in general. It really shows we only have to create a sustainable economy once and then it becomes easier to keep it running, thanks to lower population.