Seventeenth International Conference on Environmental, Cultural, Economic & Social Sustainability

Abstract

At the center of debates over policies to address climate change is the age-old tension between economic growth and environmental protection. The dominant narrative of unbridled economic growth measured by GDP has been brought into question by ecological economic scholars as the root cause of ecological damage, leading to a call for other ways to think about economic success that are more closely connected to material reality. With the newly elected U.S. President, Joe Biden, calling climate change an “existential threat” and making it a top priority for his administration amidst a deeply divided Congress, this debate is poised to come to the forefront of the country’s political discourse over the next four years. Through the lens of critical ecofeminism, I examine this tension as it appears in California’s newly proposed “Shared Roadmap to Prosperity,” aimed at addressing economic inequality in the state. Informed by the principles of ecological economics and post-growth theory, I suggest that, if pushed further, the proposed Roadmap could create a new narrative for discussing economic success in terms of equity and social justice issues. It presents an opportunity for activists and politicians to not only address the threat of climate change, but also the possibilities of the California Dream in the current age.