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The Degrowth Delusion: Dispelling One of History's Truly Terrible Ideas
“One of the most important books I’ve read in a decade at least. It’s a very long time since I read a book in just one day. That’s how good it is.” -- Mark Lynas
Is the idea of downsizing and doing less a recipe for environmental and social disaster?
Some ideas are truly terrible. They are so seductive and so pernicious that they reinfect humanity over and over again. They are so dangerous that they threaten millions or even billions of lives. They backfire so completely that they create the very problems they aim to solve.
Degrowth is one of those ideas.
If your instincts tell you degrowth is bunk, you are not alone. When we are told the solution to poverty is to make everyone poorer, alarm bells should go off. When we are told environmental sustainability requires dismantling the very systems that drive innovation, our bunk detectors should start pinging. When we are told human progress itself is the enemy, every fiber of our being should warn us to reject it as dangerous nonsense.
In The Degrowth Delusion, Dr. Adam Dorr – an environmental scientist, technology theorist, and the Director of Research at the renowned technology think tank RethinkX – shows us why the emperor has no clothes. Degrowth will not solve ecological and social problems, it would make them worse. Drawing on his team’s groundbreaking work and unparalleled understanding of technological progress, he explains why a stellar future awaits us which is far brighter than most have ever dared to dream, thanks to imminent disruptions in energy, transportation, food, and labor.
Will we tell our children and grandchildren about the challenges we defeated? Or will we tell them about the challenges that defeated us?
The Degrowth Delusion explains why we need to rethink environmentalism for the 21st Century based on sustainable superabundance for all.
Is the idea of downsizing and doing less a recipe for environmental and social disaster?
Some ideas are truly terrible. They are so seductive and so pernicious that they reinfect humanity over and over again. They are so dangerous that they threaten millions or even billions of lives. They backfire so completely that they create the very problems they aim to solve.
Degrowth is one of those ideas.
If your instincts tell you degrowth is bunk, you are not alone. When we are told the solution to poverty is to make everyone poorer, alarm bells should go off. When we are told environmental sustainability requires dismantling the very systems that drive innovation, our bunk detectors should start pinging. When we are told human progress itself is the enemy, every fiber of our being should warn us to reject it as dangerous nonsense.
In The Degrowth Delusion, Dr. Adam Dorr – an environmental scientist, technology theorist, and the Director of Research at the renowned technology think tank RethinkX – shows us why the emperor has no clothes. Degrowth will not solve ecological and social problems, it would make them worse. Drawing on his team’s groundbreaking work and unparalleled understanding of technological progress, he explains why a stellar future awaits us which is far brighter than most have ever dared to dream, thanks to imminent disruptions in energy, transportation, food, and labor.
Will we tell our children and grandchildren about the challenges we defeated? Or will we tell them about the challenges that defeated us?
The Degrowth Delusion explains why we need to rethink environmentalism for the 21st Century based on sustainable superabundance for all.
271 pages, Kindle Edition
Published October 13, 2025
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About the author
Adam Dorr
12 books6 followersAdam is the Director of Research at RethinkX, the renowned technology think tank founded by Tony Seba. He is an environmental social scientist and technology theorist whose recent publications have focused on the disruption of the global energy sector by new energy generation and storage technologies, as well as the implications of the energy, transportation and food disruptions for climate change.
Adam regularly presents RethinkX's work on stage, radio, podcasts, and television and has more than a decade of teaching, lecturing, and public speaking experience. He completed his MS at the University of Michigan's School for the Environment and Sustainability and his PhD at UCLA's Luskin School of Public Affairs.
Adam regularly presents RethinkX's work on stage, radio, podcasts, and television and has more than a decade of teaching, lecturing, and public speaking experience. He completed his MS at the University of Michigan's School for the Environment and Sustainability and his PhD at UCLA's Luskin School of Public Affairs.
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