Can the climate be saved with "green shrinkage" or with "green growth"?

Zeitungsverlag GmbH & Co Waiblingen KG (including Waiblinger Kreiszeitung, Schorndorfer Nachrichten) is organizing an exciting discussion event on 16.10.2023 in the Theaterhaus Stuttgart-Feuerbach with the question: "Green" by all means! - But can the climate be saved with "green shrinking" or with "green growth"?

Participating are: Ulrike Herrmann (taz) and Roman Zitzelsberger (district manager of IG-Metall) - moderated by Michael Zeiß, journalist, former SWR editor-in-chief.

About the event it is said: By 2045, Germany should be climate neutral. But economic growth and climate protection are "incompatible," says best-selling author Ulrike Herrmann. The climate crisis is aimed at the heart of capitalism, because prosperity and growth are only possible if technology is used and energy is burned. But sun, wind and water power will never be enough to fuel global growth. The aim should be a circular economy in which, in principle, only what can be recycled is consumed. This would also herald the end of capitalism, "which is only stable as long as it grows.

Green shrinkage in the car and machine manufacturing state of Baden-Württemberg? Roman Zitzelsberger, the powerful IG-Metall district leader for Baden-Württemberg, doesn't think much of it. He is successfully fighting for wage percentages and to preserve jobs in the digital and ecological transformation. In order to achieve the turnaround in a socially acceptable way, green growth is necessary from the metalworkers' point of view. Investments in the future are demanded from companies, and an active industrial and structural policy from politicians. For example, subsidizing electricity prices so that Porsche can build a battery factory in Germany. Ulrike Herrmann, however: "There is no such thing as green growth."

Admission is free. However, registration is required - at: anmeldung@neuer-montagskreis.de

Image sources: Wikipedia, Ulrike Herrmann at the Frankfurt Book Fair 2022 - by Elena Ternovaja / Roman Zitzelsberger, IG Metall BaWü

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