READING EXERCISES

1. What is the main objective of the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations?
2. What is the standardized unit that measures resource use and waste?
3. What is the standard response to eradicating poverty?
4. What is the threshold of the Earth for adequately sustaining life?
5. According to the majority of people in middle- and high- income countries, what puts the planet
and society at risk?
6. How many hectares should each of us consume annually based on the resources available in the
planet?
7. What are two indicators of the quality of life give in the article?
8. What crisis in the planet would force us to slow down if we do not do so voluntarily?
9. According to Hickel, what must be done instead of urging poor countries to “catch up” with rich
ones?
10. How would the different areas of the world react to the idea of “de-development”?

Answers:

1. The main objective of the Sustainable Development of the United Nations is to eradicate poverty
by 2030.
2. The standard unit that measures resource use and waste is 1.8 global hectares annually.
3. To signs the UN’s new sustainable development goals (SDG’s) are about to offer a fresh plan for
how to save the world and the Growth.
4. $6,000 and consumption of 1.9 hectares is the threshold of the Earth for sustainability.
5. According to recent consumer research, 70% of people in middle- and high-income countries
believe overconsumption is putting our planet and society at risk.
6. 1.8 global hectares annually should each of us to consume base on the resources available in the
planet.
7. Some of the excess income and consumption.
8. Climate change
9. We should be thinking of ways to get rich countries to catch down to more appropriate levelsof
development..
10. It might prove to be a strong rallying cry in the global south. According to recent consumer
research, 70% of people in middle- and high-income countries believe overconsumption is
putting our planet and society at risk. They also believe we should strive to buy and own lee and
that doing so would not compromise our happiness.

QUESTION FOR REFLECTION

1. Why we must change our paradigm of growth and consumption to that “de-development”?
2. Why are the terms de-development, de-growth, and zero growth seemingly unacceptable to the
usual framework of human progress?
3. How have we been enframed by the notion of growth?
4. How do we improve our lives and yet reduce consumption?
5. What are the similarities and differences between Heidegger’s The Question Concerning
Technology and Hickel’s article?

ACTIVITY
Watch the video clip titled The Magician’s Twin: CS Lewis and the Case against Scientism. Reflect on the
notion of development they may evolve into scientism. In pairs, discuss and take note of your thoughts
on the video clip with the following guide questions. Be ready to share your insights in class.

1. What is scientism?
2. How is science comparable to magic?
3. Why is science more dangerous than magic?
4. What is the presented essence of modernity and its consequence?
5. What do we need for the sciences to be good?

Answers:

1. Scientism is a method of natural science should be bar by which every other discipline is judged.
World wars were rooted in abuses of science.
2. Lewis compared science to magic. Twins actually.
3 reasons:
 Religion – Something out there extraordinary. Can give you a sense of meaning. This magical
view of the world – Narnia, Lord of the Rings, etc – can be a religion for some people. Also,
some people in science saw the Darwinian model. People celebrate birthday on February 12
now.
 Credulity – in modern world, people will believe almost anything if it’s dressed up in the
name of science. Lewis intrigued by Freud’s psychoanalysis. The deconstruction of
everything leaves you with nothing. The Pilgrim’s regress book. Another was evoluntionism.
That matter could unconsciously guide itself. If my own mind is a product of the irrational,
how should I trust it about evoluntionism? Mind consistent with survival enhancing
behaviors, but not the ability to grasp truth.
 Power – the quest for power. Magicians wanted to have power over world in order to control
it. Modern science far more dangerous because magic doesn’t work at end of day, whereas
modern science can control and manipulate people. So if you don’t have and ethical basis
that is outside of the realm of science to control it, you have a dangerous future.
3. Bigger danger of scientism is desire to control. Science is more dangerous for several reasons.
The first and by far the most significant is that science is powerful force in reality, whereas magic
is only fiction.
4. There is a larger transcendent ethical sphere behind science.
5. You need for the people who put the science to use to be good people. Essentially, science itself
can be neither good nor bad. Science only seeks to understand how the world works and why it
works in that way. People can then take that knowledge and apply it for good or evil.