Our global, highly networked industrial society is confronting the limits to growth in materials and energy use. 
This site highlights my participation in long-term entrepreneurial projects, short-term experiments, and ongoing research into adaptive, life-affirming alternatives to productivist ideology and culture. - James Magnus-Johnston

Projects ​+ Experiments

Portfolio

James' portfolio of entrepreneurial projects, short-term experiments, and ongoing research to explore adaptive life-affirming possibilities.  

Project portfolio

PhD Research

​Degrees of awareness and decision making ​in the anthropocene: how awareness of ecological decline affects choice architecture 

After years focusing on policy and governance-based solutions to social and ecological challenges, I have turned my attention why such choices — even those regarded as sound practice — are so often disregarded or delayed in their implementation. It's clear that societal awareness of ecological decline is growing and feeding collective grief and anxiety about the future. Yet we continue to study, live, and work in contexts that are irreconcilable with adaptation imperatives. 

How does ecological breakdown anchor our decision-making; our dreams, politics, and day-to-day lives? How are choices communicated? How will our choices affect social cohesion today and into the future?

Our diverse orientations toward the future will hold consequences for the capacity of our highly networked, industrial societies to adapt and maintain a reasonable quality of life into the near-term future. 

Study proposal

Courses + Knowledge

Conventional courses in political studies, business, and economics that incorporate a post-growth lens. 

COURSE PORTAL

More Ideas

Post Growth Institute
Post Carbon Institute / Resilience.org
​Post Growth Entrepreneurship
Canadian Mennonite University
Leadership for the Ecozoic
Economics for the Anthropocene
University of Leeds: A Good Life
Long Talks in the Woods
​CASSE

Online commentary

James writes online commentary on a range of topics related to post growth economics and political thought for The Post Carbon Institute and CASSE (steadystate.org). ​Here are some favourites: 

New Zealand Deprioritizes Growth to Improve Health & Wellbeing
​Social Solidarity Requires a Universal Basic Income
Outbreaks in the Anthropocene: Growth Isn't the Cure
Ecological Existential Dread
Distinguishing Capitalism From Growth
Guess What Trudeau Said About Growth?
What Kind of Future Does Your Degree Prepare You For?
What About Innovating Beyond the Growth Trap?
Peace, Love, and the Gift 
​Hedonism, Survivalism, and the Burden of Knowledge
​Are We Hard-Wired to Think We Can Grow Forever?
Piketty Acknowledges a Limit to Inequality–What About Limits to Growth?
Do We Need a Steady State Economy? One Politician’s Surprising Answer