Economics Needs a Rethink

As we covered earlier, our current model of economic growth, the one that is bringing some of the poor out of poverty, works to make the rich richer as well. Of course, this isn’t a practical problem for the poor if it brings them out of extreme poverty. The problem is that the size of the economy needed to achieve this outcome is not possible. So,

The Planetary Boundaries report released by the Stockholm Resilience Centre suggested there were nine boundaries we cannot cross and maintain a sustainable economy. They are climate change, stratospheric ozone, land use change, freshwater use, biological diversity, ocean acidification, nitrogen and

One person who was willing to risk political suicide was the visionary systems thinker Donella Meadows – one of the lead authors of the 1972 Limits to Growth report – and she didn’t mince her words. ‘Growth is one of the stupidest purposes ever invented by any culture,’ she declared in the late 1990s; ‘we’ve got to have an enough.’ In response to t

The next business frontier is rethinking everything we consume: what it does, where it comes from, where it goes, and how we can keep on getting its service from a net flow of very nearly nothing at all—but ideas.

8.10 Planetary Boundaries Source: J.