Trees on the boundary of the forest garden, very much alive
Gross Domestic Product is a pretty useless measure of a country’s prosperity, it’s time to factor in the true cost of economic activity by using life as the measure
Don’t know much about ecology, don’t know much economics either but what I do know is what a wonderful world it would be, if we used life as the measure, rather than human derived financial value (AKA money).
Excitingly, there is plenty of work going on in this area. Richard Murphy is an economist who advocates Sustainable Cost Accounting so that companies shoulder the true cost of carbon. The economist Kate Raworth has proposed Doughnut Economics as a way of balancing human needs and planetary boundaries.
We are at a crossroads, and the good news is that there are alternatives, there is vision and hope.
“Capitalism’s grow-or-die imperative stands radically at odds with ecology’s imperative of interdependence and limit. The two imperatives can no longer coexist with each other; nor can any society founded on the myth that they can be reconciled hope to survive. Either we will establish an ecological society or society will go under for everyone, irrespective of his or her status.”
Does this mean we need the ecological equivalent of Plato’s Philosopher Kings? An Ecologist Royalty, where the truly important decisions are made by a niche of ecologists, with business being harnessed for a greater good?
Just an idea…