Prosperity Without Growth: Tim Jackson PART ONE

Is our economy fit for purpose in a low carbon world? Can economic growth deliver us from the threat of catastrophic climate change, or is it the engine thats driving us relentlessly towards it?

Speaking today at a high-level debate in central London to mark the publication of his controversial new book Prosperity without Growth, Tim Jackson argues that building a new economic model fit for a low carbon world is the most urgent task of our times.

The current model isnt working, says Prof Jackson, a top sustainability adviser to the UKs four governments. Instead of delivering widespread prosperity, our economies are undermining wellbeing in the richest nations and failing those in the poorest. The prevailing system has already led us to the brink of economic collapse and if left unchecked it threatens a climate catastrophe.

Prosperity without Growth substantially updates Jacksons groundbreaking report for the Sustainable Development Commission. Launched earlier this year to great acclaim, the report rapidly became the most downloaded document in the Commissions nine year history and in recent weeks has contributed to a burgeoning debate about economic growth and its consequences for people and planet.

As world leaders prepare to meet in Copenhagen to forge a new climate deal, Jacksons analysis provides a salutary warning against complacency. Global carbon emissions have risen 40% since 1990 and will continue to rise inexorably unless action is taken urgently. By the year 2050, the carbon content of each dollar of economic activity will need to be a staggering 130 times lower than it is today, if we are to make room for much-needed development in the poorer nations and remain within a 2oC warming.

By the end of this century, well need an economy in which each and every dollar of economic activity is taking carbon out of the atmosphere, says Jackson. What does such an economy run on? What does it look like? What kind of economic activities take place in such a world? Nobody knows the answer to these questions. But its fanciful to suppose we can achieve such a transformation without seriously examining the dynamics of the growth-based model.

Jackson admits the task is not a trivial one. We are caught in a profound dilemma, he suggests. Economic growth is the default mechanism for achieving social stability. And at the same time it drives the scale of ecological damage. Whats needed now is an urgent commitment to building a different kind of economic system, one which puts people and planet at its heart, Jackson claims. For the advanced economies of the western world, prosperity without growth is no longer a utopian dream. It is a financial and ecological necessity.

Prosperity Without Growth: Economics for a Finite Planet (Earthscan, £12.99) is available from all good bookshops and www.earthscan.co.uk

Category:

Education

Tags:

• ecology
• economics
• sustainability
• ecological literacy
• economic crisis

[punkrockparents]

Bullshit...there ARE OTHER MODELS of resource extraction, allocation and trade. This is what a real economy is, and should be, jackass..not something used to exploit and enslave only masquerading as a civilized economy.

[punkrockparents]

He speaks of politicians as if they are not virtually one in the same game with economists...both in league with the "butcher"...the very "butcher" they then try to distance themselves from when their gig is up. Trying to sell snake oil solutions for the problems they helped to create and continuing to profit. Prosperity without growth, in this system, is only possible if you are already on the top of the pyramid scheme growth model.

[punkrockparents]

Seems our current economic system will deliver profound change in that it will turn about six billion of the disenfranchised into biofuel by 2050. The profit driven monetary system works to create scarcity and suppresses innovation...humans are nothing but another resource to be exploited for profit.

[punkrockparents]

These people talk in code and lies. "Growth model", what a joke.  As if the entire monetary based economic system is not based on an abusive and ultimately annihilative "growth model". The only thing that grows is debt and destruction and the further consolidation of "wealth" and power. They speak as if their "model" needs to only be tweaked.or have some wrinkles ironed out of it....as if they only miscalculated a bit.

[punkrockparents]

What's unfair about the statement is that growth has "delivered it's benefits somewhat unequally"...what a fucking understatement. SOMEWHAT unequally?! When estimates are that the Rothschild family alone controls an entire half of the worlds wealth? Tell the truth economist. Money is only created out of debt and works to enslave the masses. There are only resources (ours), labor and innovation (us)...money is fiction.

[SchumacherCollegeUK]

Tim Jackson in visiting Schumacher College, Devon, UK, this autumn, where he will be taking a course titled 'To buy or not to buy?'

For more details please go to the College website -

worldwideweb(dot)schumachercol­lege(dot)org(dot)uk(slash)cour­ses(slash)to-buy-or-not-to-buy­-consumption-growth-and-prospe­rity

[effinmedia]

Really look forward to seeing more on this thesis! Please please tour abroad! In Australia: The Monthly (online) video lectures, Fora (online). I expect an uphill battle but your bravery is commended by this consumer!!!! Save us from our back pockets!