 And welcome to Moments with Melinda. This morning, my guest is Robert Costanza. How are you, sir? I'm doing well. How are you doing? Thank you so much. You're joining in from London. Yes, I am. Yes, you are. So thank you for being on my show. Let me tell my viewers just a little bit about you because there is so much. But let me share with my viewers. Robert Costanza is Professor of Ecological Economics at the Institute for Global Prosperity at University College London. He is a fellow in the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and the Royal Society of Arts in the UK. He is an overseas expert in the Chinese Academy of Science and currently a senior fellow at the Stockholm Resilience Center in Stockholm, Sweden. An affiliate fellow at the Gund Institute at the University of Vermont and a Detow Master of Ecological Economics at the Detow Masters Academy in Shanghai, China, and as an honorary professor at Australian National University. Does that sound about right? Yeah, that's enough. All small piece of who you are and what you've done. And I got in my research review, Bob, I just got exhausted. So I don't know how you do all you do, but the list goes on and on about all your accomplishments. I could say the same about you. Well, thank you. I'm going to start with my viewers to understand that you, you, it is written that you are a global pioneer of transdisciplinary research at the complex intersection of dynamic human economic and social systems and stress ecosystems that is informing the models of and pathways to sustainable prosperity. Now, in layman's terms, can you explain to my viewers your life's journey through your work and what it is you hope to change in the human dynamic to save our species? Yeah. Okay, I'll try. Maybe I'll go back to my PhD work which was in systems ecology. I studied with HTO at the University of Florida and so the idea there was to look at the whole system. Not just the pieces but how all the pieces, you know, fit together and how they behave, you know, over time, what's the dynamic interactions among all of those systems. I think we don't, we don't spend enough time thinking in that way about our complex world. That led to, you know, trying to incorporate economics and how the economic system functions, you know, into the into the whole picture so it's not just the market. It's really the economy embedded within society embedded within the rest of nature and understanding that it's the rest of nature we're part of nature as well. It's us and all the other parts of the system. So I think that's a, you know, a needed perspective if we're really going to create a sustainable and desirable future, which I think is what we're all trying to do. We want to create a better world where, you know, we can provide well-being, sustainable well-being for, or at least a majority if not all the people on the planet. So to do that we have to understand how that system works, and we also have to understand how to, how to transform, you know, from where we are into, into this, into this better world. So that's been my, my quest, I guess, over, over that time. And as you know, I spent, I spent eight years there at the University of Vermont. And the, the, the Gund Institute there back in 2002 as a, as a way to pursue that, that, that broader agenda and the whole field of ecological economics is really about, about that. You know, how do, how do we understand the whole system it's a transdisciplinary approach and I don't think we'll, we'll really be able to solve these problems from the perspective of any one academic discipline, because those are are usually too narrow in their, they're not putting the whole system together. And I think there's been, yeah. It's all interconnected, right? Yeah, it's all connected. That is the basic principle of economics. But I think it needs to be taken much more seriously, particularly now in the, in the Anthropocene Epic, you know, that we're currently in where we know that our impacts on our ecological life support system. And our impacts on our, our social life support system are also being, being threatened, you know, so we're, we're facing many crises going forward. And we, we are approaching several tipping points, both on the biophysical side, but also, hopefully on the, on the social side, you know, if we really want to solve these problems, I think we have to really make the kind of transformational changes that that are needed. Well, we're going to get into that in my interview, because I unfortunately I may not be as optimistic as you are. Now we both are the same age. We were born in the same year. We were actually born in the same state. But that's about all we have in common, but we did work together a little bit at the Gund Institute and I'll get into that in a little later on the local economy. Now you have co-authored over 600 scientific papers and 28 books, and your work has been cited more than 130,000 times in Google Scholar. You've been interviewed more than 350 times. And here I am, you're 350 first, which I'm very, very honored to have the opportunity to spend some time with you, Bob. Now I want to focus on who you are. I mean, what, who is Bob Costanza and what brought you to your extraordinary life's work, bringing together the power of economics to support the future of our species. Talk to us a little bit about that and share a little bit about your childhood. Okay, well, I was born in a little town, I was born in Pittsburgh, actually Pennsylvania at Allegheny General Hospital, but the town I spent my first seven years in was kind of an infamous little town in Pennsylvania called DeNora, Pennsylvania. And two years before I was born, they had this smog incident where there was a temperature inversion in this, you know, a little river valley steel mill town, and they had a temperature inversion that lasted for a week. And the steel mill just kept pumping stuff, you know, out into the valley and filled it up with smog. And that smog incident caused 20 immediate deaths and several deaths afterwards and my mother had a miscarriage as a result of that incident. And I think it, yeah, it was one of the first sort of fatal air pollution incidents in the world. And that was followed by similar incidents in London in 1952 and LA the famous LA smog and I think all of those together led to eventually the Clean Air Act and the creation of EPA and etc. You know, the environmental movement, but it was the recognition that, you know, this, this sort of rapid progress and focus on industrial production and growth had some significant side effects, negative side effects that needed to be addressed if we really wanted to create a better world. So another result of that incident was they closed down the steel mill eventually, and my father and family and we all moved to South Florida, where the air was cleaner. And I grew up mainly in, in South Florida, and went eventually went to went to school at the University of Florida. Yeah. Well, I was raised right next to the Bethlehem Steel Mills. Okay, so we even more in common. Yeah. And I have I carry that, you know, in my lungs. I mean it's there when you're raised. Yeah, and I never read Deborah Davis's book when smoke ran like water. I have not. I think take a look at that one is really it's a it's a good history of the denora incident and some of the other ones I was talking about and and and the repercussions of that. And there are people in this country who would like to return to those days who would like to get rid of all the regulations and go back to where we're all breathing really stinky air and then killing ourselves so. Yeah. Go ahead. No, go ahead. Next question. Your childhood is really important and that's and that's that's now I'm not so sure how clean Florida is how was I think coming to Vermont was probably a good thing for you to do because Vermont's air still is pretty pure when she say. Yeah, no, I really love my time. My time in Vermont. Beautiful, beautiful state. Yeah. And we do miss. Especially those long winters, you know, with snow up to that. I love that. I just, I just, I'm a big winter person. But anyway, and back in the days in Pennsylvania, I remember six foot snowstorms or in five foot snowstorms that we used to have back in the day when we don't have those anymore. So at what point in your life, Bob, did you realize that the power of the purse had the ability to wake up humans to save their planet. I mean that connection between the economy and the planet and humans well being. I'll go back to my, my PhD days, because I think that that opened my eyes to how these things were all connected. And, and you, and you know that that economics does control a lot of the decision making that goes on at many different different scales. My PhD research had to do with land use changes and land use planning and what happened to South Florida, you know, historically over time and how that whole sort of development pattern was was going on and what was driving it. You know, and obviously was not driving it in a direction that that maximized the quality of life, where the, where the population is driving it in direction that maximized, you know, the, the profits of the developers and, and, and other feedbacks like that. So, you know, if you want to change those, those kinds of systems, you have to understand, you know, how, how they work and where the leverage points are. And that was what I've been trying to do since, since then. That's been your life. Yeah. So, so you're, you're an intellectual and, and in many ways, the researcher and, and, and a scientist. But politically, if we can't change our world politically, that makes things a lot harder, wouldn't you say to be well I think I think like, like I was getting at it's all part of this larger system and how we govern ourselves is a is a huge, huge controlling factor. So how do we make, how do we make decisions, you know, as, as groups at multiple scales, you know, from, from families to companies to, to countries, you know, to the, to the whole planet. So the process of decision making, I think is a is a key part of it and governance governance in general, you know, and I think, I think democracy is a great idea, and we ought to try it. How do we actually get a truly democratic governance system because I think currently in the United States and in many other countries I call themselves democracies they're not really democracies and they're plutocracies and various versions that are controlled by by special interests, not by the, not by the, by the will of the, of the people. And I think that as part of that process that that there's an effort to divide and conquer rather than to, than to build a shared vision. And I think that's what we're, that's what we're seeing. So, how do we build, you know, a strong and a true democracy. Vermont, I think has some interesting examples, you know, the Vermont town meeting as a, as a sort of direct democracy kind of kind of thing is one is one example that we could, we could potentially build on but, but I think the, yeah, we need to do something quite, quite different and more with our governance institutions and I think people are beginning to realize that, that the current, the current system is really not working, is not leading to a better life for most people. And that is a huge problem but it's also an opportunity, you know, that that you need those sort of crises in order to, to make the kinds of changes that I think we're, we're after. So, the latest book I published is, is titled addictive to growth. What's the societal therapy that we need to overcome these problems and framing our problem as an addiction I think is, is useful because it makes you realize that simply, simply understanding the problem and simply understanding the solutions is often not enough, you know, to make any significant behavioral change we've known about these problems for, for decades, and we've also known about the solutions for decades but we haven't really made progress because we've been, you know, framing those solutions and in a more of a confrontational way in a way that doesn't necessarily lead to behavior change. So, I think that's, that's our challenge how do we, how do we really understand that process well enough to begin to build the therapy that we need to overcome these, to lock in, you know, the sort of the addiction that we're, that we're stuck in. Well, it also comes down to inequality because the people who are, who are on the bottom rung of our, of our economic well-being don't have the ability to think about things the way that other people do. And even with the town hall meetings in Vermont, if you have an hourly job and you can't take a Tuesday off to go to town meeting your vote isn't counted. Yeah. Anyway, go ahead on that. No, no, that's, that's a huge issue. And I think that's, that's something that really reduces our societal well-being, you know, the fact that we're, we're destroying our social capital by having such huge gaps in income, income inequality. And I think that's, that's part of what has to, that has to change. And it certainly can change. I mean, you know, since at the end of World War II until 1980 or so we were reducing income inequality in the US and in most other countries. You know, we were, we had, you know, progressive taxation, we had, we had a, we're building the welfare state. And it was only after the sort of Reagan Thatcher neoliberal changes that that started going back in the opposite direction. So it leads, it means that we do know, we didn't know how to solve the problems. But it's going to take, it's going to take a different political, you know, agenda. And I think that's got to be forced, you know, by a large civil society movement. Movement of movements. I mean, it's not, it's going to take the coming together of many of the, of the movements that are, that are out there today for climate justice and social justice and etc. You know, we're all, I think, heading in the right, in the same direction, but are not really coordinated. There's a group I'm involved with called the well-being economy alliance that's trying to do just that. They're bringing all of these movements together. And I think until we can get that critical mass and have it actually begin to affect the decision making and the system. And yeah, I don't think we'll be making much progress. And time's running out. So can you talk to my viewers a bit about some of the solutions that you have uncovered, whereby the way that we look at our work and our economic well-being can and must consider the planet. Yeah. Well, I think one of the key things is to first recognize that we have to change our fundamental goals for for economies for societies. I mean, part of the part of the problem is that that the conventional economics and politics, you know, is focused on GDP growth as being the solution to all problems, you know, and if economies stop growing in GDP terms, then it's a disaster. And in fact, we know that that's, that's not the case. That, in fact, GDP growth has some very negative side effects that we've been able to to document and measure and compare with GDP. And we haven't been making genuine progress when you look at the impacts of growing income inequality and growing environmental damage. You know, that sort of cancels out all of the growth in GDP income and GDP growth has only gone to a very small fraction of the population, the top one or even the top 0.1% of the population. So, you know, making that, that clear that we're, it's not GDP growth that we need. It's really improvement in societal well-being. And what is that involved? It means, you know, a more equitable distribution of wealth and income. It means, you know, a societal floor, you know, universal basic services or universal basic income so that no one should be left behind. It means, you know, staying within planetary boundaries. You know, dealing with climate change, climate change is one of our major planetary boundaries that we're exceeding but also biodiversity loss and nitrogen cycling. So there's a, you know, a list of these, but recognizing that we live on a finite planet and that we have to understand those limitations, but also understand how to produce well-being for everyone. And yeah. So you're thinking around the kind around the world because you are a worldly man who certainly understands other countries that the socialist societies are the ones that are caring for humanity. I mean, even if you just go across the border from Vermont into Canada, it's very different the way that they take care of. And in this country of lines and lines and miles and miles in San Francisco, miles and miles of homeless who are being ignored and let go by our society. So the whole concept of a socialist political framework. Well, certainly Scandinavia and countries that take these ideas much more seriously are doing I think a lot better. Not that they couldn't also be improved. And what you want to call it, you know, if you want to call it socialism and I'm happy with that term, but I love that. You call it something you call it. Yeah. But what you're saying Bob is that when we lift society up the planet he the planet has a time to heal when people are struggling and they're suffering. They can't think about the things that we need to think about in order to save our species. Yeah, and well we need to take society and we need to take the rest of nature into account so I think it could be, you know, eco eco ism as well, or a whole system ism. I like this, I actually like the Swedish term log on, which means just enough that everybody, everybody should have just enough, not too much not too little. And that philosophy for life I think we'd all be much better off as they are as they are in Scandinavia in general. So, so where would you, to be perfectly honest where do you see us as a species in the direction that we're going. Well, I think we're at a critical juncture, you know, I mean I think his historically civilizations collapse and have collapsed. So, I think there's, you know, there's there's certainly a good likelihood that that this civilization can can follow along unless we can, we can do something differently. And I think we have certainly have the tools now to be able to see the future, much, much better than these historical societies have been able to and we can also see the, you know, the possibilities, much better than historical societies had been able to. So whether we can use that information in in new ways to prevent the collapse and to make a smoother transition into a steady state, you know, sort of sustainable and desirable future. I think that's the, that's the challenge and I think that's what we, we have to work toward. Do you feel that the younger our hope, because our generation. I mean, you, I'm the 60s generation civil rights. You know, human rights, women's rights, disability rights, racial rights, we were all about that Earth Day was our generation but we failed, we failed. You know, other generations that have come after us and, and I feel like some of the future, the hope for the future for humanity is embedded in our youth. Would you agree with that. Well, certainly, as it always has been. But, and I think it's not, it's not a hitting one generation against others. But I think, I think we all need to work toward that toward a better future. You know, us, us oldsters to leave a better legacy, but it's for who for the, for the younger generation. So, you believe in all of our interests. Sorry. You believe we've done that. Not very effective. We haven't. I feel like. So I, so I wanted to, that's not, but that's not a reason to give up. No, or, or to harp on, you know, the, the remaining problems. I think the, I think the issue is how do you, how do you make progress and how do you, how do we overcome the barriers that were, that we're still facing. Right. So it's, you know, it's, it's easy to get, it's easy to give up. Well, I will never give up, but I personally, when I'm doing lectures, I always somewhat apologize for the fact that, that we tried, we did try and somehow somehow we didn't do enough. And here we are, where we are today as a species. So, why are humans so reluctant to move in directions that are in their best interest. In their best interest for the children's children. It really does come down to economics. And so often it's the money that stands in the way of progress. Talk to us about that. Well, I think it's more the, the addiction that stands in the way of progress and money is money is a vehicle, you know, for, for motivating that it's, you know, it's, we end up in these, these social traps, as they're called. It's a situation where we feel like we've invested so much in the current, the current system that we can't, that we can't change. So there's some really interesting games we could talk about that, that show how that, how that functions and how psychologically we tend to, we tend to, you know, put too much emphasis on trying to preserve what we have as opposed to change things for the change better. So I think it's a psychological issue with the way humans behave. But I think, I think it's also something that that can be overcome with the right therapy. So who provides that therapy. It's a societal problem and I think that therapy has to come from at least parts of society. And I think for the situation we're in now it's going to take, like I said, a movement of movements it's going to take, you know, not just the younger generation but the, but the whole population that that recognizes that we can't go on the way we are but what's the missing element now I think is a clear shared vision of the kind of world that we're trying to create. You know, people don't, don't have that shared vision they don't see what's possible. And I think that's what we, that's what one thing I've been trying to, to produce how do you, how do you convey that we could have a much better world where, you know, inequality was much lower where we're dealing with climate change we're solving all these problems we've achieved all of the SDGs, and everyone's going to be better off you're going to be worse off than they are now because I think the conventional mindset is oh, you know, if we, we do all these environmental things everybody's income is going to go down and we'll be better we'll be worse off well, I think that's the opposite of what what the case would be. For the majority of people and even, and even for the rich people, you know, chasing their peers and trying to keep up with, you know, the other billionaires does not make does not make people particularly happy. So if you really, you really want if you really want to improve people's life satisfaction and well being. You know, hold different kind of social and economic system, and one that can actually help preserve the planet as well. But we do have humans on the planet who do control most of the power on the wealth and they continue to do to, I mean, not all of them, but to basically destroy the planet for their own gain. And that's part of the, that's part of the addiction. You know, it's that it's a narrow subset that's being positively reinforced by the current system and doesn't want that system to change, even if it does lead to the long term destruction of the system. So, yeah, those are the forces that we need to deal with. We have to deal with it in a world where democracy is being attacked and especially in this country. I mean, thank heavens for the Supreme Court's decision yesterday. But it, it, our democracy is being attacked and fascism is taking hold. And how do we create anything like a shared vision when those who have the wealth want to keep control of humanity's future. I mean, it's, it has to come down to the people rising up. Yeah. And, and making that change and unfortunately, well, or fortunately, humans will do that. Right. Do you do you will and they have in the they have in the past, risen up and challenged and challenged the regimes that that we're suppressing them. So we've seen historically, you know, both sides of both sides of the story, both of both, the relations collapse but also, but also we've seen, you know, radical transformations happen in relatively short periods of time. So it's not like it's impossible. And I think we are, you know, at a in a period when there are so many, you know, converging crises that, you know, in a sense, it opens an opportunity it opens the door for, for, you know, significant changes like we're talking about. And in fact, you could argue that, you know, you don't, you don't really have a chance to make those changes until some, some, some major crises, you know, have made it a possibility. So, you know, if the smoke in New York City and Vermont remains in the air for for long enough and we begin to see, you know, the implications of the loss of our democratic institutions. I think it's things can turn around and relatively quickly. Relatively quickly, I'm hearing that from the, from the mind of Bob Costanza. Relative. So your hope for the future. So tell me your hope for the future of our species. Give me, give us something positive to think about as we're joking on the air. From your brilliant mind. What hope do you have? No, I think it's, I think there is a positive vision that's, that's possible. I didn't, I didn't say it's, you know, inevitable. It certainly is equally likely, if not more likely that the collapse scenario would happen. But I think it's our challenge. It's our, it's our opportunity to go in the other direction and to say, you know, let's, let's create this, this better world for ourselves for our children, et cetera. And I think getting that message out, getting that hopeful message out, can motivate, you know, a large enough fraction of the population to really make these changes happen. How do we get that message out? That's that I leave to you, Melinda. Well, I'm leaving it as your book addicted to growth. Society therapy for a sustainable well being future. And this is your book that you just released. Yes. And it's available in local bookstores. And so I want to encourage my viewers to pick up a copy of Robert Costanza's new book. This is your life's work. You've been doing this since I met you back when we were trying to put together a local, our local currency. Remember that? Oh yeah. That was Burlington, Burlington bread. Burlington bread, man. I mean, I still have a few in my drawer. What a novel. And it ended up morphing into a VBS project of the barter system. And it ended this, you know, local and all these businesses now through VBS are basically bartering their services and stuff. So it, it did create some really good stuff and from, I think, months, kind of leading the way on a lot of this stuff, would you say? Oh, for sure. Yeah, definitely. We are. So what is your next project you have anything that you're working on or you're just taking your book around and moving? Several things. I was, I was actually at a, at a conference at the European Parliament several weeks ago on beyond growth. So they are actually talking about this, you know, and the European Parliament and the president of the commission was there and gave it, gave it a nice speech about limits to growth and how we need to move beyond, beyond GDP as that. So I think there is some, some progress being made. And I think we need several things. One is an alternative to GDP, you know, that we can use to monitor and measure our progress toward, toward this, this better system. And actually we did a class last term where we had the students go and look for all of the alternatives to GDP that have been proposed. And they found 350 so far. It's not like people haven't been thinking about this, you know, for, for a while and more and more intensively. But in fact, that's, that's part of the problem. There are so many different alternatives that nobody knows, you know, which, which ones to use. So I think the next stage is to try to build a broader consensus about what, what the alternative, you know, measures of progress should be. It worked a bit on the genuine progress indicator in Vermont as far as I know is still using the GPI. And I'm not sure what kind of political influence it has if any, but partly because probably it's not as broadly shared and, and, you know, as, as GDP is, but I think that's, that that's coming. So there's several projects underway to try to build that that consensus and at least the EU is, is partly behind that movement. There's also the well being economy governments group. There's a small subset of, you know, Vanguard governments, including Scotland, Iceland, New Zealand, Finland, and Canada actually just joined in Wales. And, you know, their, their agenda is well being rather than GDP growth. You know, so the United States part of that. Not yet. No, why not. You know, we've been trying to potentially get at least some states in the US to be part of that. But is Vermont is Vermont Vermont would be a great one to join. So if you're interested in if you're interested in helping to push that agenda I can I'll put people in contact with you. Thank you. I will. I'll make happen. So that would be good, you know, a well being economy government in in Vermont, you know, New Zealand has gotten a lot of traction on that and created the first, you know, well being budget for their for that for the country. Take a look at Nicholas Sturgeon, the first, first Minister of Scotland has a really good Ted talk about this that they should recommend people taking a look at. But, of course, like any of these, these things I mean she recently stepped down as First Minister, Jacinda Ardern, I think is stepped down as Prime Minister of New Zealand. I think she's going to be a professor at Harvard actually I think now. But, but I think those kinds of movements can and will begin to happen more, you know, we have more more governments saying no, we understand that you have to get beyond. Beyond GDP we understand the issues and the crises that are building up, you know, I think they can't, they can't avoid them any longer. And so there's got to be some, some radical changes. And so, keep the faith. Thank you Robert. Thank you so much for your time you are my hero. And I really appreciate all the work you've done in your career to move the needle and helping to save our planet. And to my viewers. Thank you for joining us and I encourage you to, to pick up Robert Costanz's new book addicted to growth, societal therapy for sustainable well being future. And you can get a little I hope it's at the local bookstore up there at Phoenix books. I'm sure it is. I hope so. And Bob, I'll get you back on again and we'll follow this in a few years and see how well we've done and until then I wish you well. And when you get back to Vermont check in with me and, and I'd love to move meant to get Vermont to sign on to this, this organization that's helping to move the needle. So thank you. And to my viewers you have a beautiful day. And I will see you shortly. Thank you. Bye bye.