This episode was first broadcast on November 9th 2020
Note: This episode was recorded before the results of the U.S election were published.
How do we define the success of a city? Or a country? Or human civilisation all together? The last 60 years we've been tied to GDP, growth, trade surpluses, amounts of debt, the strength of currency. Economic strength has been the barometer for the majority of the world to look to when we want to know how we're doing. If stock and shares are high surely there can't be any problems? When an economy bifurcates massively between the haves and the have nots, and to become a haver you need to extract from the environment considerably, measures of economic superiority really start to miss the point. So what's the alternative?
Joining us on the podcast this week is Professor Julia Steinberger ( @JKSteinberger). Julia is a Professor in social ecology and ecological economics at l'Université de Lausanne in Switzerland and is currently working on the next IPCC report on climate change . We discuss the links between consumption and capitalist affluence, how epicurean philosophy has informed economics of the past 50 years and the balancing act of extraction for a greener future.
Shout outs
Councillor Jon Burke
@jonburkeUK
Marcus Rashford
@MarcusRashford
Swiss campaign for corporate accountability
**LINKS**
Scientists warning on affluence (co-authored by Julia)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-16941-y
The Flawed science of deep adaptation
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/oureconomy/faulty-science-doomism-and-flawed-conclusions-deep-adaptation/