Moving to an economy within the earths limits — Donut economics
Is it time to begin moving to a more sustainable model of running the world?
Indigenous peoples the world over have long lived in harmony with the land. A harmony that saw them able to improve their environment over generations, creating rich and sophisticated cultures.
The technology era of the past 200 years has seen incredible changes in how earth’s inhabitants live, progressing from agrarian and hunter gather lifestyles to the mega cities of today where the only nature is found on TV screens. This dramatic change represents great progress in many ways with our ability to sustain many more human lives than ever before above the poverty line. But it comes at a cost. Many over the past 50 years are increasingly questioning if it is a sustainable one.
Writes Robin Wall Kimmerer in her wonderful book “Braiding Sweetgrass”
Ecological economists argue for reforms that would ground economics in ecological principles and the constraints of thermodynamics. They urge the embrace of the radical notion that we must sustain natural capital and ecosystem services if we are to maintain quality of life.
But governments still cling to the neoclassical fallacy that human consumption has no consequences. We continue to embrace economic systems that prescribe infinite growth on a finite planet, as if somehow the universe had repealed the laws of thermodynamics on our behalf. Perpetual growth is simply not compatible with natural law…
Our leaders willfully ignore the wisdom and the models of every other species on the planet — except of course those that have gone extinct.
Kate Raworth has created the concept of the donut to illustrate the boundaries within which humans can sustainably live:
to ensure that no one falls short on life’s essentials (from food and housing to healthcare and political voice), while ensuring that collectively we do not overshoot our pressure on Earth’s life-supporting systems, on which we fundamentally depend — such as a stable climate, fertile soils, and a protective ozone layer
Raworth describes how the concept of the donut was developed:
The environmental ceiling consists of nine planetary boundaries, as set out by Rockstrom et al, beyond which lie unacceptable environmental degradation and potential tipping points in Earth systems.
The twelve dimensions of the social foundation are derived from internationally agreed minimum social standards, as identified by the world’s governments in the Sustainable Development Goals in 2015. Between social and planetary boundaries lies an environmentally safe and socially just space in which humanity can thrive.
Raworth promotes 7 steps to move to the Donut economic framework. Her website has the 7 short videos linked below to outline each concept.
- Change the Goal — From GDP to the Donut
- Tell a new story — from neoliberal to a story fit for our times
- Nurture Human Nature — From rational economic man to social adaptable humans
- Get Savvy with Systems — From mechanical equilibrium to dynamic complexity
- Design to distribute — From ‘growth will even it up again’ to distributive by design
- Create to regenerate — From ‘growth will clean it up again’ to regenerative by design
- Be Agnostic about growth — From growth addicted to growth agnostic
Wall Krimmer writes prophetically:
The key to success is to get more of everything than your neighbor, and to get it faster. That life strategy works when resources seem to be infinite. But pioneer species, not unlike pioneer humans, require cleared land, hard work, individual initiative, and numerous children. In other words, the window of opportunity for opportunistic species is short. Once trees arrive on the scene, the pioneers’ days are numbered, so they use their photosynthetic wealth to make babies that will be carried by birds to the next clear-cut. As a result, many are berry makers: salmonberry, elderberry, huckleberry, blackberry.
The pioneers produce a community based on the principles of unlimited growth, sprawl, and high energy consumption, sucking up resources as fast as they can, wresting land from others through competition, and then moving on.
When resources begin to run short, as they always will, cooperation and strategies that promote stability — strategies perfected by rainforest ecosystems — will be favored by evolution.
The breadth and depth of these reciprocal symbioses are especially well developed in old growth forests, which are designed for the long haul.
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