Matthew Green,Reuters Yahoo News 9 May 19;
LONDON (Reuters) - The science is in: the endless pursuit of economic growth is devouring the foundations of life on Earth, and no country – rich or poor – can expect to escape dire consequences if things go on as they are. So how might the world change course?
Though still confined to the fringes, a globally dispersed but tight-knit coalition of economists, grass-roots organizers, business leaders and politicians, along with some investors, have begun to sketch out an answer.
The vision: a new relationship between the state, local communities and nature aligned behind a more holistic notion of progress than gross domestic product (GDP), the established yardstick for economies as different as those of the United States and Mozambique.
"No country on Earth is doing what is required to make sure we get toward an economic system capable of confronting the twin challenges of ecological collapse and climate change," said Laurie Laybourn-Langton, an associate fellow at London's Institute for Public Policy Research and lead author of a new report on environmental breakdown titled This Is A Crisis.
"There are, though, a number of ideas and small-scale projects being done that arguably – if scaled up – could deal with the problem," he said. One of those gaining traction was measuring progress in other terms than GDP, which, in essence, measures the market value of a country's goods and services.
More broadly, Laybourn-Langton, 30, and other champions of 'new economics' argue that it is time to acknowledge that the state must play the central role in marshalling a response to looming systemic environmental shocks.
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