The Earth Gets Left Off the Balance Sheet. Let’s Fix That
Series: How to Save a Planet
Publisher: Gimlet Media
Episode number: 50
Length (minutes): 44
Description:
For decades politicians and other leaders have said that acting on climate change comes at too high a cost — to jobs, to business, to the economy. And they've used economics, the dismal science, to support their argument. But some climate activists have long said that those politicians have it all wrong. That there are no jobs on a dead planet.
And increasingly, some economists agree.
They say that if we're going to have any hope of addressing climate change we need to rethink our relationship to the economy - which is often how we measure a country's well being. And to that, we have to rethink economics. To understand their argument, we talk to Kate Raworth, an Oxford economist, and author of the book Doughnut Economics, about what economics gets right, what it gets wrong, what it needs to do differently to help sustain human life on this planet. And speak with Lead Councillor Susan Aitken, the head of Glasgow, Scotland's city government who is working to take the economic ideas that Kate Raworth has put forward to help her city transition to a healthier more sustainable future.