Iain Miller

Economics for a Healthy Planet Iain Miller

Scientists have told us we are destroying the planet. Most of us get it, we have even declared a climate change emergency. So why aren't we treating it like an emergency? As long as we strive to grow our economies, we will consume more man-made goods that damage the planet and take our lives further away from nature. Economic growth over the past century is unprecedented, but the majority of the increased prosperity has been enjoyed by a tiny minority of billionaires, while most of us feel far from wealthy. We are trapped in vicious circles, where the more we grow our economies, the more we need to earn and spend to take part in modern society. With the tipping point for irreversible damage from climate change only 10 years away, we cannot simply rely on individuals to do their bit, we also need top-down policies to change collective behaviours. This book proposes economic policies which access the vast profits of multinationals and billionaires to share the wealth with the many, not the few, break the vicious circles of economic growth and instead harness virtuous circles of nature, in a way that is accessible to those outside the technical world of economics.