Legacy: How to Build the Sustainable Economy

“Legacy…is really saying, ‘Okay, so I’ve looked at climate change, I’ve looked at natural capital, and it’s very obvious that what we’re doing is not sustainable.’ This isn’t going well on climate change. We’re not going to do 1.5 degrees; we’re probably not even going to do 2. On biodiversity, it’s a disaster. I kept telling people, ‘Do you all agree this is not sustainable?’ Everyone says, ‘Yes, of course it’s not.’ But people are never willing to draw that to its conclusion. That’s my strapline: ‘What is unsustainable will not be sustained.’ What I set out in Legacy is a blueprint of what the economy would look like if it were sustainable. It’s bracing to people who look at the current world and think, ‘If we just tweak it a little bit here or there, we’ll get there.’ It isn’t. It’s not a disastrous world. It’s still a world with growth because technology marches on. But it’s fundamentally different from what we’re doing.” Read more...

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Dieter Helm