It's time to rethink how we measure economic success — so we can save the planet.
What if we have the answer to everything, but we're not paying attention? |
Last week the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said Earth will likely cross the threshold beyond which it can't avoid catastrophic climate change within the next decade unless we rapidly stop burning fossil fuels. |
I was stunned. Not by the proximity of that threshold but my lack of reaction to it. After reading the news, I went back to doing what I was doing. Maybe you did the same. |
The normalization of cataclysmic climate change news is happening at the same time those same reports become increasingly bleak. This is a terrible dichotomy. |
How do scientists and journalists prompt mobilization and action instead of apathy and hopelessness? |
Maybe the Hollywood actor Alexander Skarsgård can help. |
Dasgupta's report brings economics and ecology together, arguing that nations need to factor environmental costs into G.D.P. for it to be an accurate measure of economic success. |
"Imagine a football team which measures its success only on the basis of the goals it scores and doesn't count the goals it concedes," says Dasgupta in our video. Well, we are that football team in Dasgupta's metaphor, and we are losing without realizing it. |
But if we were to factor the cost of the environment into the goods and services we use, our consumption would diminish, easing our impact on the warming world. I realize, dear reader, that this short newsletter is unlikely to prompt you to read Dasgupta's 610-page report that explains how to do this with real numbers. That's where our video — and Alexander Skarsgård — come in. |
"I will therefore dumb down some of his 600 pages of algebra to something even a Hollywood actor can understand," Skarsgård says in our film. |
While the actor jokes about "dumbing down" science so we can understand it, I believe there is great value in expanding how we think about communication in relation to climate change. |
This week's film, in all of its wit and brevity, helped reframe how I think about the economics of biodiversity. |
I hope that decision makers in the British government, which commissioned Dasgupta's report, have indeed read it. But for those who will not read the 610-page magnum opus, perhaps we can learn something from Skarsgård and the filmmakers Nathan Grossman and Tom Mustill, who explain that the answer to everything really is right in front of us. |
Here's what we're focusing on today: |
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