Bankrupting Nature: Denying Our Planetary Boundaries
About this ebook
The book breaks the long silence on population, criticizing donor countries for not doing enough to support the education of girls and reproductive health services. It is shown that an economy built on the continuous expansion of material consumption is not sustainable. De-growth, however, is no solution either. The growth dilemma can only be addressed through a transformation of the economic system. A strong plea is made for abandoning GDP growth as the key objective for development. The focus should instead be on a limited number of welfare indicators. The trickle-down concept is seriously questioned, to be replaced by one of sufficiency. Rich countries are called upon to hold back their material growth to leave room for a rising living standard among the poor. Alternative business models are presented, such as moving from products to services or towards a circular economy based on re-use, reconditioning and recylcing – all with the aim of facilitating sustainable development.
A Report to the Club of Rome
About the author
Anders Wijkman is Advisor at the Stockholm Environment Institute, Sweden, and Co-President, Club of Rome. He has been a Member of the Swedish Parliament and of the European Parliament, as well as Director General of the Swedish Red Cross, Director General of the Swedish Agency for Research Cooperation with Developing Countries and Assistant Secretary General of the UN and Policy Director of the United Nations Development Programme. He is a member of the Swedish Royal Academy of Sciences and the World Academy of Art and Science.
Johan Rockström is a Professor in Natural Resource Management at Stockholm University, and the Executive Director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre. He is an internationally recognized scientist on global sustainability issues, for example leading the recent development of the new Planetary Boundaries framework for human development in the current era of rapid global change. He also co-chairs Future Earth, and international initiative on global sustainability.
