Gaian Economics is the second volume in the Four Keys to
Sustainable Communities series and sets out to explore how we can
develop healthy and abundant societies in harmony with our finite
planetary resources.
Using contributions from a wealth of authors (including Small Is
Beautiful's E. F. Schumacher, eco-philosopher Joanna Macy, and Rob
Hopkins of the Transition movement), the editors address ways of
reducing our consumption to levels that enable natural systems to
self-regenerate and to do so in ways that permit a high quality of
life--that we live within our means and that we live well.
Since the advent of the Scientific Revolution in the sixteenth
century, humans have stood apart from the rest of nature, seeking
to manipulate it for their benefit. Thus, we have learned to refer
to the natural world as "the environment" and to see it, in
economic terms, as little more than a bank of resources to be
transformed into products for human use and pleasure. This has
brought us to the brink of collapse, with natural systems straining
under the weight of the population and the levels at which we are
consuming.
We are, however, on the threshold of a shift into a new way of
seeing and understanding the world and our place within it--called,
by some, the "Ecological Age." It will be characterized by a new
understanding of our place as a thread in the web of life, of our
interconnectedness with all other living things. Gaian Economics
offers ways forward toward this Ecological Age, giving suggestions
for how it may take shape, and how it would work.
The Four Keys represent the four dimensions of sustainable
design--the Worldview, the Social, the Ecological, and the
Economic. This series is endorsed by UNESCO and is an official
contribution to the UN Decade of Education for Sustainable
Development. The other books of the series are Beyond You and Me,
Designing Ecological Habitats, and The Song of the Earth. The Four
Keys to Sustainable Communities series was completed in 2012 and is
now available in the U.S. for the first time.
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