Economic system

How do you feel when you find out someone has lied to you? How do you feel when you find out someone claiming to be doing something good is actually doing something else–something truly harmful?

While the election lies in the U.S. have been getting a lot of attention (as they should), the lies and deceit of the big oil and gas companies are much less well-known and remembered, but are every bit as disastrous for the health of our society.

A new report last week from the House of Representatives Oversight Committee details what they learned in their investigation into the big oil and gas companies. Their key finding was that while these fossil fuel corporations are falsely portraying themselves to the public as committed to going green, they are continuing to seek to expand drilling and sales of climate-destroying fossil fuels. The Committee actually got the big oil CEOs to appear (from ExxonMobil, BP America, Chevron and Shell), put them on the spot, and got lots of previously hidden documents released.

The Committee report says, “Big Oil has doubled down on long-term reliance on fossil fuels with no intention of taking concrete actions to transition to clean energy.” Rep. Carolyn Maloney, the Chair of the Committee said, “Even though Big Oil CEOs admitted to my Committee that their products are causing a climate emergency, today’s documents reveal that the industry has no real plans to clean up its act and is barreling ahead with plans to pump more dirty fuels for decades to come.”

Our current economic system in the United States and throughout most of the world is complex, but some of its prominent features are:
1. Decisions are made on the basis of what will be most profitable, not on the basis of what will serve the common good or the health of the planet
2. Tremendous amounts of wealth continue to be accumulated by a small number of people, while many people have very little. (In the U.S. today the top 10% of the population has 70% of the wealth, while the bottom 50% of the population has 2% of the wealth.)
3. The system depends on endless growth–in production, extraction, and consumption.

Such a system has many consequences. Two major consequences are:
1. This system has caused and is perpetuating the devastating global climate crisis.
2. This system makes it very difficult, and in some cases impossible, to do what needs to be done to solve the climate crisis.

This is not to say that we must create a new economic system before we can do anything about climate change. As we take action on the climate crisis, however, we will need to challenge the current economic system on many fronts. We will need to think and act outside its prevailing paradigms, especially the three identified at the top of this piece….

In my previous post I raised the issue of “living lightly on the earth” — inviting us to think about our levels of consumption and what lifestyles are sustainable on a planet with 7.8 billion other humans. We will each need to make our own decisions about what a sensible and workable lifestyle is for us. As a society, we also need to think about a more sustainable and equitable economic system — what should be its goals and how can we bring it into being?

As I wrote last time, I’m intrigued by what I’ve learned so far about “Doughnut Economics.” First, there are no glazed or cream-filled pastries here — just an intriguing doughnut-shaped diagram that summarizes some important ideas. I believe we can all think about the most important issues facing our society. The “doughnut” approach provides us with an accessible entry point to some interesting and relevant perspectives on economic systems.

Kate Raworth, the creator of this way of thinking about things, says that “a healthy economy should be designed to thrive, not grow. …