It is only in relatively recent Western history that a distinct separation between nature and the economy has occurred. The industrial revolution in the 18th Century and the resulting population growth and mass-urbanisation in Europe was a key part of this separation. Combined with the mining and deployment of coal and coal-fired power across the economy, nature quickly became a bedrock resource for the growth and maintenance of our economies. Nature was placed in service to the economy; a seemingly endless resource to be plundered for the benefit (of an incredibly small group, as it turns out) of human beings. Economic growth followed, with population and per-capita income growing at the same time for the first time in human history. The modern age was born.
The technologies and mindsets of industrialisation were then of course exported through colonisation. In Australia, the first coal was discovered in the late 18th Century, and convicts were immediately put to work in newly established mines in NSW and Tasmania. Alongside the horrific human and cultural impacts of colonisation on First Australians, Australia’s natural environment was immediately put to work in service to the emerging colonial economy. The intertwining of the fossil fuel industry with Australia’s economic emergence embedded the mindset of nature as a resource to be plundered. This continues to this day. In fact, the fossil fuel industry and coal lobby in Australia once described themselves as the “Greenhouse Mafia,” and have dominated public discussions and policy development for decades. The perpetual influence of the coal industry in Australia has long and deep roots, and has polluted both our planet and our politics.
There has been a number of attempts to shift the economic narrative around the environment. In the 1970s and 1980s, a new branch of economics emerged to challenge the notion of limitless natural resources in service to endless growth. Ecological economics, led initially by E.F. Schumacher, Herman Daly and others, rightly placed the economy as a subset of the environment. This branch of economics introduced the idea of steady-state economies (those that are both relatively stable and respect natural ecological boundaries), the concept of ecological footprints (examining the ecological impacts of everyday activities and pursuits), and the idea of natural capital (where nature is distinct from other economic inputs). The contribution of ecological economics continues to have a meaningful impact on the field of economics and has inspired environmental movements around the world. However, identification of the economic value of the natural environment remains deeply controversial. As George Monbiot points out, “The notions that nature exists to serve us; that its value consists of the instrumental benefits we can extract; that this value can be measured in cash terms; and that what can’t be measured does not matter, have proved lethal to the rest of life on Earth.”
Although ecological economics largely corrected the macro-relationship between the economy and the environment, it took decades of work for a new, comprehensive and integrated model of the economy to emerge into the public sphere. Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics, published in 2017, describes an economy with the goal of “meeting the needs of all within the means of the planet.” Astonishingly simple, as most great ideas are, Raworth’s model contains two rings: an inner ring that describes the base needs to live a good life (food, healthcare, democracy, energy, education, sanitation etc), and an outer ring defined by the natural limits of the environment that we are an integrated part of. The rings form a doughnut, within which the “ecologically safe and socially just space” for humanity exists. Raworth rightly identifies that endless growth was never intended to be the goal of modern economics, and yet devoid of any explicit goal, this became the default answer of economists and politicians alike. This fundamental misconception must be overturned, and the economy placed as a subset of our environment.
Beneath the macro reframe of our economic goals, Raworth’s model also describes in detail the nine components of the environmental boundary that our economy must operate within: climate change, ocean acidification, chemical pollution, nitrogen and phosphorous loading, freshwater withdrawals, land conversion, biodiversity loss, air pollution and ozone layer depletion. Raworth vividly illustrates how our economy is already dramatically overshooting this boundary in a number of these components, including climate change and biodiversity loss. It becomes clear that the transition to the next economy must accelerate in order to reduce this overshoot and create a safe place for humanity to thrive.
Beyond the economic history, the economic models and the many frameworks that have been designed, we can all understand the human benefits of a life lived in deep connection with nature. Johann Hari, Helena Norberg Hodge, George Monbiot and many others have described these benefits from a mental health, community and even political perspective. But we can all personally attest to the restorative power of a walk in nature, or a surf, or indeed a camping trip. Perhaps even more so during the period of the COVID-19 shutdown. I have particularly enjoyed my morning walks around the Newport Lakes in Melbourne’s inner-west, before settling into a day of work from home. And perhaps there is a new movement coming. Before COVID-19 pandemic took hold in Australia, Claire Dunn wrote “while the world is speeding up, there is another movement inviting us to slow down, to sink our roots deep into the red dirt and the rainforests, to remember our place in the family of things, to remember who we really are.” In contemplating and designing the next economy we must lean into this reality. Human beings are an integrated part of nature, and it is this integrated whole that our economy is actually in service to.
Of course, the sad truth is that we don’t have a choice. For all our bravado, and all our anthropocentrism, nature is infinitely more powerful than our most powerful economies. The climate and biodiversity emergency is here and will only get worse if we do not radically alter our economic trajectory. But we do not have to view this transition as one where we are losing something. Instead, the transition will lead to enormous gains: clean air, clean water, resilient communities, resilient economies and of course new jobs in clean energy, digital technologies, industries yet to be imagined, and healthy individuals and communities. Eytan Lenko from Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE) has described this transition as one from an analogue world driven by fire (fossil fuels) to a digital world driven by clean energy (largely solar, wind & batteries). Our relationship to nature will remain critical, but the mindset and tenor of this relationship will be fundamentally different. Whereas the old economy was bolted onto our natural world, slowly degrading the very life-force that it relied upon, the next economy is thoughtfully nested within a thriving natural world, enhancing what Kate Raworth refers to as “the flourishing web of life.”
My earliest memories of nature come from family camping adventures. From Blanket Bay in Victoria’s southwest, to the Cathedral Ranges in the north and the Grampians in the northwest, we travelled as a group of families, often in the Easter school holidays, and set up camp for three or four days. Time took a different form on these trips. Days felt long. There was no schedule. We’d go on bushwalks, play games of cricket in the campground with new friends, eat simple food whenever we got hungry, and had conversations around the fire. I remember being curled up in the camping chair as a child, hoping the smoke wouldn’t blow into my eyes, and feeling included in the adult conversations around me. Once we started dozing off in our chairs it was time for bed. We’d crawl into our tents and lie there listening to the wind in the trees and the rustling of leaves as we drifted off to sleep. We returned to the city refreshed, restored and replenished. This is a common refrain after time spent in nature. We all feel a sense of rejuvenation, relaxation and reconnection. Perhaps it is time for our economic system to experience this very same reconnection?
