Accounting for Nature: The Economics of Biodiversity
In this episode with Sir Partha Dasgupta, we are taken on a journey of how the current growth-based economic models came to be, and why their Nature-destructive policies have turned our planet into a house of cards. We unpack Sir Partha’s most recent publication The Economics of Biodiversity: The Dasgupta Review from 2021, a 600-page study that was commissioned by the UK Government, which examines the economic benefits of biodiversity and the cost of losing it.
He also explains how he arrived at his approximation of 3.2 billion as a sustainable human population at a decent standard of living, and how using a behavioral economics approach, we can achieve such a goal. Dasgupta ends off by appealing to social scientists to embrace an integrative approach to academic thinking that is not encumbered by political correctness, which has led to such widespread denialism of the population factor and, as a result, a perilous situation for us and the rest of the planet.