I absolutely disagree with Carney that the economy and market forces need to be used because the economy itself is driving us into the ditch. It’s based on the creed of cancer — steady growth — and you can’t have endless growth in a finite world. The global economy is far too big, it’s got to shrink, and it’s got to be distributed more equitably around the world.
To me, if you want to see a world-class city, you look at the state of your weakest, poorest and most vulnerable people. That has got to be the measure of our society.
I’ve never said this before to the media, but it’s too late. I say that because I go by science and Johan Rockström, the Swedish scientist who heads the Potsdam Institute, has defined nine planetary boundaries. These are constraints on how we live. As long as humans, like any other animal, live within those nine constraints, we can do it forever, and that includes the amount of carbon in the atmosphere, the pH of the oceans, the amount of available fresh water, the nitrogen cycle, etc.
There are nine planetary boundaries and we’ve only dealt with one of them — the ozone layer — and we think we’ve saved ourselves from that threat. But we passed the seventh boundary this year, and we’re in the extreme danger zone. Rockström says we have five years to get out of the danger zone.
If we pass one boundary, we should be shitting our pants. We’ve passed seven!
We need revolution. Can you have a peaceful revolution? I don’t know.
Interview goes on, this is just a few bits of it.