Ecology Is Our Economy: A Naturalistic Approach to the Wealth of Nations
This article is part of a series, in collaboration with the Civic Paths working group at the University of Southern California.
For all life on Earth to flourish, providing conditions for humans to thrive in the future, we need to reestablish the balance that made our planet hospitable in the past.
Central to this ecocentric ideal is a fundamental change in economics. The global economy needs to be reconnected with planetary ecology. Economics needs to be recognized and treated as an ecological phenomenon involving more than just people and human civilization.
Economics needs to be recognized and treated as an ecological phenomenon involving more than just people and human civilization.
At present, there are loose linkages between the economy and ecology, but other factors predominate. Consider, for instance, the inflation rate. At the most basic level, prices on goods will increase when resources are scarce due to unfavorable climate conditions. In this context, inflation is rational, fair and broadly beneficial to all participants in the economic system because it makes commerce realistic and honest.
However, a myriad of other factors impact the inflation rate, such as the condition of supply chains, the machinations of financiers and even the tendency of rumors to become self-fulfilling prophecies. Although logistical challenges are relevant, most of these factors are unintended consequences of poorly-conceived ways of doing business established long ago, exacerbated when exploited in pursuit of artificial wealth.
Governments have some control over the economy through the minting of money and the modulation of interest rates by central banks. In order to make economics ecocentric, and to ensure that the economy represents the reality experienced by all beings in all biomes, we need to make those regulatory mechanisms accountable to nature.
How can this be practically achieved? In the short term, every nation-state should appoint a biodiverse board of economic advisors comprising a representative group of species in a representative set of environments. By observing these economic indicator species from season to season and year to year, treasuries and central banks can determine how much currency to print and what interest rates to set.
These policies must be inspired by biology. For instance, interest rates should follow the flow of energy in natural settings. By these means, the economy will be more active or less active based on the availability of resources afforded by climate conditions locally and globally. The system can be further refined by observing the distance of exchange, effectively incorporating the impact of climate conditions on supply chains.
The advantages of this new approach to economics — which is actually much older than humankind — will most immediately be experienced by the nation-states that adopt it first, because those nation-states will be most aligned with the opportunities and risks that can drive success or bring failure in a world undergoing extreme environmental transformation.
But mere consultation is not enough. To keep governments honest, and to fairly compensate non-human species for economic advice and other ecosystem services, animals and plants need to be directly integrated into the economy: to be paid and given agency to bank and invest their earnings like humans.
With this shift in global wealth will come a shift in geopolitical power. Given that the world is ruled by money — and power is often reckoned in terms of hard currency — humans will have to contend with other species' interests as never before in history.
The environmental impact could be nothing less than the difference between mass-extinction and a second Eden.
