A Media Revolution for Economics

For too long, governments and corporations have worshiped growth of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) as the only route to prosperity, even as inequality soars and ecosystems collapse. 

Isn’t it time to abandon this outdated obsession and replace it with a vision fit for the 21st century? Economist Kate Raworth’s placard refers to her game-changing model for true prosperity – Doughnut Economics – a manifesto to rewrite the rules of the economy before it destroys the living planet. An economy that meets the needs of all people within the means of the Earth.

The “doughnut” model draws the line between justice and destruction. The inner ring marks the social foundation –  every person’s right to food, health, housing, education, and equality. The outer ring is the ecological ceiling –  the limits of our planet’s ability to support life. Between these two lies the safe and just space for humanity. Right now, we’re overshooting and undershooting: billions left behind, and the Earth pushed beyond its limits. And yet, despite all the evidence, all we hear from the news media is the assumption that ‘business as usual’, i.e. growth, is the only option.

Humanity is currently operating in a state of ecological overshoot, consuming natural resources at a rate that exceeds the planet’s capacity for regeneration. According to estimates from the Global Footprint Network, humanity is using nature 1.7 times faster than our planet’s biocapacity can regenerate. Such overconsumption depletes forests, overexploits marine ecosystems, and accelerates the combustion of fossil fuels, thereby generating ecological debt and contributing to widespread environmental degradation.

Professor of Sustainable Development at the University of Surrey and Director of the Centre for the Understanding of Sustainable Prosperity in the UK Tim Jackson, for example, has shown that if the developed nations grew GDP by 2% over coming decades, and by 2050 the global population had achieved the same level, the global economy would be 15 times larger than it is today. If it grew at 3% from then on it would be 30 times larger than the current economy by 2073, and 60 times larger before the end of this century.

Given that the global economy is already in gross ecological overshoot, just imagine the environmental burdens of a global economy fifteen, thirty, or sixty times bigger than today. What makes this growth trajectory all the more terrifying is that if we asked politicians whether they’d prefer 4% growth to 3%, they’d all say yes, and the exponential growth scenario just described would become even more absurd. It seems too much growth is never enough. 

In a report published just after the economic crisis of 2008, the Deutsche Bank identified a “green sweet spot” as an attractive focus for an economic stimulus spending consisting of investment in energy efficient buildings, the electricity grid, renewable energy and public transportation.  And a study by the University of Massachusetts Political Economy Research Institute calculated that spending $100 billion on these areas over a two year period would create 2 million new jobs. 

Anyone who still believes GDP growth is the only measure of progress might like to imagine  a Petri dish of bacteria. Watch it multiply until it runs out of nutrients or chokes on its own waste. That’s what endless growth looks like.

Now imagine humanity: eight billion, soon eleven, all chasing the “Western dream” on one exhausted planet. From space, Earth must look like that Petri dish –  a bright, frantic bloom consuming its own future. Unless we change course, the experiment ends the same way: collapse.

It’s time to stop worshipping growth and start building balance before the dish goes dark.

The Doughnut Economics framework demands a revolution in thinking — seven radical shifts:

1. Change the goal: ditch GDP, aim for collective thriving – a wellbeing economy.
2. See the big picture: the economy is part of society, which depends on nature.
3. Nurture human nature: we’re not selfish consumers but cooperative, creative beings.
4. Get savvy with systems: economies are living systems – unpredictable, adaptable, and full of leverage points for change.
5. Design to distribute: build fairness into the system from the start.
6. Create to regenerate: stop extracting, start restoring.
7. Be agnostic about growth: design economies that can thrive without endless extraction and expansion.

Globally, news outlets of all political affiliations present extractive growth as the only option whether due to economic blinkers or the malignant influence of extractive businesses.

Doughnut Economics is a blueprint for transformation. It challenges activists, policymakers, and citizens alike: stop chasing growth, start building balance. The future depends on it.

We are all caught in the tramlines of consumerism which is consuming the planet – and crucially the malignant media are ignoring it. Partisan reporting and high carbon product advertising hold us in thrall. 

But in reality, as Tim Jackson says:

“Prosperity in any meaningful sense of the term is about the quality of our lives and relationships, about the resilience of our communities and about our sense of individual and collective meaning […]. Prosperity itself –  as the Latin roots of the English word reveal –  is about hope. Hope for the future, hope for our children, hope for ourselves. An economics of hope remains a task worth engaging in.” 

It is time for honest reporting on the bright future a carbon free world heralds as well as the disaster that lies ahead if we do not change course. 

Infinite growth on a finite planet is madness.

We need a Media Revolution for the economy.