Since the industrial revolution, our economies have grown at the expense of the natural world. But the earth's resources are finite, climate change threatens to dramatically transform how and where we live, and the global economic system is in disarray. One way or another we have to change. We can deny the need for change, in which case we will be at the mercy of events and the adjustments will be harsh. Or, as this book shows there is an alternative. Zac Goldsmith argues here for the creation of what he calls a 'constant economy'.
A constant economy is one is which resources are valued not wasted, where food is grown sustainably and goods are built to last. It is a system whose energy security is based on the use of renewable sources, and communities are valued as a country's strongest hedge against social, economic and environmental instability. The constant economy operates at the human scale, and above all it recognises nature's limits.
