#215: Tim Jackson Meets Sustainababble

Boris "Gordon Gekko" Johnson aside, no-one likes greed. But growth - mmmmm, warm, cuddly, economic growth - well, that's another matter. Lesson one in MP school is that our collective prosperity increases as the economy swells. More GDP = more hospitals and schools. It's one of the few things upon which mainstream political parties everywhere agree: growth is unquestionably good. Which makes the life-work of this week's guest, the absurdly big-brained Professor Tim Jackson, all the more notable. Tim, one of the world's foremost experts on ecological economics, set political tongues wagging with his epochal 2009 book Prosperity Without Growth. Infinite growth on a finite planet, he argued, is impossible, anathema to human happiness and ecologically ruinous. More than a decade on, his new book Post-Growth: Life After Capitalism is a poetic and philosophical call to arms, daring us to imagine "a world beyond capitalism—a place where relationship and meaning take precedence over profits and power". Sign us up, is what we say. Sustainababble is your friendly environment podcast, out weekly. Theme music by the legendary Dicky Moore – @dickymoo. Sustainababble logo by the splendid Arthur Stovell at Design by Mondial. Ecoguff read out by Arabella. Love the babble? Bung us a few pennies at www.patreon.com/sustainababble. MERCH: sustainababble.teemill.com Available on iTunes, Spotify, Acast & all those types of things, or at sustainababble.fish. Visit us at @thebabblewagon and at Facebook.com/sustainababble. Email us at hello@sustainababble.fish.