The 2008 Global Financial Crisis and subsequent recession has provided the ONLY reduction in greenhouse gas emissions in over a decade. The following years have seen repeats of economic instability, severe social unrest and a resumption of record levels of greenhouse gas emissions. An eloquant solution has been provided by Prof Tim Jackson in “Prosperity Without Growth”

In July 2010 Ted Talks provided Prof Tim Jackson with an opportunity to explain his recent book  “Prosperity Without Growth” – As the world faces recession, climate change, inequity and more, Tim Jackson delivers a piercing challenge to established economic principles, explaining how we might stop feeding the crises and start investing in our future. Tim Jackson studies the links between lifestyle, societal values and the environment to question the primacy of economic growth.

http://www.earthscan.co.uk/blog/author/Tim%20Jackson.aspx

Tim Jackson served as the economics commissioner on the UK government’s Sustainable Development Commission (until the new Conservative Government axed the commission) and is director of  RESOLVE — the Research group on Lifestyles, Values and Environment. After five years as Senior Researcher at the Stockholm Environment Institute, he bcame the Professor of Sustainable Development at University of Surrey, and was the first person to hold that title at a UK university. He founded RESOLVE in May 2006 as an nter-disciplinary collaborationacross four areas — CES, psychology, sociology and economics — aiming to develop an understanding of the links between lifestyle, societal values and the environment.

He is also the author of the influential book Propserity Without Growth. He serves as chair to the ‘New Energy Solutions’ Advisory Board for Danish investment company BankInvest and is associate researcher on a Templeton Foundation project on ‘The Pursuit of Happiness.’ Tim is also an award-winning playwright, and his environmental drama The Cry of the Bittern won a Public Awareness of Science Drama Award in 1998. His most recent play, Variations, won the 2007 Grand Prix Marulic and is longlisted for the 2008 Sony Drama award.

“Questioning growth is deemed to be the act of lunatics, idealists and revolutionaries. But question it we must.”

Tim Jackson