Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist

by Kate Raworth

its design is fundamentally flawed because it runs counter to the living world, which thrives by continually recycling life’s building blocks such as carbon, oxygen, water, nitrogen and phosphorus. Industrial activity has broken these natural cycles apart, depleting nature’s sources and dumping too much waste in her sinks. Extracting oil, coal and gas from under land and sea, burning them, and dumping carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Turning nitrogen and phosphorus into fertiliser, then offloading the effluent—from agricultural run-off and sewage—into lakes and oceans. Uprooting forests to mine metals and minerals which, once packed into consumer gadgets, will be cast onto e-waste dumpsites, with toxic chemicals leaching out into the soil, water and air.