New value system needed

Good interview at TRNN with climate scientist Will Steffen.


My comment:

"All of these [efforts to mitigate climate change] need to be underpinned by new value systems that value stabilizing the earth's systems as the highest priority that any economy must strive for." 

This should be the take home message of every economics course/lecture from now on. Economics and the values of economics must be defined beyond goods/services and financial return. My preferred definition of economies are self-organizing and self-sustaining systems of production, distribution and consumption of goods and services that promote the well-being of all participants. Capitalism would not be an acceptable primary economic system under this definition because it is not self-sustaining... using fossil fuels will eventually degrade the environment to the point where it cannot sustain human life as we know it. Placing profit and 'economic growth' above all else is the source of climate change, income inequality, health care crisis and many other social ills. But economies are human made social constructs; humans made/make them, humans can reshape them.