Economics for People and the Planet: Inequality in the Era of Climate Change

Description

A call for egalitarian distribution of wealth and power to safeguard the environment and address climate change. 'Economics for People and the Planet', a collection of essays by James K. Boyce on the environment, inequality and the economy, argues that there is not an inexorable trade-off between advancing human well-being and having a clean and safe environment. The goal of economic policy should be to grow the good things that improve our well-being and environmental quality and reduce the bad things that harm humans and nature. To reorient the economy for these ends, we will need to achieve a more egalitarian distribution of wealth and power. Global climate change - the most pressing environmental challenge of our time - adds urgency to this task and creates historic opportunities for moving towards a greener future.

James K. Boyce is a senior fellow at the Political Economy Research Institute and professor emeritus of economics, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA. His previous books include Economics, the Environment, and Our Common Wealth (2013), Reclaiming Nature (2007), Natural Assets (2003) and The Political Economy of the Environment (2002).