Author Juliet Schor speaks with host Paul O'Brien.
We are living in a new ecological and economic reality. Humans are using this planet's resources faster than we are regenerating them. Eco-systems are shutting down, turning oceans into dead zones and farmland into desert. As a result, food, energy, and transport are becoming increasingly expensive. The current recession has led to another type of scarcity: incomes, jobs, and credit are also in short supply. Our usual way back to growth -- a debt-financed consumer boom -- is no longer an option we can afford. Our guest today argues that through a major shift to new sources of wealth, green technologies and different ways of living, we can all experience plenitude.
Juliet Schor is the author of Plenitude: The New Economics of True Wealth. Juliet Schor is Professor of Sociology at Boston College. Before joining Boston College, she taught at Harvard University for 17 years, in the Department of Economics and the Committee on Degrees in Women’s Studies. Her research has focused on the economics of work, spending, environment, and the consumer culture. She is also cofounder of the Center for the New American Dream, an organization devoted to ecologically and socially sustainable lifestyles. www.julietschor.org
- KBOO