Shout LOUDER: Doughnut Economics words from Manda Brookman

 

Shout LOUDER:  Doughnut Economics

 - words from Manda Brookman for our film

"So the question is: what is Doughnut Economics?

Doughnut economics is a way of looking at economics in a way that is fit for the 21^st Century.

Up to now, economics, which actually has nothing to do with numbers, is about really managing what we have and where we live – well that’s what economics actually means; but somehow the economics up to now has managed to leave out the planet in that thinking, and it’s also left out people who don’t have a fair share.

So right now economics is a pyramid, the few at the top have the most and everyone else at the bottom has the least. So instead of that pyramid, imagine a doughnut, the sort with the hole in the middle. The vision of doughnut economics is to have a sort of economics that leaves no one behind in the middle, in the hole, in the gap, making sure that everybody has the essentials of a life: enough food and water and housing, healthcare, good company, joy, laughter and culture.

But as we create those systems we need to make sure we don’t use more than we have the right to take. If one person takes too much, it risks someone else not having enough, and busting through that outer ring of the doughnut, the one where we start going into overdraft, in terms of the impact on the climate that’s how we cause a climate breakdown – where we make the oceans acidic, and full of plastic, we destroy our forests, we break down our living planet, which really isn’t the wisest thing we can do.

So in actual fact, all doughnut economics is, is about making sure we build economic systems that are fair, that make sure that everybody can shop and travel, and take a break, and have a future and have a present that means that everybody has a fair share on a healthy planet. That nobody has not enough, that nobody is in the hole in the middle, but what we have built doesn’t end up busting through those limits, the planetary limits, it’s a finite system. We can’t carry on taking more than the   planet can sustain, we can’t carry on poisoning our rivers and burning down our forests and depleting our resources. We can’t do that, what we’re looking for is planetary and human health, where everyone has a fair share on a healthy planet, that’s what doughnut economics is. It’s an economics for everyone, and for the planet.

So if economics is about the management of what we have and where we are, not just about money,  then doughnut economics is about everyone, and ensuring that human health and planetary health is a priority, it invites a new way of thinking where we join the dots between people and place, between food and culture, between well being and caring, between homes and community, where we prioritise human and planetary health and where we invite all those voices to the table, especially those who have never been invited before or who have been excluded. This is about all of us, for us all to listen to the diversity of views and to make an economic system that hears everyone.

Eddie and Stuart are working on music/background 

Demelza on BSL 

Becky on Makaton 

Bobby on film 

Shallal 2 dancers on interpretation and response

Sapphire thank you for typing up the words

Jo chatting to everyone!