Wise Economy

March 2023 - A new U.N. report says it is still possible to hold global warming to relatively safe levels, but doing so will require global cooperation, billions of dollars, and big changes.

Sacred Earth Economics was proposed by Sanford Hinden (founder of Wisocracy) who worked closely with Robert Muller of the United Nations, and eco-theologian Thomas Berry, the repository of the work of Teilhard de Chardin.  Hinden proposed an annual global conference to be broadcast on the Internet, expressing the need for a new economic system to match human's higher values, higher-self, higher purpose, and best intentions.  He idealized a sustainable, higher economic system to support humanity and Earth.  It took economics beyond competition to sustainability for humanity and nature, and sought to balance development and wealth creation, with sustainable living and environmental conservation. Rather than an economic system guided by caveat emptor (let the buyer beware), it was guided by uberrima fides (in the utmost good faith). The goal was to help sustain all of humanity and the Earth by creating sustainable communities worldwide with shared assets and enlightened infrastructure that enlightens humanity and cares for the Earth, our sacred home in the universe.  

CEH was proposed by Sanford Hinden (founder of Wisocracy).  The vision of the Commonwealth for Earth & Humanity is to achieve Global Disarmament gradually through a 10% national reduction of military spending, with funds being redistributed into Earth Care, Human Development, Social Evolution, and Infrastructure for Sustainability. The funds would produce enlightened people, thriving families, creative communities, worker-owned cooperatives, regional cooperation, international peace, and a sustainable, healthy planet.

MAS was created by environmental educator Julie D. Johnston of GreenHeart Education working with Sanford Hinden of Wisocracy, He combined Global Demilitarization of the Commonwealth for Earth & Humanity with Doughnut Economics Investments in Human & Social Needs and Earth's Needs (see below).

MEMEnomics is the work of Said E. Dawlabani integrating Spiral Dynamics into economics in his book, MEMEnomics: The Next-Generation Economic System. The work is dedicated to advancing and applying Evolutionary Economics and pursuing a sustainable future through the development of value systems and evolving human and cultural development over time.    

The Doughnut Economics diagram was developed by University of Oxford economist Kate Raworth in her 2012 Oxfam paper A Safe and Just Space for Humanity and elaborated upon in her 2017 book Doughnut Economics: Seven Ways to Think Like a 21st-Century Economist and paper. The Doughnut, or Doughnut economics, is a visual framework for sustainable development – shaped like a doughnut or lifebelt – combining the concept of planetary boundaries with the complementary concept of social boundaries. The name derives from the shape of the diagram, i.e. a disc with a hole in the middle. The center hole of the model depicts the proportion of people that lack access to life's essentials (healthcare, education, equity, and so on) while the crust represents the ecological ceilings (planetary boundaries) that life depends on and must not be overshot. 

WEAll is a collaboration of organizations, alliances, movements, and individuals working to transform the economic system.  An economy 

is the way we produce and provide for one another. We often think of the economy as something given, fixed, and unchangeable – but it’s not. The rules, social norms, and stories that underpin our current system were designed by people, and that means they can also be changed by people.

A Wellbeing Economy is an economy designed to serve people and planet, not the other way around.  In a Wellbeing Economy, the rules, norms and incentives are set up to deliver quality of life and flourishing for all people, in harmony with our environment, by default.

A Green Economy is an economy that aims at reducing environmental risks and ecological scarcities, and that aims for sustainable development without degrading the environment. It is closely related with ecological economics, but has a more politically applied focus. The 2011 UNEP Green Economy Report argues "that to be green, an economy must not only be efficient, but also fair. Fairness implies recognizing global and country level equity dimensions, particularly in assuring a Just Transition to an economy that is low-carbon, resource-efficient, and socially inclusive."  A feature distinguishing it from prior economic regimes is the direct valuation of natural capital and ecological services as having economic value and a full cost accounting regime in which costs externalized onto society via ecosystems are reliably traced back to, and accounted for as liabilities of, the entity that does the harm or neglects an asset.

Degrowth emphasizes the need to reduce global consumption and production and advocates a socially just and ecologically sustainable society with social and environmental well-being replacing GDP as the indicator of prosperity. The main argument degrowth raises is that an infinite expansion of the economy is fundamentally contradictory to finite planetary boundaries. Degrowth highlights the importance of autonomy, care work, self-organization, commons, community, open localism, work sharing, happiness and conviviality.

Circular Economy is a change to the model in which resources are mined, made into products, and then become waste. A circular economy reduces material use, redesigns materials, products, and services to be less resource intensive, and recaptures “waste” as a resource to manufacture new materials and products. In a circular economy all forms of waste, such as clothes, scrap metal, and obsolete electronics, are returned to the economy or used more efficiently.