Economy for Public Good, a conference

University of Auckland Conference Center

There’s been so much to see in New Zealand, but I thought I’d start with this unusual travel activity. Beyond seeing the sights, a secondary goal I hoped to achieve in Australia and New Zealand was to learn about sustainability strategies. While looking online for things to do in Auckland, I spotted the Auckland Climate Festival - 30 days of events to rally the city around solutions for the impacts of climate change. The discussion is timely for Kiwis for two reasons: first, Auckland faced a devastating 10-inches-in-24-hours of rain in January, leaving huge damage behind, and New Zealand's first tropical cyclone added damage in February, plus several more flood events since; and, second, the election for the new President to replace Jacinda Ardern is in five weeks.

Within the many festival events planned while I was in town, one stuck out - a conference, Economy for the Public Good. It sounded incredible. Featured speakers included politicians, think-tankers, academics, journalists, and creatives discussing what changes to economic structures may be required to address a climate-change world. If anyone was thinking creatively about climate change and economies, it may be New Zealand, I thought. I hesitated - should I really be a geek and go to a conference on this NZ trip? Quickly, I came to a "yes", and made it happen.

Why was I excited to learn about an Economy for Public Good? Because I suspect we cannot preserve our natural environment or maintain peaceful cultures for the long term without changing basic economic assumptions.

A typical, collegial panel

Climate change is an existential threat to the human race. The path we are on is destroying the world in an accelerating way. Between climate change and late-stage capitalism, misery (migration, poverty, hunger, drugs, failure of health care, etc.) is causing social upheaval, in very apparent ways within our “little” U.S. and many other places too. We need to change course - radically, quickly - to preserve the earth and civilization for our children and grandchildren.

I don't think that is too dramatic a statement.

There is a real sticking point as we begin to model a world in which climate change is stopped or reversed - how it will affect "the economy", and what could that possibly look like? There are folks out there - I'm one - that suspect that we can't just treat some symptoms, that instead we need systemic change. And part of that systemic change would be how we envision the value of goods and services, a new framework for our economy.

In our capitalistic history, dominant only in the last 300-400 years, economic growth often is derived by the use and sale of the natural environment - land is parcelled, sold, tilled, mined and developed into cities. Materials and energy from combustion require deforestation, mining, drilling, and manufacturing leading to the release of carbon and toxic byproducts. Ever-increasing supplies of goods for sale require growing markets, frequent turnover of products and mountains of waste. Growth requires more and more people, requiring more and more stuff, and so far, using up more and more of the planet. How does the "economy" keep growing if our environmental quality is no longer degraded for our transportation and manufacturing? How do we support the lifestyles to which we've become accustomed without constant growth in consumption at every level?

There is, in our capitalist culture, a tremendous fear of slowing growth. People get mighty touchy if they think something may tank a market - real estate, stocks, bonds, commodities. We think of growth as providing our jobs, fueling our raises, and since they were outsourced to us to manage, funding our retirements. Our houses are no longer homes but financial investments, and watching the housing market is a parlor game. Is it possible to envision a world where the Dow Jones isn't driving our economy - or the world's?

I wonder whether we can all agree that our planet's resources are finite; that there are limits to what may be used up. An example: we are starting to see limits in the availability of water in the western U.S., Florida and other locations, in a way that should strike more fear into citizens' hearts than it seems to (for example, a documented 30% decrease in corn yields in Kansas attributed to irrigation water no longer available from a major aquifer). If we can agree resources are finite, then we would be wise to stop utilizing the resources at a depleting rate, then identify a utilization rate at which we will never run out (a regenerative rate), and cap our use there. Instead of capitalism's dependency on constant growth, constant expansion, could the target be thriving among all people and nature instead? And would indigenous cultures - Maori, Aboriginals, Native American tribes - be able to guide us towards a balanced connection with the natural world?

Over time, I’ll bring forward in more detail some of the things I’ve learned.

The Conference

Organized by WEAll (Wellbeing Economic Alliance) Aotearoa, the University's of Auckland's new conference center was the venue, a 15-minute walk from where I'm staying (in fact, there wasn't anything in the CBD more than a 15-minute walk away). It is a beautiful new facility. This gathering of roughly 250 like-minded thinkers generated many conversations at breaks, and lunch. Two real connection I made were with a young urban designer and the new chair of Bike Auckland. There was also substantial representation among a range ethnic groups.

It was here that I first learned of extent the integration of Maori culture with western culture in New Zealand. A Maori speaker will always offer a traditional statement of welcome, placing themselves within their community and land in Te Reo Maori (a traditional language). At this conference, all speakers offered the statement of welcome in Te Reo Maori. Maori words for various concepts were the norm, including Te Teriti and its terms and principles (the Treaty of Waitanga, governing joint stewardship of New Zealand by Maori and settlers). We in the U.S. have much to learn from the Kiwis about treating our indigenous peoples and cultures with the respect they deserve.

The Conference Center