By host Tom Ashbrook:
Writer and environmentalist Bill McKibben has become a kind of folk hero in the backroads of Vermont and across the country, wherever farmers markets flourish and citizens rise in fear of global warming. Next month, in hundreds of towns and cities, his “Step it up” acolytes will rally to demand faster action on climate change.
In a new book, Bill McKibben is calling for radical economic change as well — out with “more is better” and the fires of global growth; in with local food, local produce, a kind of new village life. He calls it “deep economy” to save the Earth.
This hour On Point: Bill McKibben and leading Chicago market economist Marvin Zonis have it out on the future of the planet.
Quotes from the Show:
“I think we shouldn’t go deep into the global warming debate because that debate has been solved.” Bill McKibben
“The market has added no value to the atmosphere.” Bill McKibben
“Data show us that inequality has grown not because the poor have gotten poorer but because the rich have gotten richer. Market growth has made the poor richer.” Marvin Zonis
“The long-term answer is to change the trajectory of our economy.” Bill McKibben
“Europe doesn’t follow the solutions that McKibben suggests for the US. Americans value liberty and individualism and Europeans value community more… . We have to adopt our American [economic] model to the American values.” Marvin Zonis
“I don’t think Bill’s plan is going to move this country and the economy in the direction he wants it to go.” Marvin Zonis
Guests:
Bill McKibben, author of “Deep Economy: The Wealth of Communities and the Durable Future” and scholar in residence at Middlebury College
Marvin Zonis, professor emeritus at the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business and author of “The Kimchi Matters: Global Business and Local Realities in a Crisis-Driven World”
Jack Beatty, On Point news analyst and senior editor at The Atlantic Monthly
