In the 1960s, when economic growth became the single most important objective of government economic policy, the economist Herman Daly, who has died aged 84, saw a different future. He called for a change in thinking to make our economies more consistent with the finite energy and resource limits of the Earth.
Sixty years ago it was considered heresy to question economic growth, and Herman faced much opposition, but his ideas have become a foundation for many new approaches, such as doughnut economics and wellbeing economics, by placing the economy within the Earth’s systems and in society.
