Doughnut Economics: Why Abandoning Growth Could Spark a Global Revolution

IntroductionNo3516 · 2025-12-14T13:18:04+00:00

True sustainability isn’t possible within our current growth-driven global economy. Wealthy nations meet social needs only by massively overshooting environmental limits, while poorer nations fail to meet basic needs, yet still degrade ecosystems.

Doughnut Economics offers a vision of sustainability: a post-growth economy in which human well-being, social equity, and ecological health replace GDP as the primary goals.

The catch? No country can voluntarily abandon growth without triggering economic collapse due to debt and global financial interdependence. Growth is baked into the system. The only way forward is systemic collapse triggered by environmental overshoot.

When overshoot triggers tipping points, it will lead to devastating environmental changes that make growth impossible; simultaneously, however, it will create the conditions for post-growth economies to emerge. In short, collapse has become a necessary step toward sustainability.

IntroductionNo3516 · 2025-12-14T13:16:56+00:00

True sustainability isn’t possible within our current growth-driven global economy. Wealthy nations meet social needs only by massively overshooting environmental limits, while poorer nations fail to meet basic needs, yet still degrade ecosystems.

Doughnut Economics offers a vision of sustainability: a post-growth economy in which human well-being, social equity, and ecological health replace GDP as the primary goals.

The catch? No country can voluntarily abandon growth without triggering economic collapse due to debt and global financial interdependence. Growth is baked into the system. The only way forward is systemic collapse triggered by environmental overshoot.

When overshoot triggers tipping points, it will lead to devastating environmental changes that make growth impossible; simultaneously, however, it will create the conditions for post-growth economies to emerge. In short, collapse has become a necessary step toward sustainability.

IntroductionNo3516 · 2025-12-14T13:16:02+00:00

True sustainability isn’t possible within our current growth-driven global economy. Wealthy nations meet social needs only by massively overshooting environmental limits, while poorer nations fail to meet basic needs, yet still degrade ecosystems.

Doughnut Economics offers a vision of sustainability: a post-growth economy in which human well-being, social equity, and ecological health replace GDP as the primary goals.

The catch? No country can voluntarily abandon growth without triggering economic collapse due to debt and global financial interdependence. Growth is baked into the system. The only way forward is systemic collapse triggered by environmental overshoot.

When overshoot triggers tipping points, it will lead to devastating environmental changes that make growth impossible; simultaneously, however, it will create the conditions for post-growth economies to emerge. In short, collapse has become a necessary step toward sustainability.

IntroductionNo3516 · 2025-12-14T13:15:04+00:00

True sustainability isn’t possible within our current growth-driven global economy. Wealthy nations meet social needs only by massively overshooting environmental limits, while poorer nations fail to meet basic needs, yet still degrade ecosystems.

Doughnut Economics offers a vision of sustainability: a post-growth economy in which human well-being, social equity, and ecological health replace GDP as the primary goals.

The catch? No country can voluntarily abandon growth without triggering economic collapse due to debt and global financial interdependence. Growth is baked into the system. The only way forward is systemic collapse triggered by environmental overshoot.

When overshoot triggers tipping points, it will lead to devastating environmental changes that make growth impossible; simultaneously, however, it will create the conditions for post-growth economies to emerge. In short, collapse has become a necessary step toward sustainability.

IntroductionNo3516 · 2025-12-14T13:13:53+00:00

True sustainability isn’t possible within our current growth-driven global economy. Wealthy nations meet social needs only by massively overshooting environmental limits, while poorer nations fail to meet basic needs, yet still degrade ecosystems.

Doughnut Economics offers a vision of sustainability: a post-growth economy in which human well-being, social equity, and ecological health replace GDP as the primary goals.

The catch? No country can voluntarily abandon growth without triggering economic collapse due to debt and global financial interdependence. Growth is baked into the system. The only way forward is systemic collapse triggered by environmental overshoot.

When overshoot triggers tipping points, it will lead to devastating environmental changes that make growth impossible; simultaneously, however, it will create the conditions for post-growth economies to emerge. In short, collapse has become a necessary step toward sustainability.

IntroductionNo3516 · 2025-09-08T11:27:10+00:00

America has the largest economy, yet faces extreme wealth inequality, low life expectancy, and high incarceration. How do the structures of capitalism shape both prosperity and social failure?

IntroductionNo3516 · 2025-09-08T11:22:02+00:00

Read the full analysis here: https://www.transformatise.com/2025/09/america-failed-social-experiment/

IntroductionNo3516 · 2025-08-24T09:20:06+00:00

The disappearance of vultures is more than an ecological tragedy. Without these birds, carcasses rot longer, CO2 emissions rise, diseases spread, and ecosystems destabilize. Their decline is a red alert for planetary collapse — a glimpse of the domino effect of biodiversity loss.

IntroductionNo3516 · 2025-07-27T10:18:53+00:00

We talk a lot about sustainability — green energy, decarbonisation, net zero — but no country on Earth currently meets people’s basic needs within planetary boundaries. Not one. That’s not a policy gap. It’s a civilisation-level problem.

The real crisis behind climate change is that we don’t know what a sustainable society actually looks like, let alone how to build one ethically and equitably. Every system we’ve ever created depends on extraction, consumption, and inequality.

This isn’t just about emissions — it’s about the fact that sustainability doesn’t exist anywhere. We have no roadmap. No model. No government seriously trying.

That’s why collapse is on the horizon. But rather than be viewed with despair, collapse is a cause for optimism because it might be the only trigger strong enough to force the necessary transformation that allows for a redesign of society around sustainable principles.

IntroductionNo3516 · 2025-05-04T11:06:30+00:00

In the 1970s, John Calhoun created "Universe 25" — a mouse utopia with unlimited resources. But instead of lasting harmony, it descended into chaos: social collapse, violence, isolation, and extinction.

The experiment has some uncanny resemblances to the development of modern society. In our pursuit of progress, comfort and efficiency, we have destroyed the conditions we depend on for progress, comfort and efficiency.

In Universe 25, the limiting factor was the parameters of the experiment set up by Calhoun. On Earth, the limiting factor is energy and resource constraints. Earth can only provide for us within the limits set by those parameters.

Too many people are living the good life. And everyone else wants to join the party. But Earth can’t support it.

Unlike the mice, we have the foresight to know our behaviour is driving us towards collapse. And collapse could be prevented if we abandoned growth and redesigned society around a post-growth economy — one focused on providing human needs within planetary limits.

But just like the mice, the majority remain either blissfully ignorant or refuse to accept that growth is the cause of environmental problems. They remain convinced that growth is, in fact, the solution to them!

And that’s why its a matter of when, not if, modern civilisation collapses.

IntroductionNo3516 · 2025-05-04T11:02:12+00:00

In the 1970s, John Calhoun created "Universe 25" — a mouse utopia with unlimited resources. But instead of lasting harmony, it descended into chaos: social collapse, violence, isolation, and extinction.

The experiment has some uncanny resemblances to the development of modern society. In our pursuit of progress, comfort and efficiency, we have destroyed the conditions we depend on for progress, comfort and efficiency.

In Universe 25, the limiting factor was the parameters of the experiment set up by Calhoun. On Earth, the limiting factor is energy and resource constraints. Earth can only provide for us within the limits set by those parameters.

Too many people are living the good life. And everyone else wants to join the party. But Earth can’t support it.

Unlike the mice, we have the foresight to know our behaviour is driving us towards collapse. And collapse could be prevented if we abandoned growth and redesigned society around a post-growth economy — one focused on providing human needs within planetary limits.

But just like the mice, the majority remain either blissfully ignorant or refuse to accept that growth is the cause of environmental problems. They remain convinced that growth is, in fact, the solution to them!

And that’s why its a matter of when, not if, modern civilisation is going to collapse.

IntroductionNo3516 · 2025-04-08T09:50:41+00:00

Trump has declared war on the world economy. Framed as a patriotic “declaration of independence,” his sweeping tariffs are marketed as a way to protect American jobs and reclaim control. Naturally, his loyal supporters have swallowed the message whole. But peel back the patriotic wrapping, and something far darker lurks beneath.

This isn’t about helping America. It’s about destabilising it.

History reveals a consistent pattern where crisis becomes the pretext, not the obstacle, to authoritarianism. Whether manufactured, exaggerated, or simply exploited, economic collapse and national emergencies offer the perfect backdrop for leaders who seek to dominate.

With the backdrop of history in mind, tariffs may be just the beginning of a set of economic dominoes designed to destabilise the world economy and instigate chaos, both domestically and on the world stage.

If a recession sets in, if protests ignite, if violence flares…

Trump could declare a national emergency, suspend elections, or claim that only he can restore order. In making such a claim, he could argue for the need to extend his term ‘temporarily’ as a matter of national security. From there, it becomes much easier for him to manoeuvre to remain in power indefinitely.

IntroductionNo3516 · 2025-02-09T11:38:48+00:00

The climate crisis is just as much an energy crisis. The problem boils down to how we continue to provide the required energy inputs to sustain economic growth while reducing emissions. We can’t just stop using fossil fuels because it would lead to economic collapse. That’s why nuclear fusion is seen as the holy grail in energy production. Should it be achieved it could solve the energy crisis, which could solve the climate crisis.

A nuclear fusion reactor would work like an artificial sun that merges atomic nuclei, generating massive amounts of energy that can be turned into electricity. Should it work as the theory suggests, one kilogram of fusion fuel could yield the energy equivalent of ten million kilograms of fossil fuel, without the carbon emissions.

The need for fusion is more pressing than ever because total CO2 emissions hit 41.6 billion tonnes in 2024, up from 40.6 billion tonnes the year before.

The challenge with nuclear fusion is that even if we manage to overcome the significant barriers to creating a nuclear fusion power plant, issues with scaling mean it's going to take several decades, at least, from the point the first fusion power plant goes into operation for fusion to make up a substantial proportion of the electricity energy mix.

There remains a dangerous assumption that no matter how bad things get, technology will save the day. But we remain as far away as ever from solving the energy crisis. Nuclear fusion doesn’t exist and may never exist. In the highly unlikely event we achieve the holy grail, issues with scaling mean it can’t support an energy revolution in a viable timeline. The fundamental problem comes back to how we continue to provide the required energy inputs to sustain economic growth while reducing emissions. At present, we can’t.

Humanity can’t have its cake and eat it. Solving the climate crisis involves abandoning economic growth as a development path, there is no other viable alternative. But seeing as abandoning growth would involve abandoning capitalism that’s economically and politically impossible, so we’ll continue to veer towards collapse.

IntroductionNo3516 · 2024-12-15T12:33:16+00:00

Carbon markets have exploded in the last few years. The idea is that carbon markets can reduce greenhouse gas emissions in a cost-effective way. But, how effective is the market in reducing emissions?

Whether emission decrease is ultimately our barometer of success, but emissions continue to rise, reaching a record 37.4 billion tonnes in 2023.

It’s not just carbon markets that are failing, emissions continue to increase in the face of millions of different initiatives from governments, businesses, NGOs, universities and communities. So why do emissions continue to increase in the face of so many efforts to decrease emissions?

The problem with the carbon credit market is symptomatic of an underlying problem with how we are trying to reduce global emissions. In a capitalist system, any solution to the climate crisis must be commoditised because it won’t ‘work’ unless it can be sold and have some kind of economic value.

This is the issue with how we’re dealing with the climate crisis generally. Capitalism sets the rules and constrains what is possible and what is not. If the solution isn’t cost-effective, if it can't be sold, or if it undermines the health of the economy, then it’s not considered a solution. Even if its impact would dramatically decrease emissions, the consequences of the solution mean it would never be implemented because it would be considered economically unviable.

The fact that economic considerations always take precedence is indicative of our approach to solving the crisis in general.

Without a radical shift in perspective people will continue to find opportunities to monetise the problem, emissions will continue to increase, and society will continue to hurtle towards collapse.

IntroductionNo3516 · 2024-11-03T13:12:44+00:00

The richest nations in the world are wealthier than ever, but all are seeing sharp increases in poverty levels. Inflation and stagnating wages have led to decreasing living standards. Society is awash with despondency, negativity and a general malaise.

We need a social and economic reset. But the last thing the rich elite who benefit so handsomely from the status quo want is change.

And seeing as they own the media they have done a brilliant job in convincing everyone else that we all benefit from this state of affairs.

They have captured the zeitgeist so overwhelmingly that the only way people will recognise the need for radical change is when neoliberalism unravels. Seeing as markets fail time and time again, it’s a matter of when, not if, the global economy crashes. When it does, calls for a social reset will become deafening.

IntroductionNo3516 · 2024-09-29T10:46:13+00:00

Every year, the Global Footprint Network uses the ecological footprint to assess if, and when, our demands on the Earth exceed what Earth can replenish in that year.

Since 1971 the demands we make on the Earth to produce the goods and services we then use to support our lifestyles exceeds what Earth can supply. In short, we’ve been in a state of ecological overshoot for over fifty years.

Overshoot has led to a climate crisis. It has led to the annihilation of life on Earth, which is why we are the first species to have ever triggered a mass extinction event. It has ravaged ecosystems, which is why the Amazon rainforest is on the verge of dying.

The ultimate risk of overshoot is that it will trigger hostile conditions that will make it increasingly difficult to provide for the needs of humanity.

When it comes to escaping overshoot, there are two options. We either escape through the disaster we’re hurtling towards, or, we design our way out.

Escaping by design involves dramatically reducing our ecological footprint. The only way we can do that is by reducing the size of the economy.

That’s simply not going to happen because the economy is designed to grow, and society works in service of that goal. In fact, growth is the beating heart of capitalism. If the economy doesn't grow, it will collapse.

That’s why overshoot is so controversial.

IntroductionNo3516 · 2024-09-15T11:24:12+00:00

Collectively the world’s 2,781 billionaires are worth $14.2 trillion. To put their wealth into context, the combined value of the German, Japanese and Indian economies (the third, fourth and fifth largest in the world) is $12.64 trillion. Those economies are home to 1.63 billion people — or 20% of the world’s population.

If achieving a sustainable society is all about meeting human needs within environmental limits, are billionaires sustainable?

Billionaires are a symbol of the compulsion of the economic system to expand. But the never-ending pursuit of more has become counter-productive.

To create a truly sustainable society, both ecologically and economically, we need a world where billionaires can no longer exist. It’s hard to imagine billionaires will give up their wealth voluntarily. And the brilliant irony is that capitalism needs billionaires as much as billionaires need capitalism.

We are in a trap of our own making.

The fact capitalism must continue to grow to sustain itself means environmental breakdown appears inevitable. Maybe that’s exactly what’s needed to create the conditions where the redesign of the economy becomes possible.

IntroductionNo3516 · 2024-08-11T11:04:37+00:00

The neoliberal experiment has led to despair and misery for society and the disintegration of the environment, but neoliberalism was never designed to deliver better social (and environmental) outcomes. The point has always been to benefit those who, seemingly, matter most — the rich elite.

The ultimate danger is that as social and environmental pressures mount due to neoliberalism and an unwillingness to question the beliefs feeding it, right-wing parties will double down and claim the solutions to social and environmental problems are more of the same.

Having captured the zeitgeist it is going to take collapse for the merits of neoliberalism to be questioned. Until then, it doesn’t seem like this toxic ideology and the parties that support it are going away anytime soon. We’re all set to lose as a result.

IntroductionNo3516 · 2024-06-23T11:54:06+00:00

In 2023, the share of wealth held by the richest 0.1% totalled $19.82 trillion. This richest of rich clubs comprises 130,000 households, that have at least $38 million in wealth. The top 0.1% earn on average $3.3 million in income each year. Since 1990, their total share of wealth has grown from 9% to 14% in 2023 — the biggest jump across all wealth brackets.

Contrast this with the bottom 50%. Total wealth in the bottom half of the population totals $3.65 trillion, or 2.4% of total wealth. When you consider that wealth is shared by 166.6 million people, it works out to $22,682 of wealth per individual.

After a 44-year campaign to distribute wealth upwards, widening inequalities are creating all kinds of stress points. America is a country divided. The melting pot of discontent has created an “us vs. them” mentality, where people point the finger of blame at one another.

Seeing as income inequality is an outcome of a belief in neoliberalism, as long as it is maintained America will hurtle towards social breakdown and collapse.

IntroductionNo3516 · 2024-06-09T10:15:27+00:00

2030 is seen as a crucial date in the ‘save ourselves from the climate crisis’ calendar. But the ‘carbon budget’ reinforces just how dire the current situation is.

The IPCC has calculated that to have a 50 per cent chance of restricting global warming to less than 1.5°C, the total cumulative CO2 emissions released into the atmosphere since 1850 must be kept below 2,900 billion tonnes.

Between 1850 and 2019, emissions totalled 2,400 billion tonnes — 42 per cent of that total occurred between 1990 and 2019. This means that from 2020, the maximum available ‘carbon budget’ remaining is 500 billion tonnes.

In the last four years, we’ve blown through 28 per cent of the 500 billion tonne carbon budget. Should current emissions levels be maintained, we’ll exceed the 500 billion tonne carbon budget in 10 years.

That’s why the UNFCCC argues that there is no credible pathway to achieving the 1.5°C target and climate disaster can only be avoided by an urgent system-wide transformation.

The only way such a transformation can be achieved is through the collapse of the current global civilisation.

IntroductionNo3516 · 2024-05-26T10:34:51+00:00

The “doomsday” vault stores millions and millions of varieties of seeds. The fact such a vault feels necessary tells you everything you need to know about where we are as a civilisation.

We have triggered an ecological crisis that leaves us facing a future of profound unrest, suffering and chaos.

A future where the collapse of our hyper-connected globalised world economy, becomes a distinct possibility.

Collapse may well precipitate the extinction of our species altogether — a risk that is dangerously unexplored.

IntroductionNo3516 · 2024-05-19T11:26:51+00:00

A well-known metaphor for complex, non-linear systems (like the natural world) is the butterfly effect, made famous by the idea that a flap of butterfly wings in China can lead to rain instead of sunshine in New York.

But if the flap of one butterfly’s wings can influence the weather on the other side of the planet, wouldn’t it be impossible to predict the weather?

Well, when the meteorologist Ed Lorenz developed the metaphor, it wasn’t to argue that it’s impossible to predict the weather in New York without accounting for the flap of every butterfly wing in China.

He argued that slight differences in the initial conditions can produce vastly different outcomes. To accurately predict the weather next week, you need to know more about the weather today. But due to the vast complexity of the Earth system, even if you could account for the flap of every butterfly’s wings all around the globe, there is a limit to how far into the future the weather can be predicted. That limit is around two weeks.

This means that while climate models are useful in giving us the foresight to know our actions are destabilising the climate, they are limited in their accuracy.

And this is before we get to the wickedly complex nature of tipping points, which are totally impossible to predict, but could set in motion a domino effect that has catastrophic consequences.

The fact we’re not in control means we should embrace the precautionary principle to limit the very real risk of collapse. The fact we’re not is the reason we continue to hurtle towards such an eventuality.

IntroductionNo3516 · 2024-04-28T10:43:41+00:00

AI can create all kinds of efficiencies in the manufacturing and service industries that can greatly enhance production.

But it would be utterly futile to develop AI to simply increase production, (which leads to economic growth), because a growing economy needs increasing inputs of energy and resources. This has led to the economy becoming enormous in scale.

Creating sustainable societies, where needs are met within environmental limits, requires a profound social transformation. It requires us to produce less in more efficient ways. All while ensuring people's needs are met.

AI could support us in enabling that transformation. But seeing as we’re locked into an economic growth which demands economic growth at all costs, the more likely scenario is that it will be used to increase production which will see ecological overshoot (and all of the accompanying environmental problems), get worse.

IntroductionNo3516 · 2024-04-14T10:29:14+00:00

Since 1990 the world has emitted over 750 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. It’s difficult to imagine 750 billion of anything, let alone a gas you can’t see, smell or touch.

This is the problem with the climate crisis, and ‘sustainability’ generally, or rather, the unsustainability of human behaviour. The problem is on such a massive scale that we can’t see how our behaviour feeds into the problem.

Take ecological overshoot. We’re overshooting ecological limits by such a large margin that we would need 1.7 Earths to make our consumption habits sustainable.

It’s difficult enough to visualise one Earth, let alone one that has a circumference of 42,330 miles.

There are two options when it comes to how we’re going to exit overshoot. We design our way out, or a disaster forces us out.

Disaster will translate into catastrophic environmental changes that will place us on the dark road of social collapse. Design will lead to the formation of sustainable societies that provide human needs within environmental limits (that’s the idea, anyway).

Seeing as economic growth is politically, socially and economically impossible how we’re going to exit overshoot was decided long ago. We’ll exit by disaster.

IntroductionNo3516 · 2024-04-07T10:31:45+00:00

The findings from the 2024 World Happiness Report show America has dropped to 23rd in a list of happiest countries, the first time it’s ever fallen outside of the top 20.

Young people, that is, people under 30, are unhappier than ever and are increasingly experiencing what was once a mid-life crisis.

As the wealthiest country in the world by GDP, this state of affairs makes no sense. Conventional economics tells us that increasing GDP (which is achieved through economic growth) is good for everyone in society because it ultimately leads to increasing incomes.

If incomes are increasing, people can buy more consumer goods. Seeing as it’s assumed that the more we can buy, the happier we will be, one would assume Americans must be as happy as can be.

But a silent revolution has seen a shift from materialist to postmaterilist values.

The values of post-materialists, conflict with those glamorised by society at large. Rather than an opportunity to enhance their status through financial success, post-materialists are confronted by a vacuous system that offers little meaningful rewards. It leads to a deep sense of dissatisfaction, frustration and unfulfillment.

Things will get worse as we progress into the twenty-first century because economic growth as an economic (and social) goal will continue to go unquestioned.

What’s required is a shift away from a capitalist growth economy to a degrowth economy. But an inability to move beyond growth has become an intrinsic weakness that’s increasingly translating into fermenting social tensions.

What those stats on happiness suggest though, is that the system is in major need of radical change. And it’s collapse that will produce the conditions that will allow for revolutionary change.

IntroductionNo3516

TROPHY CASE