Ethan Goffman, associate editor of the open-access journal for sustainable solutions,
Sustainability: Science, Practice, & Policy, has written a thought-provoking review of Frans Verhagen's
The Tierra Solution. You can read the original review, along with some enlightening articles about sustainability,
here, but see what he has to say below.
Climate change requires an integrated
global approach. Solutions cannot be isolated by borders, nor from our economic
and social systems. Big thinking is needed. One recent book that thinks big is The Tierra Solution by sustainability
sociologist Frans Verhagen, President of the International Institute of
Monetary Transformation. The book recommends a global currency called the
Tierra based on carbon. Given the severe challenge of climate change, such sweeping
proposals are needed to create a larger vision and stimulate discussion. And
clearly, a major shift in our monetary system is needed for a stable,
sustainable planet. Still, the book is simplistic in its claims for a singular
solution and understates the huge political challenges.
The Tierra would abandon our current
floating currency, in which dollars, euros, renminbi, pesos, and other currency
fluctuate relative to one another, oftentimes wildly so. While such volatility is
economically stressful, Verhagen points out that the gold standard, the
classical stable unit of currency, suffers from the artificial nature of gold,
which itself ebbs and flows in price. As an international currency based on
carbon, the Tierra would be both comprehensive and stable. It would also be tied
to the environment, encouraging responsible behavior globally. As Verhagen
explains, “[T]he proximity of a nation’s decarbonization level to the [Tierra]
standard would determine the...value of its currency.”
Alas, the book leaves a hole as to how
a transition to such a standard would take place. It does, however, describe a
more complete system of which the Tierra is only one part, albeit the central
one. Controlled by a global monetary institution, the Tierra would be a
credit-based currency integrated with an exchange of wealthy countries’
ecological debts and poorer countries’ financial debt, and working alongside a
carbon tax.
Read the rest of the review on the
Sustainability blog,
here. And don't forget to leave a comment here or there with your own thoughts on the issue!
