The Low-Carbon Good Life

The Low-Carbon Good Life is about how to reverse and repair four interlocking crises arising from modern material consumption: the climate crisis, growing inequality, biodiversity loss and food-related ill-health. Across the world today and throughout history, good lives are characterised by healthy food, connections to nature, being active, togetherness, personal growth, a spiritual framework and sustainable consumption. A low-carbon good life offers opportunities to live in ways that will bring greater happiness and contentment. Slower ways of living await. A global target of no more than one tonne of carbon per person would allow the poorest to consume more and everyone to find our models of low-carbon good lives. But dropping old habits is hard, and large-scale impacts will need fresh forms of public engagement and citizen action. Local to national governments need to act; equally, they need pushing by the power and collective action of citizens. Innovative and engaging and written in a style that combines storytelling with scientific evidence, this book will be of great interest to students and scholars of climate change, sustainability, environmental economics and sustainable consumption, as well as non-specialist readers concerned about the climate crisis.

Book Structure and Contents Preface: Transgression Thanks and Acknowledgements The Illustrations 1 Dust and Air: A Dangerous New Economic Worldview 2 Ten Thousand Good Lives: Sustainable and Kind Ways of Living 3 The Climate Crisis: The Safety of One Tonne Each 4 The Inequality Crisis: Togetherness Is Better Than Selfishness 5 The Nature Crisis: Regaining Earthsong and Attentiveness 6 The Food and Agriculture Crisis: It’s Nourishment, Not Calories 7 The Best Things in Life: How Immersion and Flow Make the World a Better Place 8 Enoughness: Creative Slowth Is Better Than Infi nite Growth 9 Public Engagement and New Power: The Race to Net Zero 10 Transformation: Achieving the Low-Carbon Good Lives Coda: Let’s Dance, Together Chapter Endnotes Datasets for Figures and Tables Bibliography Index

Jules Pretty is Professor of Environment and Society at the University of Essex. His books include Sea Sagas of the North, The East Country, The Edge of Extinction, This Luminous Coast and Agri-Culture. He advises governments, has won awards and prizes, chairs the Essex Climate Action Commission, is host of a podcast, and received an OBE in 2006.