{"id":3023,"date":"2018-07-18T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2018-07-17T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ourplanet.org\/ron-colman-genuine-economic-indicators-how-do-we-factor-losses-into-our-economy-to-give-a-true-cost-to-the-nation\/"},"modified":"2023-05-11T19:15:28","modified_gmt":"2023-05-11T06:15:28","slug":"ron-colman-genuine-economic-indicators-how-do-we-factor-losses-into-our-economy-to-give-a-true-cost-to-the-nation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ourplanet.org\/greenplanetfm\/ron-colman-genuine-economic-indicators-how-do-we-factor-losses-into-our-economy-to-give-a-true-cost-to-the-nation\/","title":{"rendered":"Ron Colman: Genuine Economic Indicators. How do we factor losses into our economy to give a true cost to the nation?"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3>There is a growing awareness of what Genuine Progress Indicators do - as GDP includes all costs to the nation, whilst GPI, wants to address the losses to society. <\/h3>\n<ul>\n<li>Crime and family breakdown is seen as Gross Domestic Product <\/li>\n<li>Household and volunteer work is seen as Gross Domestic Product<\/li>\n<li>Pollution and its consequences are seen as Gross Domestic Product<\/li>\n<li>Long term environmental damage is seen as Gross Domestic Product<\/li>\n<li>Even War goes through the books as... Gross Domestic Product!<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>So all of the above, don\u2019t really benefit society at all - as they are all major losses yet, Governments globally have always classified these as a measure<br \/>\n    of economic growth!<\/p>\n<p>In this interview which becomes quite riveting in the end - Dr Coleman talks of the challenges of putting GPI in place within the government economic apparatus.<br \/>\n    That prior to the 3 term National Party Key administration, that Labour Minister of Finance Michael Cullen was very interested in this concept - but<br \/>\n    Labour was voted out of office - and he was not able to follow through in taking this forward.<\/p>\n<p><em>But in the meantime these losses are costing society and the country dearly!<\/em> <\/p>\n<p>Genuine Progress indicators is a \u2018holistic\u2019 way of seeing a more integrated bigger economic picture, that factors in the environment, as well as the community<br \/>\n    as a whole.<\/p>\n<h3>Holism <\/h3>\n<p>A holistic way is to view all the various facets to life in a more homeostatic way. As in a integrated whole of interconnection and interrelationships.<br \/>\n    In this interview he mentions that when he engaged the leaders of the NZ Maori Party they instantly and intuitively grokked his reasoning as applying<br \/>\n    to our planet - Papatuanku as alive - or the earth acting as one great superorganism.<\/p>\n<p>This was then extended to the Whanganui river being classified recently by the NZ Government as a living entity that has a vast catchment area of some<br \/>\n    7,000 square kilometres. - The next question is, do we have the will to see the far larger picture as we further our knowledge of the interconnection<br \/>\n    of life. (James Cameron in the blockbuster movie Avatar, introduced the moon Pandora as a living being and that all the tree roots interconnected in<br \/>\n    one vast - neural network). See the Gaia Hypothesis - James Lovelock<\/p>\n<p>One of the larger challenges is that both in business and in Government there is compartmentalisation. Where there is very little to no \u2018cross fertilisation\u2019<br \/>\n    or sharing - people are often in positions of \u2018need to no only\u2019 so they only understand a very limited perspective of how the whole organism\/organisation<br \/>\n    works. That the company or the Department is not acting as a \u2018dynamic whole\u2019 and thus efficiencies as well as enthusiastic participation - is throttled<br \/>\n    back. When in a very connected electronic world - the imperative is energetic team spirit, that on a grander scale then spontaneously engenders novelty<br \/>\n    and innovation. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Bhutan<\/strong> <\/p>\n<p>This subject came out of the blue in that I was wanting to see what country was further along the \u2018conscious journey\u2019 of seeing the world in a more futuristic<br \/>\n    and caring perspective. So knowing that Bhutan was a country that had a \u2018happiness\u2019 indicator I threw in a the comment - what about Bhutan?<\/p>\n<p>Well Ron came back to me and said he had lived there for 5 years - and so could tell us far more than virtually anyone in the West has heard. <\/p>\n<p> He said that they had a fairly enlightened King who wanted to gauge the feelings of the mainly Buddhist inhabitants of that small kingdom. With initiating<br \/>\n    a Gross National Happiness (GNH) goal.<\/p>\n<p>What comes out of this discussion is that the Bhutan government wanted to float this idea through the UN so that other countries could participate. When<br \/>\n    this happened - and though a lot of countries thought this was a good idea, there was pushback especially as this would have had to deal straight at<br \/>\n    face value - with other countries poverty and all the other contingencies like clean air, water, land and food production, housing, education and health.<br \/>\n    You name it.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Synchronicity with what\u2019s happening in New Zealand<\/strong> <\/p>\n<p>Fortunately, this goal is still alive and well today and the present NZ government is putting a lot of attention into it..<\/p>\n<p><strong>The Government's plan to announce the world's first \"wellbeing\" Budget next year resonates with business people if a big Waikato Inc turnout to hear Finance Minister Grant Robertson is any gauge. NZ Herald 10th July 2018<\/strong>    <\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/business\/news\/article.cfm?c_id=3&amp;objectid=12086507\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">https:\/\/www.nzherald.co.nz\/business\/news\/article.cfm?c_id=3&amp;objectid=12086507<\/a>    <\/p>\n<p>Then Ron takes his attention to what\u2019s happening in the biosphere and the overlapping challenges and tipping points as to what we as a humanity are doing<br \/>\n    to our planetary \u2018life support system\u2019. <\/p>\n<p>Bangkok under water by 2033, which I question him about - because Al Gore said that the Arctic would be ice free in summer by 2013, and it has not happened.<br \/>\n    <strong>Yet<\/strong>, the warming continues - see the temperatures in Europe over the last month. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Shift in planetary consciousness <\/strong>- <\/p>\n<p> The interview moves on to talk about planetary leadership and there is a vast vacuum in all governments globally. The fact that people are rebelling against<br \/>\n    neoliberalism and the status quo and that of the whole Brexit domino situation etc etc. Listen<\/p>\n<p><strong>Empowering Youth and Women<\/strong> <\/p>\n<p>There is an acute need for empowering of the worlds youth and especially woman (and their reproductive rights) - to nurture their\/our common future. Plus,<br \/>\n    for them (that in this somewhat tumultuous world) to be in a healthy position to make this change possible. <em>This is an area that we all intuitively know that as a human society, we need to engage in - and urgently. <\/em>    <\/p>\n<p>Though we still have to trust that the top down model of leadership \u2018may\u2019 engage the population with an enlightened approach - the thrust of this whole<br \/>\n    interview is about grassroots movements. An energised bottom-up regeneration and metamorphosis movement. This interview carried on to include many<br \/>\n    small towns, villages and regions in NZ consciously coming together as small focussed communities. <em>See main page GreenplanetFM.com  <\/em> <\/p>\n<p>These are about farmers markets acting as a catalyst to bring the community closer together so as to have access to cheaper, healthier <em>organic<\/em>    foodas well as to network together plus organising aof time banks. Especially that volunteerism can be rewarded by time bank credits. <\/p>\n<p><strong>Other Initiatives <\/strong> <\/p>\n<p>In Auckland the Manukau District Health Board now has worked alongside the championing of 70 community gardens in the area. The benefits are many, and<br \/>\n    this can only encourage the community to healthily become more engaged and connected. <\/p>\n<p><i><strong>This was a very lively and empowering interview. We both came away \u2018happy and empowered.\u2019<\/strong><\/i> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>What are \u2018Genuine Progress Indicators\u2019 in relationship to GDP or \u2018Gross Domestic Product?\u2019<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":2382,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourplanet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3023"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourplanet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourplanet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourplanet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourplanet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3023"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ourplanet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3272,"href":"https:\/\/ourplanet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3023\/revisions\/3272"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourplanet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2382"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ourplanet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourplanet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ourplanet.org\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}