Recasting Economics As If the Climate and Global Ecology Really Mattered

The current paradigm of global economics with exponential and continuous economic growth is unsustainable as far as Earth system ecology is concerned. To support the Earth system and boost sustainable development, a functional and operational linkage between global ecology and economics should be established which we term carbonomics. The simple basis of carbonomics is that the more fossil and non-fossil carbon one has as stocks, and not flows, of carbon, the richer one is. This opinion piece makes some suggestions about how we might establish such a balanced relationship.