Once a basic income is supplied — and after it frees up anyone who has the time and/or energy to step away from manufacturing or service work — you’ll start to see something else happen. By being allowed access to just enough resources to live, more people will gain the option to cut back on things like their energy costs, gas mileage, and food waste to save even more of that basic income. These all cut down on the overshooting of the circle while further slowing down economic growth which would’ve only continued to exhaust that category otherwise. This is exactly what she’s stressing we need to do.

In short, a basic income’s seemingly bad fault of causing people to become frugal actually fits like a snug glove to help solve excessive materialism which has placed ecological overload on our planet’s resources.

I’m certainly being too positive. Nonetheless, Kate Raworth’s solution is worth watching, sharing, and discussing because in a few short years, our economic malignancy is going to become the center talking point of our politics. From unconditional basic income, to global climate change, to renewable energy, to artificial intelligence, to the increasing ecological impact of our consumerist globalization, we’re going to see young, aware politicians rise to these 21st century challenges and show us how to fix (or start to fix) them before it’s too late.

And we’ll need to. Our planet can’t infinitely grow — it can merely regenerate with what resources it has. It’s time our society learns how to help it regenerate sustainably before it does so without us.