Thursday, November 19, 2009

Local Currencies: The missing link in the quest for sustainability

Currency is the lifeblood of an economic system. Most people think that there’s only one type of money, because that’s all they’ve ever known. Cheques and credit cards etc. represent special-purpose forms of cash, but money is money, they think, regardless of the form it takes. Few realise that there are, potentially at least, many different forms of money, and each type can affect the economy, human society and the natural environment in a different way.

Bernard Lietaer, research fellow at the Centre for Sustainable Resources, California, and author of "The Future of Money" (2001), says
‘We create our exchange systems and then they create the world we live in.’

Richard Douthwaite, author of "The Ecology of Money" (1999), says
‘If we wish to live more ecologically, it would make sense to adopt monetary systems that make it easier to do so.’ (more)

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