For decades now, mainstream economics has lost contact with reality. As early as 1974, the great Robert Solow made the outlandish claim that 'the world can, in effect, get along without natural resources'. The important thing, they said, was growth. Growth would fix everything. Meanwhile, scientists were busy confirming the direct link between increasing economic activity and ecological upheaval. It didn't have to happen this way. Over the past century, economists have created a number of powerful ways to examine and predict the world, and they did not always consider the environment...