Episode 4: Reimagining an Earth Centered Economy with Michelle Maloney

Since colonization (at least!) the human race has been blinded by the delusion that we are separate, above and beyond all other species to whom we share the planet. As we enter the decade of consequence, PGAP interviews Dr Michelle Maloney, who has dedicated her life to unpacking these myths and provides some insight into what an earth-centred society might look like.

The 2020s is the decade of consequence from centuries of anthropocentrism. The ‘Anthropocene’ has seen the numbers of human and ‘livestock’ animals balloon at the expense of every single other ‘wild’ species on the planet. Nature is biting back. In Australia, after reeling from the devastating impact of the bushfires, Melbourne has been plunged into six weeks (at least) of stage 4 lockdown. We are also looking towards a future of contraction and recession. Our politicians and business ‘leaders’ are only too keen to return to business as usual - as soon as possible. Dr Michelle Maloney has other ideas…

Michelle is the co-founder of Australian Earth Laws Alliance (AELA) and director of the New Economy Network Australia (NENA). For the past decade, Michelle has dedicated her life to bringing people and community together to revision a better world in which humans live, work and play in a way that regenerates the environment instead of taking away from it. From anthropocentricism to ecocentrism, if you please.

Michelle shares with host Michael Bayliss the excellent and essential work being done by the volunteer run AELA and NENA, bringing the realms of law and economics back into nature where it belongs. She describes what kind of world we might live in if we can change out mind sets by putting our beautiful local ecosystems back into forefront.

Michael also plays ‘Life on a Pier’ from his own band ‘Shock Octopus’. The track is an epic song about climate grief, an orchestrated eulogy for these difficult but fascinating times. The song is currently enjoying a month of national wide promotion, so we thought its inclusion here is timely!

We hope you enjoy the 04th episode of PGAP.