GDP blues

Bob Watson

The world is headed for disaster unless we change how we measure economic health. So says a paper published this month by past winners of the eco-Nobel, the Blue Planet prize. Elizabeth Gibney asks Bob Watson, Defra’s departing chief scientific adviser and standard-bearer for an alternative GDP, why?

The world runs on the wrong incentives and must be overhauled to avoid ruin, you say in your paper. Is it really a scientist’s job to make such proclamations?

Well, we’re also trying to say what the solutions are. Each one of the issues is based on our understanding of know-ledge. And if you want to deal with demographic change, climate change, biodiversity, the energy sector or governance, based on knowledge this is what you would have to do. It’s a fine line between scientists saying what the knowledge base is and then saying what the way forward is. Is it advocacy? I’d say it’s evidence-based advocacy.