A book about Green Monetary Reform and Green Economics

This book looks at the world's money system and its social and environmental consequences. It outlines how money is currently created as interest-bearing debt by commercial banks and reflects on the history of this process. Then it summarises all the appalling financial and environmental social effects of creating money in this way and asks what to do. Graphs show the rise in debt in several sectors including corporate, housing, student and credit card debt. To complete the section one on unhealthy money, there is a chapter on unhealthy globalisation, one on economic mismeasurement and one on answering the critics.

The second part of the book, larger than the first, starts to provide some solutions. It revisits the concept of money and outlines the reasons for complementary or local currencies. Many chapters then describe the various local currencies which have been used over the centuries and round the world at the moment, including LETS, commercial barter, timebanking, currencies with a circulation incentive. There are two chapters discussing why some local currencies are more successful than others, one on biomicry in organisational structures, one on community banking in New Zealand before a final chapter looking to the future and suggesting options for action.

It is completed with a bibliography, a list of organisation and websites and an index.

So this is a comprehensive book on green monetary reform and green economics for the information age.