Bill Mckibben's Deep Economy

The environmentalist Bill McKibben in his book “Deep Economy” he addresses some of the major issues we have as a society and mentions some of the ways we could reach a more sustainable nation. According to him we suffer from three major crisis. The first problem, he thinks we need to deal with is politics, now days we are focusing more in the economy and forgetting about the impact it is creating in our natural environment. The second problem is growth, which refers to the idea that we have about money making us happier. The last problem and the one he stresses the most is physics and chemistry; this refers to the problem with have with fossil fuel, which is one of the biggest cause of climate change. The solution he gives to this crisis is …show more content…
However something he does not mention in this is gender. Mckibben does not address any aspect of the differences between genders, but his idea of the ideal society is a very feminine mind set. In the article “Sustainability: a gender perspective” by Gerdan Casimir and Chris Dutilh, they discuss the two different mind set people have, one is the consumer and one is the citizen. They relate the consumer mind set to a masculine way of thinking due to the social constructed behavior that associates it with men. And in the other hand the citizen mind set is connected to a feminine view, this is due to their long term orientation, their resourceful and caring tendencies. Casimir and Dutilh describe this two sides that are very similar to McKibben 's, hyper-individualistic and neighborism, but they put it into a gender perspective. To study this we will look at one of the most sustainable countries in the world: Iceland. And will compare this sustainable country to a lest sustainable country like the United States to understand the difference between this two points of views. Putting McKibben solutions into perspective by adding the gender aspect Casimir and Dutilh …show more content…
This nation has always been in the top most sustainable countries in the world, this is due to the clean air economy, low air pollution and their society awareness and commitment to conserve. Their effort to keep a Eco-friendly nation is very impressive, 100% of their energy is from electricity production. A major contributor to this impressive environmental improvements is their society post-materialistic mind set. Also another factor that influences their sustainable nation is the inclusion of women in this economy. Woman are 45% of the nations workforce and in 2009 they were the first country to have an equal number of men and women in the government. This has been one of the cause why they have no gender wage gap and their fertility rates are high due to their good childcare system and equal parental leave. They have created a ground where woman and man have equal opportunity to succeed making their economy flourish. All this impressive policies this nation has are all based in a citizen point of view, which mean they can be refer as an feminine society. Their equality and environmental awareness is the big reason why they being so successful and proving Casimir, Dulilh and McKibben about being concern of our community and the effects we have in it creates a unsuitable environment and economy that every person with an citizen