The emerging Earth Ethics blur old boundaries and show the ways Gross National Product (GNP) measured “progress” ignored other realities. This kind of compartmentalizing of reality and its analytical, reductionist worldview took hold of the human imagination in Europe and became the hidden mainspring of the industrial and scientific revolution. However, the powerful and often unintended consequences of this narrow view of reality (polluted skies, toxic dumps, etc.) are too visible to be denied in the 1990s. Pursuing an ever-rising GNP has monumental side effects. Henderson argues that we need to link previously separate sets of data in order to “re-whole” our understanding of the world. The GNP approach marginalizes local areas, businesses and workers in the informal as well as formal economy, and more comprehensive approaches should be undertaken. Henderson discusses these alternative approaches and their implications for policy.
