Carbon cycling offers a model sustainable economy based on reciprocity

Evidence

I suppose that one of the features of being a member of a nation is shared currency. In Maple Nation, the currency is carbon. It is traded, exchanged, bartered among community members from atmosphere to tree to beetle to woodpecker to fungus to log to firewood to atmosphere and back to tree. No waste, shared wealth, balance, and reciprocity. What better model for a sustainable economy do we need? — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 608

Categorization

• XREF: The carbon-currency framing is a striking rendering of ecosystem services plus economic grounding; bridges the ecological-economics thread to reciprocity as the organizing ethic. — connects to: The carbon-oxygen cycle between plants and animals embodies reciprocity — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 1263; Negative feedback loops are a form of reciprocity — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass: Indigenous Wisdom,…, 1119
• SEED: Strong essay angle: redesigning economics around carbon as a shared circulating currency rather than money, with the forest as the model central bank.

Broader Connections

• The carbon-oxygen cycle between plants and animals embodies reciprocity #expands (0.92) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 1263
• Negative feedback loops are a form of reciprocity #exemplifies (0.78) — Robin Wall Kimmerer, Braiding Sweetgrass, 1119