Narratives, Markets, Nature: Introducing a New Strand of Thinking at Climatopia

We've always known that stories shape the way we see the world. It's the very foundation that Climatopia is built on. But there is a dimension of storytelling we haven't yet explored: one that sits at the heart of how our economies are organised, how resources are allocated, and ultimately, how the living world is treated.

That dimension is narrative economics.

The term was formalised by Nobel laureate Robert Shiller, who argued that the stories circulating in a society drive economic behavior. Markets move on narratives. Policies are built on them. Shiller's great insight was that to understand an economy, you have to move beyond numbers to also understand its stories.

Shiller’s perspective makes us see economies as story-shaped. But the relationship runs in all directions. Stories shape economies. Economies shape nature. And nature, in turn, shapes both: it generates new stories, imposes new economic realities, demands a reckoning by creating a need for new narratives. This is not a linear relationship with one-way cause and effect. It is a triangle, and we are inside it.

Think about the story of endless growth: the idea that a healthy economy is one that perpetually expands, that more is always better, that the measure of a good society is its GDP. This is not a law of nature. It is a story. And it is one that has shaped land use decisions, supply chains, trade agreements, and consumption patterns across the globe, with devastating consequences for the natural world.

Or consider the story of the rational consumer: a fictional human being who exists only to maximise individual utility, unaffected by emotion, community norms, or ecological conscience. This narrative has been written into the foundations of modern economics, and has seeped into the way we exploit nature for endless profit.

The three-way relationship we want to explore here is this: stories shape economies; economies shape natural ecosystems; and ecosystems, in turn, demand new stories. It is a loop and understanding it is crucial for climate action and ecological recovery.

There is also a question of power: They are stories written by some and imposed on many. The question of who gets to tell the economic story  and what story they choose to tell is inseparable from the question of climate justice.

This new section of Climatopia's Ideas Hive will bring together essays, reflections, and provocations that sit at the intersection of narrative, economy, and ecology. We'll ask: what stories are hiding inside economic concepts we take for granted? What would a post-growth story sound like? What can indigenous economic traditions teach us about telling a different tale? How do we move from a story of extraction to one of reciprocity?

We also invite submissions from you all! Get in touch here:

theclimatopiaproject@gmail.com

Welcome to Narrative Economics at Climatopia. It’s time for ReStory.