Why does there need to be roll back from Green era for economy growth?

“How are you feeling about it all, John?” “Ach…” Most indy supporters will know a version of this conversational gambit.

Then, out of nowhere: “You wonder what it will take to raise people’s ambitions and hopes.” A shake of the head, a smile, then off up the stairs.

This came to my mind as Swinney, our soon-to-be new first minister, prepares his pact with Kate Forbes.

READ MORE: Key moments in the long career of the SNP's John Swinney

One of its crucial terms seems to be an approach to economics that is different from the Bute House Agreement between the SNP and the Scottish Greens.

In her speech announcing she wouldn’t be contending for the position of FM, Forbes put down her gauntlet quite clearly.

Her pre-discussions with Swinney seem to include “an understanding that economic growth and tackling poverty must again be key priorities and that a just transition to ‘net zero’ must work with, and not against, our communities and businesses.”

The dig at the Greens is obvious here.

The implication is that banal instances of circular economy (like bottle return schemes), or somewhat more ambitious eco-policies (like regulations on heating/insulation and coastal fishing), were working “against” communities and businesses.

An even deeper and more precise dig is the implication that “economic growth and tackling poverty” – which assumes that the first directly addresses the second – had slipped as a priority, under the agreement with the Greens.

Haud on.

Ferreting around in the undergrowth of coalition-era Scottish ministerial speeches on the economy, it’s hard to find any diminution in the commitment to growth.

Mairi McAllan, the Cabinet Secretary for Wellbeing Economy, Net Zero, and Energy, spoke in February about wanting growth in “space, photonics and fintech and AI …[in] financial services, health and life sciences, advanced manufacturing, tourism and hospitality, food and drink and energy.”

Mairi McAllan MSP for Clydesdale

The Greens’ own literature on “green jobs and enterprise” largely overlaps with this list of sectors. Yes, there are notable exceptions.

The financial sector gets little shrift. “Independent” (presumably not corporate) versions of retail, tourism, and other commercial sectors are promoted. The term “sustainable expansion” substitutes for “growth”.

But otherwise, much coincides.

So why does there need to be such an explicit “reset”, from a Green-thirled era to a “growth-friendly” SNP-led economic policy?

My sense is that something is playing out in our Scottish context which connects to a much wider policy chasm.

It’s between those who read the climate science and understand the need for profound changes in everyday life, work, care, and play.

And those who can’t imagine we have the capacity for such changes. So they defend the current capitalist system (if not its incentives) against the first group, now defined as “climate doomers”.

READ MORE: Climate campaigners have say on impact of Bute House Agreement ending

Indeed, even though everyone is stating their desire to cease the “culture wars”, this eco-economics distinction – between boomers and doomers – is probably the most consequential culture war of all.

It can’t be denied.

There is a body of respectable eco-economic scholarship that is bracing, even startling, in its implications for how societies must shift, under conditions of a runaway climate.

On social media, I found a multi-author paper this week that had been shared by Kate Raworth, the advocate of “doughnut economics”.

This approach holds that there is a “safe and just operating space” (SJOS) which can open up for us – a zone between decent human living standards, and the various climatic boundaries of the planet.

That SJOS is where the “doughnut” appears.

Doughnut economics is being applied in cities, regions and nations across the world, and its details are being painstakingly worked out.

This new paper, Managing The Doughnut, took some hard numbers – a projected planetary population of more than 10 billion people; our current assessments of “decent living requirements”; decarbonisation, and other targets.

And then tried to figure out what life “in the doughnut” might feel like.

As I said, this stuff is bracing.

For SJOS to pertain for the whole Earth, it requires “far-reaching dietary changes” (a near-vegan diet – though including fish – which would compel a completely different and less toxic use of cropland). There would be “minimal consumption” and “completely defossilised energy systems”.

And, most immediately alarming to the boomers, all this is “possible with currently available technologies … however, we cannot find evidence for ecological space for providing luxury”.

As Kate confirmed to me in a direct message, this paper is especially “stringent”.

It also “takes as given today’s linear, rather than circular, production system”, she continued, “so there’s a lot of potential also to be gained there, beyond the scope of their study”.

(That’s an interesting point for Scotland. We have made headline commitments to a circular economy. But we can’t push through a bottle scheme?)

Yet the “luxury” point is undoubtedly the most politically resonant – because it can be most easily presented as a deficit or a deprivation.

Take a local supermarket from a major chain. The doomers see it as the endpoint of fragile global supply chains, providing us with an artificial diversity of choice, in wasteful plastic wrappers.

The boomers would want to preserve this arrangement – the sign of two-way exchange between Scots and global produce, with the markets sorting out pricing and availability.

READ MORE: Wetter UK weather could push up price of beer and bread

But does “luxury” always have to imply its opposite – the ascetic and the austere?

Sometimes the streets work out answers to these matters.

My new neighbourhood, along Newhaven Road in Leith, has a cluster of food shops midway along (certainly qualifying for accessibility in a “15-minute city”).

Strikingly, they are both cooperatives. There’s ScotMid (a familiar chain in Edinburgh). And there’s a rugged, joyful wee outlet called Gull’s Grocery.

The former was founded in 1859, at the height of the early cooperative moment; the latter was formed in 2022, out of what looks like an old newsagents.

It’s like the present and the future are facing each other, across the road. You can find all the Unilever and Procter & Gamble brands you like in ScotMid (where employees are, to this day, members with a vote).

Over there, you also can bring your refillable plastic boxes to the Gull’s small but well-selected range (grains and cleaning substances on tap).

In the Gull, prices are sensible, and slightly over-ripe food can be picked up for free.

Their main veg is plump and locally sourced; their “luxuries” largely Edinburgh-and-Scottish-made.

Another luxury is the good cheer and manifest wellbeing of their diverse staff.

This is just a small example, down my way.

But if we want markets and money systems to operate for both human and planetary benefit, these wonderful local shops are delivering something of a lesson.

The lesson is partly to leading politicians who want to make reputational capital out of what are, in truth, subtle distinctions around the enablement of a wellbeing economy.

But it’s also, in all honesty, to those (myself included) who often invoke the most dramatic stats on climate crisis – and then find themselves despairing and stunned into inaction, as the advancing headlights grow larger.

Let any new economic direction support the re-enchantment and re-vitalisation of Scotland’s neighbourhoods, by encouraging green enterprise – as much as any other kind.

And let’s not make invidious, broad-brush distinctions, fuelled by ideological grandstanding.

As John mused all those years ago, we should stay close to the level at which people in Scotland concretely aspire and build in their lives.

And with that, best of luck, Mr Swinney.