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'Planetary boundaries' is an idea that was showcased by Johan Rockström, executive director of the Stockholm Resilience Centre, in Nature in 2009, and refers to limits to the use of nine of the Earth's resources, ranging from activities that generate carbon dioxide to land use, the loading of atmosphere with aerosols and the use of oceans.

"There is no point in asking for change at a macro or sector level without also targeting change at the agent level. We have a serious agency problem. Corporations are 60% of GDP and 70% of global employment and left to themselves, 'Corporation 1920' type companies are unlikely to create the green economy. As the saying goes, turkeys don't vote for Christmas.

In the world of Corporation 2020, financial leverage would be limited by regulations that align corporate interests better with societal goals such as financial and economic stability. At present, this task is left largely to investors, with fund managers becoming the unlikely conscience-keepers of society. This is an unwise situation, to say the least.

the imposition of taxes on resource extraction, for businesses to be transparent about their impacts on society, and the creation of rules to make companies more accountable in the way they advertise products and services.

“This is how science works,” they wrote. “The E.P.A. is not required to reprove the existence of the atom every time it approaches a scientific question.”