"If you start talking to people about what their lives are like right now, a lot of people will tell you life is looking a little bleak," Sandrine Dixson-Declève, co-president of the Club of Rome think tank, told AAP.
"The cost of living has gone up so astronomically, energy is costing more - and that's not because of renewables, even though a lot of people would like to convince you that is it."
She said the newest generation were making less than their parents, and moving back in with them - including her 30-year-old daughter.
"That's what they're talking about - no, something's not quite right, my quality of life is going down," Ms Dixson-Declève said.
"What's wrong? Is it our politicians, is it our economy, the environment, what is it that's making us feel this way?"
More than two thirds of G20 citizens want a well-being economy, where people have dignity and safety with basic needs met and their voices heard, according to an Ispos Mori survey of advanced economies including Australia.
"You can go from 'what's wrong' to 'what truly matters'," she said.
"And that conversation is so important because we've got so over-materialised that we don't even think about what's making us sad.
"Social tensions are also making us very aware that something is wrong," she said.
She said it was time to start "rewiring humanity" because the capacity to respond and rebound from shocks was reducing each decade as a result of untrammelled economic growth and inadequate action to protect the climate and biosphere.
Sandrine Dixson-Decle've says what's lacking is the bravery to push governments and call things out. (Mick Tsikas/AAP PHOTOS)
"Where we're lacking is the bravery to push our governments and call things out," Ms Dixson-Declève said.
She urged governments to look beyond productivity and competitiveness, and recognise that last century's ways of measuring success were not set up for 21st-century challenges.
"The food and energy shift is not just a 'nice to have', it's going to be fundamental to adapt to a 1.5-2 degree world," she said.
Data showed that levels of global warming, the world's existing trajectory, would slice three per cent off global GDP.
Tallying decades of GDP and population growth, she has worked with a group of leading scientists and economists who found social tensions and inequality were increasing alongside serious threats to nature and food security.
They modelled two subsequent scenarios - too little too late or a giant leap - and steps to correct inequality and account for social and environmental costs in financial and economic decision-making.
Co-author of the subsequent survival guide, Earth for All, Ms Dixson-Declève says she never imagined the book on transformational economics would become a bestseller.
She will be speaking in Melbourne on Monday at the State Library of Victoria.
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