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Tag Archives: resources
COLLAPSE! — Think of collapse as a drastic and chaotic reduction in energy and resource use
COLLAPSE! — Think of collapse as a drastic and chaotic reduction in energy and resource use “… my fundamentally conservative core requires a default position that collapse is the most likely outcome,” says physicist Tom Murphy. — Tom Murphy “The first thing I should say is that the word ‘collapse’ freaks me out. I don’t use […]
Monetary Pumping and Resources
MONETARY PUMPING AND IDLE RESOURCES As a result of the recent strong stimulatory policies employed by the US government and the Fed, most commentators are of the view that the risk of a deepening slump in the US economy on account of the COVID-19 pandemic has now receded. Some other commentators are not so certain […]
Demateralizing the economy isn’t happening (Hint: All that material is actually hiding in plain sight)
Demateralizing the economy isn’t happening (Hint: All that material is actually hiding in plain sight) If you are trying to prove something is true and certain facts get in the way, it’s almost always useful to exclude them. This is apparently what technology cheerleader Andrew McAfee has done in his recent book More from Less, which […]
Material challenges of bicycle manufacturing in a post-growth world
Material challenges of bicycle manufacturing in a post-growth world The idea of a world based on active transport, and on cycling in particular, is a recurring theme in thinking on degrowth. This was one of the proposed transformative paths of the Manifesto of the Mouvement québécois pour une décroissance conviviale[1] and this notion also plays an important role […]
The Urgent Case for Shrinking the Economy
The Urgent Case for Shrinking the Economy Endless growth is destroying the planet. We know how to stop it. ILLUSTRATION BY TIM LAHAN In July 1979, shortly after installing a set of solar panels over the West Wing, Jimmy Carter did something peculiar for a peacetime president. He asked Americans to sacrifice: to consume less, take public transit more, […]
The priest, the engineer and the economist
The priest, the engineer and the economist I was exchanging economist jokes over the holiday and heard this one that seemed apropos both to our resource predicament and the seeming abundance of the holiday season: A priest, an engineer and an economist were stranded together on a desert island. Given their location, fish seemed to […]
Toward an age of low tech for a more resilient and sustainable society
Toward an age of low tech for a more resilient and sustainable society The various restrictions that have been imposed to tackle the COVID-19 crisis have led many of us to reflect on what might be our response to other pressing issues that we face, especially inequalities in our societies and the major ecological issues […]
Reaching the End of Early Stimulus – What’s Ahead?
Reaching the End of Early Stimulus – What’s Ahead? Many people thought that COVID-19 would be gone with a short shutdown. They also thought that the world’s economic problems could be cured with a six month “dose” of stimulus. It is increasingly clear that neither of these assumptions is correct. Despite the claims of epidemiologists, our […]
Is the Green Deal a card shuffle trick?
Is the Green Deal a card shuffle trick? (NOTE; this is not an analysis of the US New Green Deal, it is about the “green growth” narrative with the European Green Deal as the point of departure.) The European Green Deal is a ”growth strategy that aims to transform the EU into a fair and prosperous […]
Frederick Soddy’s Debt Dynamics
Frederick Soddy’s Debt Dynamics In the field of ecological economics, Frederick Soddy looms large. Born in 1877, Soddy became a chemist and eventually won a Nobel prize for work on radioactive decay. Then he turned his attention to economics. Between 1921 and 1934, Soddy wrote four books that looked at how money relates to the physical economy. For […]
Green economic growth is an article of ‘faith’ devoid of scientific evidence
Green economic growth is an article of ‘faith’ devoid of scientific evidence Crack team that advised UN Global Sustainable Development Report settle a longstanding debate with hard empirical data For years, financial institutions and governments have been focused on the idea of ‘decoupling’ GDP growth from resource use. This has been driven by the recognition […]
21 Years Ago: The end of the Bombing of Serbia. And the Start of the Decline of the Western Empire
21 Years Ago: The end of the Bombing of Serbia. And the Start of the Decline of the Western Empire Nato Bombing of the city of Novi Sad, Serbia, 1999 (image from Wikipedia) 21 years ago, on June 10, 1999, the NATO campaign against Serbia ended after 78 days of bombing. We still don’t know […]
Increased Violence Reflects an Energy Problem
Increased Violence Reflects an Energy Problem Why are we seeing so much violence recently? One explanation is that people are sympathizing with those in the Minneapolis area who are upset at the death of George Floyd. They believe that a white cop used excessive force in subduing Floyd, leading to his death. I believe that there […]
Understanding Our Pandemic – Economy Predicament
Understanding Our Pandemic – Economy Predicament The world’s number one problem today is that the world’s population is too large for its resource base. Some people have called this situation overshoot. The world economy is ripe for a major change, such as the current pandemic, to bring the situation into balance. The change doesn’t necessarily come from […]
Welcome to the Era of Intensifying Chaos and New Weapons of Conflict
Welcome to the Era of Intensifying Chaos and New Weapons of Conflict Geopolitics has moved from a slow-moving, relatively predictable chess match to rapidly evolving 3-D chess in which the rules keep changing in unpredictable ways. A declining standard of living in the developed world, declining growth for the developed world and geopolitical jockeying for […]
