{"id":27512,"date":"2017-11-01T07:31:06","date_gmt":"2017-11-01T12:31:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=27512"},"modified":"2017-11-01T07:31:06","modified_gmt":"2017-11-01T12:31:06","slug":"the-cruel-topsy-turvy-economics-of-collapse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=27512","title":{"rendered":"The Cruel, Topsy-Turvy Economics of Collapse"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The Cruel, Topsy-Turvy Economics of Collapse<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

\nContrary to common sense, we could experience booming GDP and stock market valuations all the way to society\u2019s imminent collapse.<\/em><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/header>\n
As we reel from one natural disaster after another\u2014hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria, wildfires in California\u2014climate scientists\u00a0explain how<\/a>\u00a0they\u2019re not really \u201cnatural\u201d at all. They\u2019re the anticipated consequence of a breakdown in the world\u2019s climate, one that will become far more extreme as global temperatures rise from the current 1\u00b0 Celsius above historic norms to 1.5\u00b0 (perhaps\u00a0within ten years<\/a>) and then 2\u00b0 potentially\u00a0as early as twenty years<\/a>\u00a0from now.<\/p>\n

With headlines proclaiming the dire effects of these disasters on local economies, it might seem reasonable to believe that the power-brokers of our economic system\u2014investors, CEOs, Federal Reserve policymakers\u2014will eventually recognize the danger and wield their financial might to shift our civilization\u2019s trajectory away from climate catastrophe.<\/p>\n

That may turn out, however, to be wishful thinking. In the short term, these disasters do indeed cause harm to the economy, but after the initial shock they\u2019re more likely to have a net positive impact on the country\u2019s Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In\u00a0the words of<\/a>\u00a0U.S. Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin, \u201cThere clearly is going to be an impact on GDP in the short run. We will make it up as we rebuild. That will help GDP.\u201d<\/p>\n

Welcome to the cruel, topsy-turvy economic logic of a civilization facing the risk of collapse. As millions of people increasingly suffer the devastation of climate breakdown, we can expect the economy\u2014as measured by conventional benchmarks\u2014to maintain and even strengthen itself right up to its breaking point.<\/p>\n

…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…<\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Cruel, Topsy-Turvy Economics of Collapse Contrary to common sense, we could experience booming GDP and stock market valuations all the way to society\u2019s imminent collapse. As we reel from one natural disaster after another\u2014hurricanes Harvey, Irma, Maria, wildfires in California\u2014climate scientists\u00a0explain how\u00a0they\u2019re not really \u201cnatural\u201d at all. They\u2019re the anticipated consequence of a breakdown […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,4,7],"tags":[150,13970,353,16819,13248,6665,1138],"class_list":["post-27512","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-economics","category-environment","category-survival-2","tag-collapse","tag-disasters","tag-gdp","tag-jeremy-lent","tag-patterns-of-meaning","tag-resilience-org","tag-stock-market"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27512"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27513,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27512\/revisions\/27513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}