The finance curse and the British economy
By Andrew Curry, thenextwave
In short, the book suggests that the UK economy has a financial sector that is about significantly larger than it needs to be to service the productive parts of the economy, and the effects of this are almost completely extractive.
Rethinking insulation
By Andrew Curry, thenextwave
In short: the retrofit model isn’t working, and the whole problems needs re-framing. We need to be thinking about ‘thermal comfort’ instead of insulation.
Living without ‘machines’
By Andrew Curry, thenextwave
How remote my own life is from taking “responsibility for my own material needs”, and how unskilled I am for that life—to the point where even if I wanted to, or needed to, I’m not sure how I would acquire the skills I needed for it.
Making the transition happen
By Andrew Curry, thenextwave
The economist Adam Tooze has an article on his newsletter assessing the cost of getting to net zero in Europe by 2050. It’s based on a close reading of a McKinsey report and a look at some of the assumptions in the technical report produced for the EU Commission.
The IEA starts believing in energy transition
By Andrew Curry, thenextwave
I think it’s fair to say that the recent Energy Outlook from the International Energy Agency represents a significant moment in the discourse around renewable energy.
The fight over food at the UN’s Food Summit
By Andrew Curry, thenextwave
So it’s also possible that this is just a ‘used future’, as Sohail Inayatullah has it—a set of ideas “created in some other context, but to which we are unconsciously holding on to, blinding us to other more authentic and empowering ideas of the future.”
Lessons from Afghanistan
By Andrew Curry, thenextwave
The Americans failed at ‘nation-building’ because they spent all the money on the military. The British delusions of being an independent ‘global’ power have been shown up for what they are. And the people who pay the price for this are the Afghanis, still living in one of the poorest states in the world.
Revisiting The Limits to Growth
By Andrew Curry, thenextwave
The choice is that either we end up with unmanaged decline, which would be catastrophic, or a managed levelling out of our economies, shaped by a shift in social values and expectations.