Insight and inspiration in turbulent times.
Waste is an obsolete concept: the future is one without waste where materials will circulate through our economy rather than entering as raw materials at one end and being dumped into landfill at the other. his conception of the economy as circular is due to Kenneth Boulding, a leading figure in the development of a green approach to economics…
To read these writers and take them seriously is to admit that the culture is not with us, that although solutions exists, they are smothered by widespread denial. Therefore we work in darkness and we struggle with those forces of denial–sometimes in the form of our own friends and family.
John Michael is an erudite and patient writer, good at explaining away the various fallacies around money, energy and the pursuit of everything that bedevil our increasingly morbid industrial civilization. I read and I nodded, and it was not until I arrived at the last chapter, “The Road Ahead” that I started shaking my head, because a paraphrase of the title sneaked into my brain, one that I couldn’t shake: Preaching to Sharks: Economics as if the Survival of Economists Mattered. What made it hard to shake was that it was accompanied by this stunning image from Herman Melville’s Moby Dick.
-UK ministers ignored ‘peak oil’ warnings, report shows
-Senate Rejects Effort to Cut Ethanol Subsidy
-Soot, smog curbs quick way to combat warming: U.N. study
We hear a lot about local food these days, but the bankers sure don’t want anyone to take that too literally. If everyone ate at home out of their gardens most of the time, the so-called economy would collapse because it is based on the assumption that the vast majority of people will continue to eat at restaurants, out of necessity or simply because that is the established way of American life.
Envisioning a new investment paradigm is difficult theoretical work, but actually implementing a system that directs flows of investment cash into local food systems is even more difficult. As a nascent movement, Slow Money has moved methodically to build a robust infrastructure for implementation. A growing national network of interested people have been considering how local groups or “Slow Money Alliances” would be structured in order to accomplish the work of bringing more investment into local food systems.
Read the transcript from our live webchat about natural gas. David Hughes (author of Will Natural Gas Fuel America in the 21st Century?), Michael Bomford and Richard Gilbert answer questions from readers.
Read the transcript from our live webchat about natural gas. David Hughes (author of ‘Will Natural Gas Fuel America in the 21st Century?’), Michael Bomford and Richard Gilbert answer questions from readers.
My colleague at the National Review, Jonah Goldberg, recently penned an article, in which he starts down the road with a sure step but then falters and ultimately stumbles over his erroneous notions about economic growth. I provide some subjective commentary below, but I also offer an objective economic analysis to set the record straight. I have devised a nonparametric econometric statistic, normalized on a scale from 1 (utterly false) to 10 (unassailably true) that rates the veracity of each of Mr. Goldberg’s premises (in the interest of conserving ink, I shall refrain from reproducing the 17-page formula here; in any case, it is likely that readers would find it well beyond their comprehension).
The world oil production data below tell a story about: 1) nations that are past peak, because of geologic limits (e.g., US, Norway, etc.) or other reasons; and 2) nations that have yet to peak, or if they have peaked it is not yet clear.
So what’s the alternative to slashing government programs, budget cutting, and more concentrated wealth at the top? The centerpiece of a new approach is to re-structure the labor market by reducing hours of work. That may seem counter-intuitive in a period when the mainstream message is that we are poorer than ever and have to work harder. But the historical record suggests it’s a smart move that will create what economists call a triple dividend: three positive outcomes from one policy innovation.
To feed a growing world population, we have no option but to intensify crop production. But farmers face unprecedented constraints. In order to grow, agriculture must learn to save.
