Energy & The Financial System Presentation

By Roger Boyd, originally published by Humanity’s Test

August 4, 2014

The financial system as an accelerator and multiplier of the economic and social impacts of energy depletion. 

Presentation to Energy Systems Conference (June 2014).

Oil money teaser image via shutterstock. Reproduced at Resilience.org with permission.

Roger Boyd

I have a BSc in Information Systems from Kingstom University U.K., an MBA in Finance from Stern School of Business at New York University, USA, and a MA in Integrated Studies from Athabasca University, Canada. I have worked within the financial industry for the past 25 years, and am also a research member of the B.C. Alberta Social Economy Research Alliance (BALTA) looking at the linkages between issues of sustainability and models of ownership and finance. Most recently I have completed a book, to be published shortly by Springer, titled “Energy and the Financial System”.

Tags: Energy, finance

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It is true that no high-energy society has ever halved its material throughput and existed at that level across generations. But an absent precedent for an unprecedented situation merely tells us the situation is new, not what people will do.

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In this post, I examine differences in economic behaviour by comparing two types of periods: those with low energy affordability and those with high energy affordability.

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