Tom Murphy

Discovering limits to growth

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After inaugurating the Do the Math blog with two posts on the limits to physical and economic growth, I thought it was high time that I read the classic book The Limits to Growth describing the 1972 world computer model by MIT researchers Meadows, Meadows, Randers, and Behrens. I am deeply impressed by the work, and I am compelled to share the most salient features in this post. To borrow a word from a comment on the Do the Math site, I’m gobsmacked by how prescient some of the statements and reflections in the book are.

Canada’s Oil Sands: Energy Security, or Energy Disaster?

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The 1,700-mile Keystone XL pipeline would carry heavy crude oil from Alberta to America’s Gulf Coast refineries. In this Climate One debate, a panel of experts argues for and against the controversial pipeline.

Economics unmasked

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As is clear from the title, the book argues that modern neoclassical economics is a mask for power and greed, a construct designed to justify the status quo. Its claim to serve the common good is specious, and its claim to scientific status is fraudulent.

A guide for the perplexed energy policymaker

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If you are an energy policymaker (or layperson interested in energy) and you are NOT perplexed by the last decade, read no further. You have little to gain from what I write below. However, if you are a perplexed energy policymaker (or perplexed layperson interested in energy), please continue and learn why poor quality data, lack of transparency, broad uncertainty and flawed thinking about risk have made it difficult for many experts and the public alike to think sensibly about our energy future.

Why infrastructure spending won’t work: A “progressive” perspective

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Infrastructure spending creates temporary jobs and a great big debt, rather than permanent growth, dividends, and increased and self-sustaining economic growth. The reason is that the multiplier effect works when there is an overabundance of real-economic potential—natural resources waiting to be turned into useful stuff, especially the sort of stuff that might make future production even more efficient. In this case a clogged circulatory system may in fact be the only thing preventing economic growth. Without this abundance laying in wait, the notion that a stimulus will cause the money invested in the system to multiply, rather than just be added in, has in fact been a form of voodoo economics.

Energy literacy is the education we need

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Cell phone and hand-held technology depend on myriad inputs that are not simply conjured from thin air, however magically they appear in iStores and Web ads. All that plastic wrapping of the device itself comes from…you guessed it, petroleum. Oil. The very stuff the International Energy Agency said has hit its peak. In the future, all the way to the year 2020 (and before) the cost for everything is going up, uP, UP! And all this because of the increasing scarcity and rising cost of energy. That’s difficult on its own, and made no easier when jobs are going down, down, down. This is the dot to connect to make predictions about the future.