Category Archives: Degrowth Economics

Capitalism vs. Democracy – NYTimes.com

Thomas Piketty’s new book, “Capital in the Twenty-First Century,” described by one French newspaper as a “a political and theoretical bulldozer,” defies left and right orthodoxy by arguing that worsening inequality is an inevitable outcome of free market capitalism.Piketty, a … Continue reading

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What Happened On Easter Island — A New (Even Scarier) Scenario : Krulwich Wonders… : NPR

What we have here are two scenarios ostensibly about Easter Island’s past, but really about what might be our planet’s future. The first scenario — an ecological collapse — nobody wants that. But let’s think about this new alternative — … Continue reading

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Would teaching economics backwards help students be ready for the world?

Who really knows… but it might be worth the experiment! …here’s one temporary fix for introductory economics: teach it backwards. Reversing the order in which introductory economic classes are taught today might be the easiest way to respond to the … Continue reading

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After Kyoto: Special Issue of NATURE

On 1 January 2013, the world can go back to emitting greenhouse gases with abandon. The pollution-reduction commitments that nations made as part of the Kyoto Protocol will expire, leaving the planet without any international climate regulation and uncertain prospects … Continue reading

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Is fracking behind contamination in Wyoming groundwater? : Nature News & Comment

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) sparked a firestorm in December last year when it released a draft report1 suggesting that the use of hydraulic fracturing — or ‘fracking’ — to extract natural gas had contaminated groundwater near Pavillion, Wyoming. Industry … Continue reading

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The Veil of Ignorance: How Americans view wealth & inequality – BBC News

When you taste wine and you know the label and you know the price, you are going to be influenced by that. And when you are tasting wine in a blind way, now you don’t have anything to base it … Continue reading

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Bernanke to Economists: More Philosophy, Please – Businessweek

Less economics and more philosophy… On Monday, Ben Bernanke wasn’t talking like a scientist. He was talking like a philosopher. “The ultimate purpose of economics, of course, is to understand and promote the enhancement of well-being,” he said. To a … Continue reading

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“Fracked Ideologies” published at Science Progress

The use of high-volume hydraulic fracturing for natural gas drilling has ignited a fiery political debate. Advocates tout natural gas as a clean-burning, cheap, and abundant fuel that can boost economic growth and energy security. Detractors question these benefits and … Continue reading

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The Case for Breaking Up With Your Parents

While Lambert, author of “Nonstop,” admires the multitasking undergraduates Harvard attracts, he also worries about the intellectual and emotional costs of such all-consuming busyness. In a turn toward gravitas, he quotes the French film director Jean Renoir’s observation that “the … Continue reading

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‘Huge’ Water Resource Discovered Under Africa – Cui Bono?

Scientists say the notoriously dry continent of Africa is sitting on a vast reservoir of groundwater. They argue that the total volume of water in aquifers underground is 100 times the amount found on the surface. The team have produced … Continue reading

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Reforming Laws Governing Student Debt

“Student debt poses a large and growing threat to the stability of our economy,” Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan testified March 20 before a U.S. Senate judiciary subcommittee hearing in Washington on the looming student debt crisis. “Just as the housing … Continue reading

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Happiness: No longer the dismal science? | The Economist

They argue that happiness can be measured objectively; that it differs systematically across societies and over time; that happiness has predictable causes and is correlated to specific things (such as wealth, income distribution, health and political institutions); and that therefore it should be possible for … Continue reading

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What Isn’t for Sale?

In this essay for The Atlantic, Harvard political philosopher Michael Sandel (whose course on Justice is available for free online) asks a much-needed question: what are the hidden social costs of free market triumphalism? While it is certainly true that … Continue reading

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NSF: Oceans Acidifying Faster Today Than in Past 300 Million Years

The oceans may be acidifying faster today than they did in the last 300 million years, according to scientists publishing a paper this week in the journal Science. “What we’re doing today really stands out in the geologic record,” says lead … Continue reading

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Low-carbon technologies ‘no quick-fix’, say researchers

A drastic switch to low carbon-emitting technologies, such as wind and hydroelectric power, may not yield a reduction in global warming until the latter part of this century, research published today suggests. Furthermore, it states that technologies that offer only … Continue reading

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A Dangerous Shift in Obama’s ‘Climate Change’ Rhetoric

Maxwell Boykoff, assistant professor at the Center for Science and Technology Policy Research at the University of Colorado at Boulder, gives a trenchant critique of the Obama administration’s strategy to address climate change solely in terms of clean energy: A … Continue reading

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Who Wins if We All Lose?

As he belligerently wades into the debate around the Keystone XL pipeline, NY Times op-ed columnist Joe Nocera seems unaware that the tragedy of the commons is, in fact, a tragedy: Over the past two decades, energy companies have invested tens of … Continue reading

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The unethical iPhone

These days, almost everybody has an iPhone – they are practical, handsome, sexy, cool. They pretty much are everything we always dreamed of. However, maybe we don’t realize what our dreams are costing to another human beings… in a land … Continue reading

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Urban gardens: The future of food?

I’m not so sure urban agriculture is going to develop along the lines of the “hipster boutique” model described below. Not only is it far too energy and capital intensive, it’s easily criticized as culturally elitist (with some justification), which … Continue reading

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Communities can drive corporations away

Maybe we are entering into a new age – a time where we can no longer rely solely in the government to protect us from the big corporations (and perhaps other obstacles). But is this a good or a bad … Continue reading

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Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Ignorance

The less people know about important complex issues such as the economy, energy consumption and the environment, the more they want to avoid becoming well-informed, according to new research published by the American Psychological Association. And the more urgent the … Continue reading

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‘Fracking’ (and its risks) Goes Global

Ian Urbina at the New York Times has written another excellent piece on the character of the economic momentum behind and environmental risks of hydraulic fracturing: this time in a global context. He focuses on South Africa, but Poland, Peru, … Continue reading

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The Successful Secede

This is something I have been talking about now for almost three years. The realization was a logical outcome of following the critiques of Serge Latouche, Michel Foucault and a few others. I am not quite sure why more academics … Continue reading

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Hobbes: Yesterday, Today, Tomorrow

A new book is out on Thomas Hobbes and our current political situation. This is an interview with the author, Prof. Ted H. Miller: Nature (and nature’s architect) had fallen short. With the right science, human beings could become the … Continue reading

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Four Possible Futures

An intriguing consideration tweeted by my new Twitterverse colleague Rachel Armstrong (@livingarchitect). “Insofar as some human labor is still required in production in our imagined communist future, it could take the form of small collectives rather than capitalist or state … Continue reading

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