One of the consequences of a disrupted climate is an increase in natural disasters and extreme weather events. There were five times more natural disasters in the last decade than in the 1970s. The graph is from the UN’s 2010 report on the least developed countries, and just shows disasters in the world’s 49 poorest [...]
Archive | 2010
How many people can the earth support?
I’ve been doing a little reading around population issues for a project I’m working on. One of the questions that regularly comes up is this one, how many people can the earth support? It’s the question behind the Optimum Population Trust, who campaign for population policies. Their answer? Around 3 billion, once you’ve navigated the [...]
The Constant Economy, by Zac Goldsmith
Zac Goldsmith is an interesting man. He comes from a family that has been instrumental in the environmental movement in the UK. His uncle Teddy founded the Green Party and The Ecologist magazine, which Zac then edited for several years. In fact, he ran it at his own expense for a decade, funded through the [...]
Oil in Falklands! … oh wait, sorry…
Friday’s news: Desire Petroleum has struck oil off the Falkland Islands, threatening to reignite the diplomatic row between Britain and Argentina over sovereignty in the region. (Independent) Shares in Desire Petroleum rose by 24% in a day after the Falklands explorer said it is testing to see whether an oil discovery is commercially viable. (Telegraph) [...]
Sponsor a tax dodger ad
On the 4th of January Value Added Tax (VAT) will go up in the UK. The sales tax will rise from 17.5% to 20%. It’s partly to pay off the advance that Labour gave us of course, when they temporarily lowered it to 15% to boost consumption a while back. It’s also to help cut [...]
Tame the vampire squid
Tame the vampire squid is the sequel film to The impossible hamster, the quirky viral from the new economics foundation. This one’s all about banks, and in case you’re wondering, the title is from a slightly disturbing description of Goldman Sachs. Matt Taibbi, writing in Rolling Stone, called the bank “a great vampire squid, wrapped [...]
In support of Wikileaks
Over the last ten days, we’ve learned that the US has instructed its ambassadors to spy on UN personnel. On the other hand, the US has been a moderating voice in the Middle East, amidst calls for attacks on Iran. We know that the CIA snatched a German ‘terror suspect’ in Macedonia, and that the [...]
What we learned this week
Hundreds of Carribean resorts are threatened by rising sea levels. Rushing to visit them while you still can will not help. The December issue of Transition Voice is out. My article on the Big Society is here. It’s been snowing in Britain again, and that means the usual media scares about running out of rock [...]
Passing on the burden
Economic volatility matters because it tends to exacerbate social conflict. It seems intuitively obvious that periods of economic crisis create incentives for politically dominant groups to pass the burdens of adjustment onto others. With the growth of state intervention in economic life, the opportunities for such discriminatory redistribution clearly proliferated. What could be easier in [...]
Voting on daylight savings
Parliament votes today on whether or not to pilot a change to daylight savings time. Here’s the debate summarised in a recent TV report: For more, see Lighter Later. UPDATE: the daylight savings bill passed its second reading. Discussion is ongoing, but this is a big step towards becoming law.
Books
No data found
