"That the world still has 25 years in which to prolong fossil capitalism, now assisted by carbon capture."
I fear not. The missing leg of climate change, which likely explains why we are seeing "faster than forecast", is land use. It is the more inconvenient truth, ignored for a half century. Urbanization and industrial agriculture are climate change. The financial and industrial core (ie the West) and been on a bender, forcing the globe to destroy the very thing that defines climate over the last 40 years: regional biomes. The more development, the more they die. Climate grows worse.
By forcing nation after nation to destroy their own food systems, and to pillage their natural resources, the WMF/WB/WTO has forced the world to kill the thing that makes our planet livable. They do it with debt, with plantation cash crop development (coffee, cotton etc) and it isn't even new. Rome did much the same thing. People lose their land, the land goes to mega farms (plantations), and they migrate to cities as destitute poor. Worse, small plot multi-crop farmers, the most productive farmers, are aging out. In a decade, Asia and even the US will see a final collapse of the people who feed us, leaving behind the most inefficient and destructive of agricultural practices.
Economies of scale do not apply to farming. Small plot poly-culture is 6 to 100x more productive than monoculture; it feeds people, it just isn't good at profit in cash crops. The role of energy in the economy? pshh. The Greeks and Romans knew soil, land productivity, was central. They knew that erosion destroyed nations, drove debt etc. They understood the most important element of economics. Even though they knew, profit made for bad choices.
Civilizations have done this to themselves, and only a very few have not. We are in the former category.
Thank you for this comment with which I agree …but think I may just not have been clear on the 25 years point…What I meant was that the Labour government’s assumption is that we can still tolerate another 25 years of fossil extraction and burning…We clearly cannot, and should be cutting fossil emissions now…Hope this clarifies the point. And thanks again..
This is a powerful lens that opens up one of the most critical aspects of economics. It does not provide the answer but thanks Anne it really introduces the debate into the centre of current economic thinking. We need to understand and define value better!!!!!! I hope you have follow up ones, perhaps a zoom discussion with other economists. In my view it is number one issue in economics, How do we objectively define and discuss “value” starting with the orchard example. The orchard should also “value” photosynthetically active radiation. But maybe not?
"That the world still has 25 years in which to prolong fossil capitalism, now assisted by carbon capture."
I fear not. The missing leg of climate change, which likely explains why we are seeing "faster than forecast", is land use. It is the more inconvenient truth, ignored for a half century. Urbanization and industrial agriculture are climate change. The financial and industrial core (ie the West) and been on a bender, forcing the globe to destroy the very thing that defines climate over the last 40 years: regional biomes. The more development, the more they die. Climate grows worse.
By forcing nation after nation to destroy their own food systems, and to pillage their natural resources, the WMF/WB/WTO has forced the world to kill the thing that makes our planet livable. They do it with debt, with plantation cash crop development (coffee, cotton etc) and it isn't even new. Rome did much the same thing. People lose their land, the land goes to mega farms (plantations), and they migrate to cities as destitute poor. Worse, small plot multi-crop farmers, the most productive farmers, are aging out. In a decade, Asia and even the US will see a final collapse of the people who feed us, leaving behind the most inefficient and destructive of agricultural practices.
Economies of scale do not apply to farming. Small plot poly-culture is 6 to 100x more productive than monoculture; it feeds people, it just isn't good at profit in cash crops. The role of energy in the economy? pshh. The Greeks and Romans knew soil, land productivity, was central. They knew that erosion destroyed nations, drove debt etc. They understood the most important element of economics. Even though they knew, profit made for bad choices.
Civilizations have done this to themselves, and only a very few have not. We are in the former category.
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2023-07-17/millan-millan-and-the-mystery-of-the-missing-mediterranean-storms/
https://www.ucpress.edu/books/dirt/paper (linked for reference only)
Thank you for this comment with which I agree …but think I may just not have been clear on the 25 years point…What I meant was that the Labour government’s assumption is that we can still tolerate another 25 years of fossil extraction and burning…We clearly cannot, and should be cutting fossil emissions now…Hope this clarifies the point. And thanks again..
The word ‘assumption’, here, needing a bit of the Upton Sinclair treatment (evil, yet pained, grin)
This is a powerful lens that opens up one of the most critical aspects of economics. It does not provide the answer but thanks Anne it really introduces the debate into the centre of current economic thinking. We need to understand and define value better!!!!!! I hope you have follow up ones, perhaps a zoom discussion with other economists. In my view it is number one issue in economics, How do we objectively define and discuss “value” starting with the orchard example. The orchard should also “value” photosynthetically active radiation. But maybe not?
Capital gains become unrealizable given the inherent risks to our future posed by the dominance of finance?
Exactly the same as Labor here in Australia, committing to decades of coal fired energy production and gas exports.