Former Obama-administration energy secretary and Nobel laureate, Steven Chu, says the global economy is dysfunctional because it depends on constant population growth. “The world needs a new model of how to generate a rising standard of living that’s not dependent on a pyramid scheme,” Chu said at the University of
Continue readingTag: steady state economics
The Disaffected Lib: Wrap Your Mind Around This Idea
We live in a world that’s running out of stuff including the stuff that keeps you alive – clean air and fresh water for starters. There is not enough to meet our insatiable and persistently growing demand. The Global Footprint Network that studies these things has worked out that mankind
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: When You Run Out of Stuff
One of the most recurring themes on this blog over the past six years has been the prospect of running out of stuff. As the first truly global civilization, mankind is running out of stuff. Not everything, mind you. We’re running out of stuff that we need but we’re building
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: The Cult of Living Large
2015, we’re told, is the year the developed world (that’s us) and the emerging economies (China, India, etc., etc., etc.) will close ranks to formulate an effective plan of action to fight climate change. It’s going to be Kyoto on steroids, a true hallelujah moment, a meeting of minds, a
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Don’t Blame Them. Blame Yourself Too.
The Guardian has published two articles that blame climate change, or most of it, on a few corporate fat cats. One claims just 90-companies cause two-thirds of global warming emissions. The second item is a companion piece with a graphic showing which fossil fuel companies are the most blameworthy. How
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Don’t Say This Question Hasn’t Crossed Your Mind
Is our system of government incapable of meeting the challenges we face? A very simple question raising a point that has been addressed here at length several times. It gets into issues of what it means when we vest such enormous powers in our elected apparatus, in our
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Just When the Left Has Fallen Silent
Across North America, people need a strong voice from the Left more than they have at any time in the last half century. America’s society is crumbling and Canada is inexorably drawn along in its wake. In the United States we have witnessed the ascendancy of an imperial presidency,
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Living Within Our Skin
It’s a core tenet of our Western industrial/capitalist/democratic orthodoxy that something in the range of 3% annual economic growth is the benchmark of a healthy society. That’s 3% compounded growth. Now let’s take a span of 50-years, roughly one adult lifetime. Let’s say the economy stood at 100X at the
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Learning to Live Within Your Own Skin – Japan’s Grand Experiment
The Japanese have become perhaps the greyest of the greying nations of the developed world. This is discussed in The World Today, the public journal of Chatham House, perhaps the world’s most venerable and certainly most prestigious think tank. Everybody knows that Japan is ground zero for global ageing. The
Continue readingThe Disaffected Lib: Ditching Our Malignant Growth Paradigm
Infinite growth on a finite planet is impossible. That is all you need to accept to realize that our growth-based economics are invalid, even harmful and we need to move to a viable, long-term and sustainable economic model. Today this is called “full world” or “steady state” economics and we’re
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