At the CEPR blog, Beat the Press, Dean Baker and Jason Hickel are debating degrowth. Dean makes the excellent point that “claims about growth” from oil companies and politicians who oppose policies to restrict greenhouse gas emissions, “are just window dressing.” I also agree, however, with the first comment in response to Dean’s post that his point […]
The world according to Trump — notice a trend here? Reporter: “Who should be held accountable?” [for Jamal Khashoggi’s murder] Trump: “Maybe the world should be held accountable because the world is a vicious place. The world is a very, very vicious place.” — November 22, 2018. “The world is a vicious and brutal place. […]
Three weeks ago, in response to the IPCC report warning that CO2 emissions had to be reduced to 45% of their 2010 levels by 2030 to avoid the possibility of global temperature rising above 1.5°C, I posted “The IPCC 1.5° C Report and the Ten-Hour Week,” (also posted at Angry Bear) which offered the sketch of […]
I made a mistake. And it’s a good thing. Following up on my Running on Empty post, I wanted to give a more finely-grained analysis of climate costs relative to GDP growth, so I returned to my sources to see who their sources were and how they did their calculations. Watson et al., compiled their […]
A little over a year ago, Robert Watson, former chair of the IPCC, and two co-authors published a report titled “The Economic Case for Climate Action in the United States.” Based on trends over the past few decades, the authors estimated the current total annual cost in the U.S. of losses from weather events intensified […]
“The Opportunity Cost of Socialism” Why is the Council of Economic Advisers producing party political propaganda for the GOP? As many folks have pointed out, the “report” is rather bizarre. My favorite part is Figure 1, which summarizes Milton Friedman’s argument that people spending “their own money” are “more careful how much to spend and on what […]
Jargon is a heck of a drug: If names be not correct, language is not in accordance with the truth of things. If language be not in accordance with the truth of things, affairs cannot be carried on to success. The discourse of global warming/climate change is lousy with jargon. This rampant obfuscation gives science […]
The Political Economy of the Working Class The political economy of the working class is pluralist. The political economy of the working class is pragmatic. The political economy of the working class is critical. Karl Marx chronicled and contributed to the political economy of the working class. He did not invent, conclude or supersede it. […]
“The fundamentals and future of the U.S. economy remain incredibly strong.” As Sandwichman always says, “when they’re telling you ‘the fundamentals are sound,’ they are unloading.”
I read the IPCC summary for policy makers so you don’t have to. You may have heard that CO2 emissions have to fall by 45% by 2030 to avoid the possibility of overshooting 1.5°C global warming. Actually emissions must decline by 45% from 2010 levels, which are already substantially lower than 2018 levels. The strategies […]