John Quiggin

As with just about everything Scott Morrison has done since becoming PM, his visit to Fiji was a trainwreck. Morrison must have hoped that his Trumpian willingness to endorse the dictatorial methods of Fijian PM Frank Bainimarama would ensure a warm welcome. It was not to be. In part, this was due to the government’s embrace of climate denialism, which reflects hostility to the global environment in general, rather than Fiji in particular, and isn’t going to change any time soon....

I’ve written numerous posts pointing out that expansion of nuclear power is not a serious option in decarbonizing the electricity supply. In a sense, there’s no need to make the case, as no profit-oriented corporation is ever likely to start a new plant. The recent abandonment of two proposed plants in the UK, despite the offer of massive subsidies, illustrates the point. The only purpose of talk about new nuclear power is to attack the only realistic options, wind and solar PV. On...

My latest irregular email news has just gone out. You can subscribe here. Like this:Like Loading...

That’s the headline for my latest piece in The Guardian. Final para Events like the Menindee fish kill bring home the cost of treating the environment as a cultural battleground. The culture warriors’ policy amounts to listening to what scientists say we need to do, then doing the opposite. This is a guaranteed route to global disaster. Like this:Like Loading...

Another Monday Message Board, running a bit late. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please. If you would like to receive my (hopefully) regular email news, please sign up using the following link http://eepurl.com/dAv6sX You can also follow me on Twitter @JohnQuiggin, at my Facebook public page   and at my Economics in Two Lessons page Like this:Like Loading...

Prediction is a mugs game, but, watching the Brexit trainwreck, I can’t resist. Over the fold, my predictions from mid-December. So far, everything has gone as I predicted, but I didn’t anticipate how badly May would be defeated, or how strongly Parliament would reassert itself. I now think that the “No Deal” option will be off the table sooner rather than later. Either May will capitulate to Corbyn’s demand or Parliament will force the issue somehow. That makes...

Inside Story has run an updated and expanded version of my last post on Adani’s pretense that it is ready to start its mining project at a moment’s notice. The main new point is a suggestion for how a federal Labor government could close off the Galilee Basin without a general moratorium on new coal mines. If federal Labor wins government in May (as seems highly likely), it will need to face up to the issue later this year. First of all, it will need to develop a coherent policy...

… what could life in Australia be like after the failure of capitalism? That’s the title of my latest piece in The Guardian . It’s had quite a good run, but of course, plenty of pushback, mainly along the following lines General objections to any kind of utopian thinking, even the very modest version in my articlePolitical impossibilityWhat about Stalin/Venezuela ?What I haven’t seen, interestingly, is any suggestion that continuing expansion of financialised capitalism (aka...

I was recently asked to comment on the Northern Australia Infrastructure Fund, which has largely dropped from sight since its apparent primary purpose, channelling public money to the Adani mine project, was vetoed by the Queensland government. Here’s my response The NAIF is a failed political solution to a non-problem, harking back to the developmentalist ideology of the mid-20th century.. It reflects an outdated view of Northern Australia as a largely homogenous, underdeveloped...

The idea of a “Green New Deal” seems to be everywhere, quite suddenly, although Wikipedia suggests it has been around for quite a while and that the phrase was coined by the ubiquitous Tom Friedman. There’s quite a good summary of the various versions by David Roberts at Vox (for those who don’t know him, an excellent source on climate issues in general). The fuzziness of the term is, in a sense, unsurprising. It seems obvious that any progressive policy for the US must fit this...