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Right-wing ranters in my Twitter timeline are pooh-poohing the whole climate discussion without doing their homework. So, here’s a little reader to aid and abet (sorry, early retired teacher and that all).Let’s start at the beginning:1. CO2 is measured at the Manua Loa station. Results are clear, robust, and stark: CO2 is increasing. And no, CO2 is not ‘following temperature’ as the latest lazymeme from the lazyright wants to have it. It’s following us. We’re causing it. A ‘mass...

from Andri Stahel and RWER issue 106 Imagine some interstellar anthropologists trying to understand our tribe, the earthlings. On the one hand, they would see a part of the tribe devoted to understanding the functioning of all our Earth systems. Called ‘scientists’, these tribe members command great respect and funds. This function was once held by the shamans and sorcerers who claimed to speak to the spirits who inhabited it; then, it was taken by the priests and theologians...

In my latest Guardian piece, I argue that, unless we pay attention to the purchasing power of wages, talk about the “cost of living” is like the sound of one hand clapping The policy debate about the cost of living is among the most confused and confusing in recent memory. All sorts of measures to reduce the cost of living are proposed, then criticised as being potentially inflationary. The argument implies, absurdly, that reducing the cost of living will increase the cost of...

from Steve Keen and RWER issue 106 Human society is energy blind. Like a fish in water, it takes for granted the existence of that without which it could not survive. As with so many of humanity’s problems, this conceptual failure can be traced back to an economist. However, the guilty party is not one of “the usual suspects”—Neoclassical economists—but the person virtually all economists describe as “the Father of Economics”, Adam Smith. Smith led economics astray on the vital issue of...

from Neva Goodwin and RWER issue 106 A healthy economy is one that operates so as to achieve its goals, with relatively little of the overall economic activity working against them. There are obviously a great many things that can be said about what it takes to achieve this; here I will only address one set of requirements. This refers to the fourth essential economic activity mentioned above: maintaining the resources required for the other activities of production, distribution, and...

I’ve been working a bit on inflation and the highly problematic concept of the ‘cost of living’ (shorter JQ: what matters is the purchasing power of wages, not the cost of some basket of goods). As part of this, I’ve been looking at how particular prices have changed over time, focusing on basics like bread and milk. One striking thing that I found out is that, until quite late in the 20th century, the standard loaf of bread used to calculate consumer price indexes in Australia...

from C.P. Chandrasekhar and Jayati Ghosh Following the COP28 Summit, there is an attempt to establish that the conference was a significant step forward in the effort to address the causes and consequences of climate change. However, a reading of the actual outcome only illustrates how the resistance of the developed countries to own up to their historical responsibility as emitters is stalling the effort to combat climate change and manage the consequences of the changes already...

from James Galbraith and RWER current issue An economic theory that is consistent with life processes and physical laws is necessary for a simple reason:  the economic theory that underlies modern “mainstream” economics and practically all textbook teaching in economics is not consistent with life processes and physical laws. And this is a problem. Human beings are living organisms. All human activities, including mental activities, are consistent with physical laws. It is natural to...

The New Year has barely started, but the world of academia seems to be back to work, and sending me a variety of gifts, some more welcome than others. Coincidentally or otherwise, it’s also the day I’ve moved to semi-retirement, a half-pay position involving only research and public engagement. Most welcome surprise: an email telling me I’ve been elected as a Fellow of the Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory. In the way academia works, some friendly colleagues must have...

from Gregory Daneke and RWER issue 102 Emerging ecological ideas . . .  rushed headlong into the canonical growth imperative of the mainstream. Anyone who uttered ecology and economics in the same breath was bullied and harassed going as far back as the 19th century, but the battering became more intense in the late 1970s as Neoliberalism was fully asserting itself in the halls of power (Reagan, Thatcher, etc.). The unrelenting and scurrilous ad-hominem attacks on the scholars associated...