Tag Archives: Growth

By Michael Hoexter

[Part I] [Part II] [Part III]

Variation in Fossil Fuel Dependency Among Developed Countries and Degrowth

As action is required today and in the near future, though, it is reasonable to assume that production will be organized via some form of a capitalist organization of firms and the motivation of economic actors to achieve monetary profits/savings.  In the period of transition to a new energy economy, the government sector and budget will play an enlarged and leading role in financing and regulating the transition.

Targeting net degrowth over a period of years, perhaps a decade, might or might not inhibit the development of the “greener” sectors of the energy and transport economy exactly because these sectors have to play “catch-up” in the area of infrastructure.  The most secure way to build out these sectors in terms of minimizing technology risk, is to deploy renewable energy generators, some on a vast scale, heavy and light electric rail infrastructure, electric road and other grid-tied systems not dependent on advances in battery technology or availability of moderately scarce elements like lithium.  These systems require as construction materials emissions-intensive steel and concrete on a very large scale.  Innovations may cut these emissions substantially though in the foreseeable future not completely.   Various commercial interests are claiming they have a breakthrough on the energy storage or generation side which would diminish the need for these investments but currently there is no certain alternative to the creation of some massive earthworks.

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By Michael Hoexter

[Part I] [Part II] [Part III]

“De-Growth”:  A Serious Proposal

Lately, climate scientists have stepped into the gap where economists have generally feared to tread and have suggested that intentional “de-growth” is the only hope to stop the rising emissions associated with economic development and growth.  No news to anyone who follows developments in climate science, the earth’s climate is facing tipping points beyond which a recognizable human civilization will be almost impossible to maintain due to the expansion of inhospitable or entirely uninhabitable climate zones, destruction of existing human settlements by water and weather, and the destruction of co-evolved species (including food) upon which we depend.  The target of a maximum of 2 degrees Celsius rise in global temperature has been chosen as a difficult-to-achieve but also permissive target, which some think should be 1.5 degrees or less.  One way or the other global warming gas emissions, still on an upward trajectory, need to be reduced and the current upward trend reversed almost immediately.   Climate scientists understandably have been impatient with the response of the social sciences and policymakers to the threats they see present and emerging.

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By Michael Hoexter

[Part I] [ Part II] [Part III]

Speaking on December 4th, President Obama, tacked once again, at least in his rhetoric, this time towards claiming that he is targeting a pro-economic growth, anti-economic inequality policy in his remaining time in office.  Skepticism is warranted for a number of reasons including:  Mr. Obama, along with Congressional Republicans and Democrats, had helped strap the US economy and government to a contractionary fiscal policy and therefore to anti-growth government spending policy for the period 2010-present.  The cleverest piece of the rhetoric in the speech:  “A relentlessly growing deficit of opportunity is a bigger threat to our future than our rapidly shrinking deficit” artfully distracts listeners from Obama’s own role in spurring on deficit hysteria in much of his time in office.  The deficit hysteria he helped foment in turn has endangered exactly the economic opportunities that Mr. Obama now claims to want to encourage.  Mr. Obama is one of the chief engineers of the current framework of acceptable discourse in Washington where almost all political actors and media figures measure the government’s success or failure by how much the deficit has been cut, a metric that in 99 out of 100 economic scenarios will lead to slowing economic growth or economic contraction.

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