Articles and posts that caught my eye over the last week:
- John Mason over at Skeptical Science gives us a current state of play with respect to climate change and food production. The mid-term outlook here looks horrible and rising food prices will tell the story.
- Ugo Bardi, author of the excellent book “The Limits to Growth Revisited”, reflects on the threat of climate change vis a vis peak oil. This is a topic close to my heart and one I have posted on regularly including here.
- Dr Jeff Masters puts in perspective another year of weather extremes in the U.S. on his excellent blog here.
- In the NYT, Tom Friedman looks at the disastrous anti-science stance that has been adopted by the Republican party and much else: “It can’t win with a base that is at war with math, physics, human biology, economics and common-sense gun laws all at the same time.” In my humble opinion, climate change should not be a wedge issue. I am glad that I live in a country where you can adhere to either the right or left in politics but still believe in climate change. This used to be true in the USA, and I hope one day will be true again.
- Much chatter about leaked drafts of the new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report suggesting a bigger role for the solar cycle. Real Climate sees this as nothing but a storm in a teacup.
- Prof Hamilton highlights a Post Carbon Institute presentation that questions the hype surrounding shale oil production at his Econbrowser blog here.
- The “end of economic growth” has been a major concern of many non-economists for decades but only a heretical few in the economics profession have given the idea much serious thought. Recently, the famed, and very much mainstream, growth economist Robert Gordon came out with a paper supporting the idea. We now have a lively debate on the subject that can be easily followed on Economist’s View, such as this contribution from Paul Krugman here.
- Chris Giles in the FT addresses the collapse in UK productivity since 2007 (here). Not sure if his advocacy of the German model to restore growth makes any sense though.
Risk and Well-Being 