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Biophysical Economics
Rex Weyler, The Tyee (Canada)
In the future, economists will return to earth
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The year 2009 will witness a tsunami of appeals to economists to fix, as disgraced Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan put it, the "flaw" in their thinking. Most will get it wrong.
Also in the New Ideas for the New Year, 2009 series

The proposals for bailouts, regulations and government spending sprees all share one tragic flaw: they assume no physical or biological limits to human growth. Most economists cling to an 18th century mechanical universe that conjured an "invisible hand" of God, that would allegedly convert private greed into public utopia.

Indeed, a few got rich, but the meek inherit an earth featuring child slavery, sweatshops, a billion starving people, toxic garbage heaps, dead rivers, exhausted aquifers, disappearing forests, depleted energy stores, lopped-off mountain tops, acid seas, melting glaciers and an atmosphere heating up like a flambé.

Meanwhile, a rigorous subculture of scientists and economists have been working to free economics from its 18th century quagmire by reconciling human enterprise with the laws of physics, biology and ecology.

Their time has come. This year, 2009, will signal the birth of a genuinely innovative economics that will eventually displace the patchwork rationalizations for greed. The new ecological accounting is variously called "dynamic equilibrium," "steady-state" or "biophysical" economics.
(1 January 2009)

10 Reasons to be Hopeful about 2009, and 3 Reasons to be Terrified
Sarah van Gelder, Yes! Magazine
We’re entering a new year at a time unlike any other in recent memory. Here are 10 reasons I’m filled with hope as I look ahead at 2009—and three reasons I’m terrified.

... 7. Social movements are building people power. Nonviolent civil disobedience is back. Climate organizers conduct “die-ins” and climate camps to shut down coal plants. Workers at Republic Windows & Doors occupied their factory when they were abruptly dismissed without severance and vacation pay. President-Elect Obama backed the Republic workers, implicitly inviting others to stand up for their rights. He also continues to organize people at the grassroots—right now through health care discussion groups. Thousands of these meetings being held across the country could build a health care reform movement with enough clout to overcome entrenched interests and move forward. (We may wind up calling Obama, Organizer-in-Chief.)

8. DIY (do it yourself) communities are piloting the shift to a people-centered society. These folks understand that real security during tough times is found in the “social capital” of community. At the same time, they are creating experiments in green and just ways of life. They aren’t waiting for policy changes or bailouts, instead, they are helping each other now and getting on with the most extraordinary project of our time: building a better world.

... Not bad to be coming into the new year with 10 reasons to be hopeful. That's as good as it's been for awhile. But there are also some good reasons to be terrified:

1. Runaway climate change. The biggest question of the 21st century may be whether policies can catch up to the dangerous realities of a rapidly changing climate in time to avoid disaster. Will we come together to stabilize the climate? Or are we be the last generation to live on a planet that can support complex civilization?

2. Loose nukes. We are all in danger from loose nukes, the spread of nuclear materials around the world, and nuclear warfare between India and Pakistan or other nuclear-armed adversaries. Ridding the world of nuclear weapons may be the only way of avoiding a nuclear catastrophe; figures across the political spectrum support such proposals, including former Secretary of State George Shultz. Will we have the political will to rid ourselves of this danger?

3. Mad Max world. Disruption of life-as-usual could come from economic collapse, runaway climate change, war, peak oil, pandemics, or some unforeseen combination of these and other factors. What makes these prospects especially terrifying are potential human responses to them. We could see either societal breakdown—in which each person turns on others in a battle for dominance or survival—or fascism, in which people allow all-powerful leaders to run things out of fear of chaos.

So which will it be? Are you hopeful or terrified by the coming year and by what we face in the coming decades? What I keep coming back to is this: we humans have the free will to make choices that assure our collective survival, or to do otherwise. We do have the creativity, compassion, and intelligence to build on the best possibilities while averting the worst.
(31 December 2008)

Implications of Energy Return on Investment, Peak Oil and the Concept of “Best First”
Dr. Charles Hall and EROI Guy, The Oil Drum: Net Energy
The following is a post by both Dr. Charles Hall and EROI Guy. Most of the material comes from a recently published book chapter titled “Peak oil, EROI, investments and the economy in an uncertain future.” The book can be found here. Dr. Charles Hall is a professor of Systems Ecology at the College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York, and has written about energy issues many times on The Oil Drum, found here.
- EROI Guy (TOD editor)

The enormous expansion of the human population and the economies of the United States and many other nations in the past 100 years have been accompanied by, and allowed by, a commensurate expansion in the use of fossil (old) fuels, meaning coal, oil and natural gas. To many energy analysts that expansion of cheap fuel energy has been the principal enabler of economic expansion, far more important than business acumen, economic policy or ideology although they too may be important

... In summary, there are three related forces that may reshape societies and economies around the world: peak global oil production, declining EROI of global oil exploration and production, and the “Best First Principle”. They imply that we no longer have the ability to substantially increase oil production without substantially increasing the amount of oil used to get that oil, and finally, that any new discoveries will invariably cost increasing amounts of money and energy to produce. The interplay of these three forces will most likely limit the amount of money designated for discretionary spending, while increasing the amount of money and energy needed just to sustain economic function.
(2 January 2009)
Extensive bibliography.

Change, but at what price? The environmental year in review
John Vidal & photographers, Guardian
After 2008 started with panic over food prices, the world seemed to be waking up to global warming. But then the recession hit.
(29 December 2008)
Photo slideshow with comments.