It’s day 14 of Putins invasion in Ukraine. More than 2 million Ukrainians have fled the bombardments. Ukrainians are fighting heavily back - delaying the Russians. Ukraine is asking Nato to establish a ‘No-fly Zone’ - and enforce it! Nato say’s ‘No’. Ukraine is asking for fighter jets. Poland has offered Soviet-era MIGs - if the alliance takes the responsibility of delivry into Ukraine. (Transfer them to Ramstein and let the US send them to Ukraine)....
To solve the Climate Crisis increasing economic productivity and energy efficiency is not sufficient. Absolute decoupling of economic growth and environmental degradition, including global warming is not feasible (Hickel and Kallis (2019) Is Green Growth Possible?). We will have to stop economic growth itself or even degrow on a global scale. Growth economists have always had models that in the long run end in a steady state. That’s just mathematics. Many economists have been thinking about ‘steady state economics’ for a long time....
There exists a well-known Swedish song from my childhood. It begins like this: Lyckliga gatan, du finns inte mere Du er försvinnen med hela kvarteret ... In English the meaning would be: Oh Happy Street of my Childhild you no more exits You are now gone together with the whole quarter ... The lyrics profondly catches the sorry mood of someone experiencing the arrival of the ‘Development Machine’ in their neigbourhood....
Nordic differences My Swedish friend Torbjörn just sent me a paper clip containing a notice of a Swedish economics professor commenting on the economic situation in Norway. Lars Calmfors in DN 22 feb 2021. The notice is triggered by his involvement in a Norwegian Green Paper Commision on Labour and Income Policy. NOU 2019:7. The Commision shouldpropose new measures to increase labour participation in Norway. Internationally the Nordic (sometimes only Scandinavian) countries are mostly treated as fairly much of the same under the heading of ‘The Nordic Model’....
Some Time Soon - things will be the same, but different. However, we did not notice the emerging change? - or did we? David Roberts tweet the day after the Trump-mob storm on Capitol: Feels like we’re trapped in a script, a play, that has been performed several times around the world recently. And even though we know exactly how the fall-of-democracy script plays out – every beat, every chapter – we’re just trapped, helpless, watching it play out...