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7 Dec 2009What’s happened to Jared Diamond? Back in 1987 the professor of geography at the University of California at Los Angeles wrote a notorious essay arguing that the agricultural revolution was the worst mistake in human history (see 1 August 2006 post). Yet in yesterday’s New York Times he wrote an op-ed piece saying that he […]
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13 Sep 2009An interesting article in Time magazine on what it calls “a responsibility revolution” among American consumers. After describing how companies, even including Walmart, are becoming more “responsible” it goes on to discuss the attitudes of American consumers. “Our poll found Americans divided pretty evenly into three categories we’re calling the Responsibles, the Toe Dippers and […]
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4 Nov 2008When I went into my bank today to pay some bills I came across a couple of small cards headed “Be a savvy saver”. One advised people to “keep your tyres pumped up” and the other said “make lunch at home”. It is ironic that such unsavvy institutions as British banks are giving such advice […]
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6 May 2008A column by Lawrence Summers, a former US treasury secretary, in today’s Financial Times shows how far the mainstream has gone in taking on “anti-globalisation” arguments. Tackling inequality and raising labour standards are integral to the conventional wisdom: “The domestic component of a strategy to promote healthy globalisation must rely on strengthening efforts to reduce […]
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4 Nov 2007It is frustrating that two recent key books in the growth sceptic genre are not yet available in Britain. From what I can gather Paul Krugman’s The Conscience of a Liberal focuses more on politics than economics. Krugman, a New York Times columnist and professor of economics at Princeton, apparently blames fundamentalist Republicanism for widening […]
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3 May 2007Sports are getting into sustainability according to the latest issue of Marketing Week (3 May). It quotes the organisers of the London 2012 Olympics as saying they will deliver a “sustainable games”. Apparently this involves, among other things, ensuring that 60% of the venues are existing structures. Given the poverty of the infrastructure in East […]
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27 Feb 2007Yesterday Fund Strategy published a cover story by me on the euro-zone and a related comment. They were, strictly speaking, more about economics generally rather than growth scepticism but I thought they might be of interest. The cover story is too long to post here (and there is no direct link) but I have pasted […]
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11 Jan 2007Another sign of the shift in the climate change debate towards a “pro-mitigation” consensus (see dispatch of 15 August 2006). Exxon, often reviled by environmentalists, has subtly shifted its position according to todays’s Wall Street Journal Europe (subscription required to read articles): “The changes in Exxon’s words and actions are nuanced. The oil giant continues […]
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20 Sep 2006I hesitate to write too much on climate change because it could easily become a full-time preoccupation. But given it is increasingly used as the ultimate argument against affluence it is difficult to avoid devoting time to it. George Monbiot’s new book on climate change, serialised in three parts in the Guardian, provides a model […]
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28 Aug 2006I discover today that the campaign against Coca-Cola and Pepsi-Cola has spread to Britain and America. A report in the Independent on 19 August said Sussex University was the first campus in the country to ban all Coca-Cola products from its students’ union: “The decision to withdraw Coca-Cola from the university comes at a time […]
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