Any system of inter-relations between species and with the environment that results in a balance in the factors that allow the survival of those species and the environment that sustains them.
The mass media continue to present the issue of climate change as if it were an unsettled scientific topic for political debate. Of course, the mass media are owned by the very corporations that have externalized the real costs of their pollution of the environment. If the real costs to people and the planet were … More Climate Science or Social Science?
The concept goes way back in the intellectual history of the West, also the East. Simply put, “creative destruction” suggests that in the creation of the new, something of the old is destroyed. Innovation often makes “the old ways” of doing things obsolete. Not surprising. Examples abound in the history of the growth economies of … More Creative Destruction Transformed
The entire edifice of today’s system of predatory extractive capitalism rests on a foundation of not mere sand but a major destabilizing false premise. Economics in denial seems to be driving the world economy to a terminal collapse. The most fateful and flawed fiction of modern life is the idea of Man pitted against Nature, … More Culture Hack: The Clash of Capital with the Natural World
Power over Nature is an old cultural ideal in the Western world. It seemed largely achieved by the exploding rate of industrial invention in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This core western value continues unabated today. A major downside of the unprecedented successes of the industrial age is the growth of a deep institutionalized hubris. … More Imperious Imaginaries and the Necessities of Now
An ecological society will require some basic changes in the way we live. Most analyses of climate change are about disruptions leading to untenable future conditions. Specific reductions in carbon emissions will require transformation of economic infrastructure, which is rarely discussed. To stabilize global temperature, return to 350 parts per million of CO2 in the … More Moving Toward an Ecological Infrastructure. Part III: Ecological Transformation
Almost everyone agrees that much of America’s infrastructure (highways, bridges, electrical grid, power plants, etc.) is in desperate need of repair or replacement. Economic ideologists of corporate “free enterprise” oppose public investment as they attempt to drive corporate taxes to near zero. Nevertheless, we must find a way to move beyond these old powerful forces … More Moving Toward an Ecological Infrastructure. Part II: Infrastructure of an Ecological Economy
Economists are often confused by their own wallowing in esoteric but useless mathematical formulations of unquantifiable human complexities. But we just can’t afford their foolishness anymore. Investment in infrastructure is desperately needed, but not by merely restoring the infrastructure of the old growth economy. That needs to be replaced by a new viable infrastructure for … More Moving Toward an Ecological Infrastructure. Part I: From Growth to Development
How is money made? Well, in conventional terms we work for it. But where does it come from? We know that the economy needs a sufficient “money supply” so we can exchange “goods and services” every day. Of course, it’s not that simple. After the “Great Recession” of 2008, the Federal Reserve injected hundreds of … More Making Money: The Ultimate Illusion of a Debt-Driven Economy
I’d wanted to go to Alaska for a long time. Finally we arranged for a small-craft inner coastal waterway trip on the “Wilderness Adventurer,” from Juneau to Ketchikan for 6 days, to be followed by a road trip from Anchorage to Homer to Denali and return. After 5 days of beautiful weather, kayaking and hiking … More Sunshine in Ketchikan: The Trouble Ahead
When we think of “development,” it is usually about economic development of the so-called “developing nations,” that is, nations whose economies have not caught up with the “advanced” industrial nations of North America and Europe. Without question, the most advanced technology and its application to the full range of industrial processes, from extraction to product … More Two Kinds of Development
Robert MacNeil Christie, Author 