environment

Central banks can encourage climate-friendly investments by offering financial institutions favorable haircuts on green collateral

Few dispute that there can be no green transition without a greening of finance. Yet, the greening of finance drags on and on. In fact, estimates suggest that current practices in the financial sector have us headed for temperature increases two-fold larger in magnitude than those aimed for with the Paris agreement. In this predicament, might a way forward be to engage central banks in fostering the much-needed greening of finance?

Central banks can encourage climate-friendly investments by offering financial institutions favorable haircuts on green collateral

Ruskin scholar Jeffrey Spear, author of “Dreams of an English Eden: Ruskin and his Tradition in Social Criticism,” discusses how the insights of a key 19th-century thinker can help us build a new paradigm for protecting the planet – and save us from ourselves.

Since I first wrote about the Victorian art and social critic John Ruskin, economics, and the environment over 40 years ago, the foreboding cloud of ecological disaster then on the horizon has become experiential climate change. Human activity has initiated the 6^th great extinction in the planet’s history threatening at least 25% of Earth’s species and, if not humans as a species, certainly the ethos of perpetual economic and population growth dependent on fossil-derived fuels and chemistry.

Because global warming doesn’t take a holiday

At summer’s end, if we’re lucky, we may find ourselves with bare feet and sun-warmed skin; our senses soothed, our bodies attuned to nature’s rhythms. A recent study found that more than half of American adults are traveling for Labor Day this year, leaving the hustle behind to squeeze the last golden drops of summer at beach, lake, park, and mountain; savoring deep memories and anticipating future pleasures. This time of year reminds us of so much to be grateful for in the natural world.

Price Inflation, Marginal Cost Pricing, and Principles for Electricity Market Redesign in an Era of Low-Carbon Transition

In a new book, Alligators in the Arctic and How To Avoid Them, Peter Dorman shows how flawed academic models, faulty assumptions and unrealistic schemes grossly underestimate what’s needed to stop catastrophic warming. He argues for a straightforward carbon emission budget – plus the active citizenship required to fight big businesses that want to keep doing business as usual. Lynn Parramore explores his findings and talks to the economist about the path forward.

All aboard! We’re hopping a time capsule to travel 56 million years back in Earth’s history. You are entering the time when dinosaurs have gone and curly-tailed early primates share the world with humongous flightless birds. The air is sultry, the landscape lush with feathery ferns and swaying palms. Alligators bask on rocks in the sun. It’s getting pretty steamy; you’re wishing you’d packed a swimsuit.

Surprise! You’re in the Arctic Circle.

The ‘solution’ master-minded by global finance at COP27 to resolve the imminent environmental crisis: create a multi-quadrillion dollars’ worth of assets on the back of everything nature does and expropriate it from the global commons to make a profit.

TRANSCRIPT

LYNN FRIES: Hello and welcome. I’m Lynn Fries producer of Global Political Economy or GPEnewsdocs. Today’s guest is John Bellamy Foster.

He’ll be talking about the financialization of the earth as a new ecological regime. A regime where the rapid financialization of natureis promoting a Great Expropriation of the global commons and the dispossession of humanity on a scale that exceeds all previous human history. And which is accelerating the destruction of planetary ecosystems and of the earth as a safe home for humanity. All in the name of saving nature by turning it into a market.

The Met says Just Stop Oil are a tiny minority causing ‘disproportionate’ disruption. Isn’t environmental Armageddon enough justification?

Continue reading...

"If allowed to go ahead, mining will irreversibly destroy ancient deep sea habits and impact those who rely on the ocean for their livelihood."

Many of the creatures featured in this piece, as well as our coastal economies, are under threat as the climate crisis warms ocean waters and threatens coastal ecosystems