Larry Elliott wrote about the G8 summit in the Guardian this morning:

If the G8 was doing its job properly, this week's communique would be rather shorter than usual. It would say the world is about to be battered by a triple crunch of a credit-fuelled financial crisis, galloping climate change and - even in the absence of speculation - a long-term increase in energy prices caused by the imminence of peak oil.

All this requires more than just the tired old business as usual nostrums. On the last two occasions the global economy reached crisis point - in the 1930s and 1970s - there was radical change. It is worrying and depressing that there is an intellectual vacuum when there ought to be a plethora of ideas about how to dig ourselves out of this hole.

A pamphlet to be released later this month suggests the answer is a Green New Deal, which would involve far tougher regulation of capital, changes to tax systems and a sustained programme of investment in energy conservation and renewable energy. It certainly has a more coherent answer to the problems we face in 2008 than the G8, though as one of the authors I probably would say that, wouldn't I?

As one of his co-authors I probably would agree with that, wouldn't I?