The UK Climate Change Committee has issued a review of progress today. It both makes worrying reading, on what has not happened, and offers hope. I'll concentrate on the hope. Start with this from the summary:
And then add this, also from the summary, which endorses a Green New Deal:
This is the summary of recommendations:
And I'd add this from chapter 5 on why economics supports the case for climate change now:
We will need to recover from the coronavirus crisis. Only a Green New Deal can do that.
And funding it is really not hard. First, there's modern monetary theory. And there is also a savings glut. All that is required is political will.
That word 'all' is, however, critical.
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‘That word ‘all’ is, however, critical.’
Tell me about it.
I heard something about the ‘banality of evil’ this morning on R4. We have lockdown movie nights in our house and last Friday we watched Spike Lee’s ‘Do the Right Thing’.
Even though the Italian restaurant owner (Sal’s Famous’) and the predominantly Black American neighbourhood who eat there depicted in Lee’s film get on, there are still everyday bits of racism that have crept into people’s lives that are so common that they don’t even question it. But it at least explains the explosive events later on in the film as the underlying tensions come out because a local member of the community – guess what? – is killed by police brutality.
I think the same sort of banality (lacking originality, freshness, or novelty) has crept into our economic lives – we seem beyond questioning the evils of unemployment, wage death and austerity (amongst others) in sufficient numbers to change it. So even those of us who are aware of this are condemned to what can only be described as ‘ground hog day’ economic life.
I listened to the Hannah Arendt discussion too. She wrote so much that is relevant to events of the last 5-10 years. The divisions and progressive erosion of democracy.
Re GND, pretty much all the politicians apart from Tories have adopted it to a greater or lesser extent. Today’s Tories seem to be wholly about tactically reacting to events, and distractions from their failures. If there is any strategy at all, it is merely to cling to power and to undermine any institutions that might get in the way.
Spot on
I think there is strategy- just not one that any sane person would want.
A no deal Brexit, the creation of a virtual dictatorship, destruction of the welfare state, and rule by a few large corporations. And presumably some enormous pay off to Johnson and Cummings.
https://davidhencke.com/2020/06/21/welcome-to-your-new-rulers-uk-commissioners-gove-johnson-and-cummings/