Have a look at this just-published article in PNAS by Jerome Dangerman and Hans Joachim Schellnhuber on the topic of climate change:

Abstract

The contemporary industrial metabolism is not sustainable. Critical problems arise at both the input and the output side of the complex: Although affordable fossil fuels and mineral resources are declining, the waste products of the current production and consumption schemes (especially CO₂ emissions, particulate air pollution, and radioactive residua) cause increasing environmental and social costs. Most challenges are associated with the incumbent energy economy that is unlikely to subsist. However, the crucial question is whether a swift transition to its sustainable alternative, based on renewable sources, can be achieved. The answer requires a deep analysis of the structural conditions responsible for the rigidity of the fossil-nuclear energy system. We argue that the resilience of the fossil-nuclear energy system results mainly from a dynamic lock-in pattern known in operations research as the “Success to the Successful” mode. The present way of generating, distributing, and consuming energy—the largest business on Earth—expands through a combination of factors such as the longevity of pertinent infrastructure, the information technology revolution, the growth of the global population, and even the recent financial crises: Renewable-energy industries evidently suffer more than the conventional-energy industries under recession conditions. Our study tries to elucidate the archetypical traits of the lock-in pattern and to assess the respective importance of the factors involved. In particular, we identify modern corporate law as a crucial system element that thus far has been largely ignored. Our analysis indicates that the rigidity of the existing energy economy would be reduced considerably by the assignment of unlimited liabilities to the shareholders.

For those not used to this kind of eco-econ vocabulary, allow me to translate in plainer econ English:

The world is stuffed because irresponsible big energy companies keep digging for cheap fossil fuels and refuse to put big money into renewables, preventing the emergence of a more sustainable world energy system. Part of the problem is that the shareholders of these big energy companies do not pay the costs to the planet of the burning of all this fossil fuel. We should make them pay by holding the companies and their individual shareholders legally to account for the use of the fossil fuels they dig up, if necessary impounding their individual assets. Continue reading →

Well I’m overseas at present but I’ve received my first request for a renewal of the annual Crikey subscription. And in these days of email it can all be done with very little work, so I’m opening subscriptions for a record breaking, seventh year. (I have no idea how long I’ve done this, but I reckon it’s about seven years.)

So if you want to be in it, assume that the price is likely to be the cheapest on the Crikey website, ($99 for the year) but that it may be a category or two above it if we don’t get to 50 subscribers (we have in the last few years), and send me an email on ngruen at gmail. I’ll then send it onto crikey at the appropriate time. You’ll get an email from them with a link in it which will enable them to pay you and voila (as they say where I am right now) vous avez un Crikey subscription.

I regularly get asked by young Australian academics nearing the end of their PhD about the tradeoffs inherent in different positions they can apply for: post-doc or tenure-track; academia or policy land; researcher or administrator; a school of economics or a research institute; GO8 or Bush; finishing quickly or going abroad. Since the trade-offs require judgments on the state of diverse institutions, an open discussion could be fruitful as different scholars have different information about these trade-offs.

Post-doc or tenure track?

I generally think it is much better for a really good young economist to take up a research-only post-doc position, even at a bad university or research institute, than a tenure-track teaching position at a better university. Post-docs get paid almost the same, have more opportunities and time to network and expand their research portfolio, and more generally get time to further develop mentally. Tenure-track lecturing means one is part of the prime production of universities, with the full weight of the university hierarchy on one to conform. This is bad for personal development and bad for research, so definitely an inferior option for good young academics confident that their research output will give them entry to other places in the future. Note that this holds only for really good academics. For academics who have reason to feel uncertain where they belong in the long run, there is something to be said for doing more teaching and growing roots in an environment they might remain in for a long time.

It is worth bearing in mind that what is true for Australian economics is not true of many other sciences or even true in other countries. In some other sciences, such as medicine, post-docs are at the bottom of the pile and have to do as they are told. In other countries, like many departments in the US, the post-doc route is much less attractive. Continue reading →

Just before Xmas, I asked the readers at Core and at Troppo what they though the best bits of news of 2012 were.

Many, including myself but also David Walker, Steve Dunera, Tel and Jim Rose thought that last year was another in a long period of strong economic development in the poorest regions of the world, including in Africa, India, China, Latin America, and elsewhere. This was argued to be causally linked to improvements in the human condition (education, life expectancy). So in effect, last year again saw the slow rise of much of humanity out of poverty, ignorance, ill-health and other misery. The general rise of humanity out of poverty, violence, and ignorence is the kind of development that economists and philosophers have been hoping would happen for centuries, but we are currently living in the decades it is actually happening.

Jim Belshaw pointed out that institutions designed to improve justice in this world had again been slowly improving, presumably including the working of the international courts, but also the development of monitoring systems that keep tabs on the behaviour of the powerful in the conflict areas of the world. Jim thought this boded well for the continued reduction in conflict levels in the world.

Steve Dunera made the associated point that mobile phone connectivity has increased in much of the world and expressed the opinion, which I share, that this connectivity is turning into a vehicle for by-passing local monopolists of various plumages, hence again boding well for future developments in the economic and political sphere.

Tim Macknay pointed to the undoubted progress in the political situation in Burma as the highlight of 2012.

And then of course positive technological developments could be celebrated such as the reduction in costs of solar panels  and improvements in self-driving cars.

If I cast the net wider and include things I found personally uplifting, I would say last year was also a good year for popular art, including movies and music.