Issue 29 – Mar 24

Columns

First word

The gravity of the situation

I grew up in the 70s in a world where there was a sense of expanding progress.  The great wars were behind us and even when Thatcher/Reagan pushed dog-eat-dog neoliberalism

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A sting in the tale

Verity discovers that when the wise man points at the moon, the fool looks at the finger.  Thomas, my husband of forty years, has a new project. It keeps him

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The illusion of stability

Economic calm is always the precursor to a storm. Economics says stability is the sign of a healthy economy. There may be shocks that temporarily knock an economy out of

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Interviews

The finish line

Jem Bendell is a self-described “doomster”. He started out as an activist promoting corporate sustainability in the 90s, shifting to academia as a professor of sustainable development recognised by the

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Free in freezing

Fardin was an activist student in Afghanistan’s capital, Kabul, in 2021, when the Taliban took control, turning his world upside down. He now lives in Russia near the Arctic circle. 

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Smash and grab

Ruben Andersson and David Keen are academic investigators seeking to understand what they see as a conundrum:  How come politicians and their collaborators are able to pursue for so long,

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Articles

Why didn’t the balloon go up?

When the US military shot down an unmanned Chinese aircraft many thought the worst. Joshua Brown looks at why things might have even grown better. When a Chinese surveillance balloon

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Was Truss on the money?

Dirk Ehnts suggests that Liz Truss’s downfall may have not been because she was wrong. Shadow chancellor, Rachel Reeves, said in 2021 that delaying tackling climate breakdown would be at

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More ore or less waste?

Paul Ekins warns of the need for low-carbon-economy policymakers to consider the full circle. Many of the technologies seen as critical for the shift to low-carbon energy, as well as

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Can finance save polar bears?

Frederic Hache questions proposals that perpetual growth can be made sustainable by planting trees. In an article published by Le Monde in December, 2023, the President of the French Republic,

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Healthy, wealthy and wise

Sarah McKinley beats the drum for Community Wealth Building. As I write, 1,200 farmers and their tractors have occupied the centre of Brussels where I live. Their synchronised horn blasts

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Down to business

Martin Parker asks whether business schools might be able to help address carbon capitalism, rather than simply teaching it. On Wednesday 3 June 1970, the Board of Social Studies at

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Book Reviews

Sharks are eating the whales

Alex Kozul-Wright reviews The Value of a Whale by Adrienne Buller, Manchester Press (2022) and The Finance Curse by Nicholas Shaxson, Penguin Random House (2018). Though distinct in their focus,

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The End of the beginning

As the climate crisis has escalated over the past decade, there has been a conspicuous absence of films that mirror the predicament we are faced with. Climate philosopher and activist

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