Articles
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
Cents and sensibility
Fifty years ago the Limits to Growth report started a debate that pitted environmentalists against economists — and the economists won. Richard McNeill Douglas investigates why and what comes next.
Green through a feminist lens
Katy Wiese argues that the US has pointed the way to an economy that is just and fair to people and nature, and Europe now should go the distance. Feminist
China and US: cooling off and global warming
Competing superpowers have much to offer in tackling climate change. Joshua Brown asks: can the US and China put aside their rivalry for the sake of the Earth? It’s a
The Bumpy Ride
Roland Kupers argues that fixing the climate crisis will necessarily be turbulent. Our current approach to the climate problem falls well short of what is objectively required, but that does
As real as it gets
Climate change: Bangladesh is where it is at. Rohini Kamal shows the way. Debates on climate change are often dominated by heated commentary from the West on its impending peril
Farming carbon
Dr Mandy Stoker tells how captured carbon is neither black gold nor a guaranteed green deal. The 5,000 trees we planted seven years ago are bursting into leaf. They have
Pensions get the green-lite
Why better pensions help the climate – Bruno Bonizzi explains. In October 2021, two UK-based academics, Dr Neil Davies and Dr Ewan McGaughey, issued proceedings against the directors of the
Nigeria’s Best Laid Plans For The Environment
West Africa’s oil giant is choking its people with pollution because its rules are worth no more than the paper they are written on. Grimot Nane explains. The 2021 United
The ifs and buts of Hydrogen
Hydrogen may be useful, but how green can it really be? asks Roland Kupers. It has been used for centuries: from lifting the balloon that Jacques Charles floated over Paris
Farmers plough their own furrow to change
A brew of chemical fertilisers, sewage and other pollutants is costing lives and money as it splashes over our environment and our dinner plates. Jyoti Banerjee and Arnav Jain offer
Coal, climate and the circle of injustice
First there were slaves, then there were coal-fired machines, then there was climate change wreaking havoc on the descendants of the slaves. Jeremy Williams goes around a vicious circle. Friday
Beyond denial
Sandra White maps a route through denial and towards action on climate change. Despite growing evidence of climate change, only a few years ago I regularly heard people deny that
All together. How?
If the way out of climate crisis requires a world that works together, can economics and markets provide the direction? Şerban Scrieciu reflects. Two globally significant events this year have
The shock that planted an idea
Dhaka scavenger, Taslima, was delighted to hear about Project Bottle Economy that will enable her to earn more from her work. A pair of technology students in Bangladesh came up
The human touch
Paul Frijters shares a dream. The world is getting hotter and wetter due to humanity increasing its carbon dioxide and other greenhouse emissions over the past 200 years. Even if
The only way out
Post-war reconstruction involved taxing the richest – it could help with building a low-carbon economy according to Dario Kenner. Amid the worst public health crisis in a generation, an economic disaster has
An inconveniently complex truth
Roland Kupers tells how complexity characterises climate policy questions. And how it also provides answers. The world’s governments in 2015 made a radical shift in the principles that governed their
All for One
A combination of government edicts, broken promises and climate change has driven Malian villagers away from their collective livelihoods and traditions to bring prosperity for the few, not for the
Carbon dating
Getting together to reduce carbon emissions brings hope in a world that doesn’t care, say Colin Nolden and Michele Stua On first sight, the global climate conference in Madrid was a
Trash can
Lagos’s garbage entrepreneurs are cleaning up. Adeyemi Adelekan explains. While growing up in a small suburban community in Lagos state, I was accustomed to hearing people with carts and sacks
Zero is circular
A circular economy is starting to roll towards zero carbon in Ireland. Geraldine Brennan writes. Since the 1970s global resource use has tripled, reaching some 92 billion tonnes in 2017,
A new steer
Spanish farms are revitalising their land on the hoof. Sacha Bernal Coates and Kerry Wolters explain how the herd instinct holds back the desert. Manuel’s ranch is an hour’s drive
Climate short change
Global warming is happening but the planning to halt it doesn’t just happen. Charles Seaford asks who? And other questions. Well-informed people the world over knew, in 1933, that something
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
The differential equation
David Stainforth is professor of physics with a deep passion for modelling the dimensions of the climate crisis in a form that is useful for decision makers and the wider
Killer watts
Helen Thompson is a professor of international political economy who thinks that understanding energy can explain a lot (if not all as she is careful to say) that has happened
Beyond the pale?
Lebohang Liepollo Pheko is a South African activist academic who was one of the non-Europeans invited to speak at the recent Beyond Growth conference in the European Parliament. This conference
On being an inspiration
Chee Yoke Ling has, since the 1980s, supported Global South countries in becoming more effective in international policy negotiations. The Mint called her up in Bonn, where she was attending
Drowning in silence
The Mint spent time with Waqar Rizvi, a media commentator in Pakistan, to discuss views from the global South – particularly its perspectives on demands for climate change compensation –
Bad grammar?
British academic, and ecological economist, based in Vienna, Clive Spash, was one of the few expert voices who openly and scathingly criticised the recent Dasgupta Review. The 600-page review by
The land ahead
The only point of agreement on the future of land management and agriculture in the UK is that it is undergoing huge change post-European Union exit and the new imperative
A new class act
Douglas Eger is an environmentalist and a serial entrepreneur. He is looking to bring together these two strands of his career in a new venture to create a new asset
News
Columns
Central Eating
Pam Warhurst is an impressive community leader with a CBE for her efforts. She has been a council leader, chaired the Forestry Commission and has sat on other influential boards.
Learning from the pandemic
Frances Coppola warns that looking back is not the best way to move forward During the Cold War, there was a genre of disaster fiction along the lines of “life
Spin Offs
Tom Szaky started TerraCycle in high school to “end waste”. The company currently operates in 21 countries, working with some of the world’s largest retailers’ and manufacturers’ brands. In each
Global calories
The food on your plate, and how it got there, is the theme for our tenth issue. Food has been an area of conflict at least since the sugar boycotts
What’s cooking in the capital?
Claire Pritchard has been the Chair of the Mayor of London’s Food Board since March 2018 and has worked for over 20 years with food-related social enterprises in Greenwich. She
The bull in China’s shop
In this issue we are exploring the world of international organisations, values and globalisation. This is at a time when Trump is challenging all the norms, but maybe the norms
Collaboratively yours
The theme of this issue is common resource management. This may seem a niche interest but when you think about it there are many resources we have to manage together.
We can be heroes
Many of us like the idea of swimming with dolphins and our children having dolphins around to give them the option to swim with them. Patriotism anyone? Most of us
Sustainably Yours
A late charge by Thomas into the green, ends in bloodshed and disappointment. If only they had consulted Professor Bastion. Thomas has gone green. Our dear girl Hermione wasn’t even
Books
How to fix the global economy – in 142 pages
The authors provide a step-by-step guide to the main overarching structural changes that are needed to better address climate change and enable a more economically-just and financially-stable world. Review by
The Waste-Free World
From the publisher: Our take-make-waste economy has cost consumers and taxpayers billions while cheating us out of a habitable planet. But it doesn’t have to be this way. The Waste-Free
Beautiful Economics
From the publisher: A handbook for rebooting the world with a new economic narrative that combines ecological, philosophical and entrepreneurial wisdom. What if we could all become rich in Life
Tomorrow’s Economy
From the publisher: A balance sheet for the planet: How we can achieve healthy growth—more regenerative than wasteful, instilling equity rather than exacerbating inequalities. In Tomorrow’s Economy, Per Espen Stoknes reframes
Another End of the World is Possible
From the publisher: The critical situation in which our planet finds itself is no longer in doubt. Some things are already collapsing while others are beginning to do so, increasing the possibility
Unsustainable Inequalities
From the publisher: A hard-headed book that confronts and outlines possible solutions to a seemingly intractable problem: that helping the poor often hurts the environment, and vice versa. Can we
The New Map
From the publisher: Pulitzer Prize-winning author and global energy expert, Daniel Yergin offers a revelatory new account of how energy revolutions, climate battles, and geopolitics are mapping our future The
The Spatial Contract
From the publisher: Housing. Water. Energy. Transport. Food. Education. Health care. These are the core systems which make human life possible in the 21st century. Few of us are truly
Degrowth in Movement(s)
From the publisher: Degrowth is an emerging social movement that overlaps with proposals for systemic change such as anti-globalization and climate justice, commons and transition towns, basic income and Buen
Revenge Capitalism
From the publisher: Capitalism is in a profound state of crisis. Beyond the mere dispassionate cruelty of ‘ordinary’ structural violence, it appears today as a global system bent on reckless
Feeding Britain: Our food problems and how to fix them
From the publisher: How does Britain get its food? Why is our current system at breaking point? How can we fix it before it is too late? British food has
The Hidden Power of Systems Thinking: Governance in a Climate Emergency
From the publisher: A persuasive, lively book that shows how systems thinking can be harnessed to effect profound, complex change. In the age of the Anthropocene, the need for new
A circular passion
Why does Walter Stahel mention The Little Prince author, Antoine Saint-Exupery at four critical points in his latest book: The Circular Economy: a user’s guide? Ron Nahser reflects on a
All Hell Breaking Loose
All Hell Breaking Loose is an eye-opening examination of climate change from the perspective of the U.S. military. The Pentagon, unsentimental and politically conservative, might not seem likely to be worried
This Civilisation is Finished: Conversations on the End of Empire- And What Lies Beyond with Rupert Read & Samuel Alexander
From the Publisher: Industrial civilisation has no future. It requires limitless economic growth on a finite planet. The reckless combustion of fossil fuels means that Earth’s climate is changing
On Fire: The Burning Case for a Green New Deal by Naomi Klein
‘Naomi Klein’s work has always moved and guided me. She is the great chronicler of our age of climate emergency, an inspirer of generations’ – Greta Thunberg For more than
Carbon Inequality – Dario Kenner
Publisher Description With a specific focus on the United States and the United Kingdom, Carbon Inequality studies the role of the richest people in contributing to climate change via their luxury consumption
The Case For People’s Quantitative Easing – Frances Coppola
In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, central banks created trillions of dollars of new money, and poured it into financial markets. ‘Quantitative Easing’ (QE) was supposed to prevent
This Is Not A Drill – An Extinction Rebellion Handbook
Extinction Rebellion are inspiring a whole generation to take action on climate breakdown. Now you can become part of the movement – and together, we can make history. By the
No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference – Greta Thunberg
The history-making, ground-breaking speeches of Greta Thunberg, the young activist who has become the voice of a generation This book brings you Greta in her own words, for the first
FALTER: Has the Human Game Begun to Play Itself Out? – Bill McKibben
Thirty years ago Bill McKibben offered one of the earliest warnings about climate change. Now he broadens the warning: the entire human game, he suggests, has begun to play itself
Peer to Peer: The Commons Manifesto
Per Publisher Not since Marx identified the manufacturing plants of Manchester as the blueprint for the new capitalist society has there been a more profound transformation of the fundamentals of
There Is No Planet B: A Handbook for the Make or Break Years
Feeding the world, climate change, biodiversity, antibiotics, plastics – the list of concerns seems endless. But what is most pressing, what are the knock-on effects of our actions, and what
On purpose
Campaigners seeking deep transformation of the economy should look no further for ideas than Colin Mayer’s book, Prosperity. Within it they will find a surprisingly radical agenda even if they
Short and Sweet
In remarkably few words Nick Silver gets to many points in his biting analysis of the global financial system, Finance, Society and Sustainability. It’s all good – more would be
Event Recordings
Why Capitalists Need Communists
The 2020s look set to be the decade of make or break. The big problems we face – climate change, inequality, job creation in the face of automation, housing shortages and pressures
Holding Corporations to Account: towards an Economic Democracy?
We take it for granted that we get to vote in elections, but that is of course a relatively recent innovation. Universal suffrage only occurred in 1928. However most of
The perils of CSR: Conflict and resistance in the extractive industries
There are more than 800 ongoing conflicts involving the extractive industries (mining, gas and oil) and communities impacted by extractive activity. Most of these conflicts are in the developing countries
Is a Green New Deal the answer?
Since the idea of a Green New Deal was taken up by the newly elected, social media savvy US congress woman, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez known as AOC, it has generated a
Innovation, Sustainability and Trust
Creating a human society which is sustainable must rate as the biggest innovation challenge humanity has ever faced. We often think of this challenge as one of technological innovation, but