As fear drives eurozone debt markets and economies markedly downwards, and the increased volatility makes good money for some, the underlying grievance of the Occupy Wall Street movement can now be seen mirrored clearly in the European crisis. The tension is effectively between those who believe that inequality is divisive and we should all pull together (Germany), …
Category archives: Energy / Environment
As financial systems and economies worsen, innovation comes from an unlikely source
After some apparently good news yesterday, the news today has turned distinctly sour. As stories in the FT show: The world’s financial systems still seem to be getting worse, not better European solutions seem to be tinkering at the edges The ‘real’ economy is becoming increasingly volatile Innovation is needed
Turning the corner?
A generally upbeat set of stories in the FT this morning: The Bank of England’s executive director of financial stability has called for risk rules for lending to small businesses to be temporarily relaxed. Although counterintuitive in some ways, it would help to smooth business cycles: encouraging activity in a downturn and reducing the support given …
Unusually warm autumn
An article here describes how the exceptionally warm autumn has led many plants and animals to be seen doing things they wouldn’t normally do till spring — including the arrival of a swallow! This is part of a larger trend of the natural events of the seasons being disturbed, and could be bad news for …
Financial situation worsening; US and China economies stumble;
Financial System is still getting worse, not better: As Italian bond yields surge, and the IMF warns of a “lost decade” unless a way is quickly found to return the global economy to growth, the solutions already found to the Greek crisis are now seen as increasing the risk to banks of future exposure to crises in other …
Continue reading “Financial situation worsening; US and China economies stumble;”
How much fossil fuel remains?
This page shows visualisations of known reserves of oil, gas, and coal. http://visualization.geblogs.com/visualization/gas/ Click “In Comparison”. Drag the pointers and you will see that although the initial estimates look good, with only minimal annual growth of say 3-4%/year (compared with China’s economic growth of around 10%) we only have a generation of all three fuels …
Drivers of change
Chris Luebkeman, Director of Global Innovation and Foresight at Arup, talks about some of the key drivers of change in our world: Key drivers of change that he mentions, to varying levels of detail, include: Congestion Genetic screening Sea level rise Affluence Ageing populations Single person households Connectivity Clickizens Trans-generational exchange Authenticity Accountability for externalities …
Daily snapshot
A eurozone recession “looks almost inevitable before the end of the year, even if the debt crisis does not intensify further”. A Treasury select committee is calling for a “radical overhaul” of the accountability and governance of the Bank of England, through the establishment of a supervisory board that would reduce the power of the governor …
Strange times
Republicans (and two Democrats) in the US Senate last week managed to block a $60bn bill to renew some of the country’s fading infrastructure (including roads, dams, bridges, energy and water systems). The reason? Funding was to have come from an additional 0.7 per cent tax on earnings over $1m.
Snapshot of today
The US Federal Reserve has cut its growth forecast for 2012 from 3.5% to 2.7%, and is still predicting low inflation, but has not reduced interest rates. People who bet that market volatility would reduce after the eurozone agreement have been caught out by Greece’s announcement of a referendum. Now that the referendum has been …