Comments for PermaBusiness

Comment on Energy and Growth — a physicist’s view by Pascale Scheurer

Pascale Scheurer — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 15:18:56 +0000

I love reading astrophysicists’ analysis of Environmental issues. I was just reading Hubert Reeves ‘L’espace prend la forme de mon regard’ over xmas – astrophysicist + philosopher. Good stuff.

Comment on Crowdfunding shows principles for disruptive business models by Pascale Scheurer

Pascale Scheurer — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 18:03:42 +0000

Good stuff. I didn’t know about Unbound. Sort of a Lulu meets Ulule … Lulule? (Doesn’t work so nicely with Kickstarter) (Lickstarter??)

There are so many fantastic online systems like this emerging, along the “hey wouldn’t it be brilliant if…” model. Simple ideas.

Applied in architecture? One could imagine a progressive developer inviting people to pre-buy into an eco-housing development. Say 20 buyers for a similar house type. It could even be dispersed rather than on one site (this happens in Germany already, but there they are less tied to location and their Planning system doesn’t get in the way.)

20 doesn’t sound like many but Harry Handelsman only needed 23 interested buyers and a bold vision to get Manhattan Loft Corporation off the ground. They’ve just redone the magnificent front of St Pancras station.

Comment on Innovation in money and music (and agriculture) by Pascale Scheurer

Pascale Scheurer — Fri, 18 Nov 2011 01:15:58 +0000

Hi Permabusiness

Money = Trust. “I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of…”

Which is why the value(s) of money cannot be reflected in a unique set of figures, why GDP bears little relation to wellbeing, why the poverty measure of “living on one dollar a day” is itself a neo-colonial construct, why we have the “broken window fallacy” of war as an economic driver.

And why people who question capitalism resist applying monetary value to nature, people and even land itself. But then we are getting embroiled in Marxist territory…..

Always good to remember in our hearts that, whether or not carbon-trading etc works in practice, we are always free to choose how we ourselves define money and what can really be bought, sold or priced. Money does not define us, we define money.

Comment on “Most worrying day of the crisis so far” by Pascale Scheurer

Pascale Scheurer — Wed, 16 Nov 2011 19:45:36 +0000

Hi Finn

Thanks for this article. i like the way you pull together several topics that are too often reported separately in mainstream media (Eurozone, UK, Tobin Tax, OWS/OLSX).

“Lots of people are betting whether the ship is going to sink and if so how fast, but very few are baling water.”

So true … there are carpetbaggers in every difficult situation,

I love the way the UK anti-euro types are so smug about the Euro crisis. Haven’t they noticed at even with all the very obvious problems in the Euro, the Pound has still fallen against it consistently over the last few years? Just saying…