Economics for Rebels

In this conversation, Mike Clark, a Senior Researcher in Sustainable Food Solutions at Oxford, explores the ecological economics of food systems. He delves into the rising food demand driven by population growth and income, predicting a significant increase in agricultural production by 2050. Clark discusses the environmental toll of food systems, including greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity loss, while advocating for mostly plant-based diets as a major mitigation strategy. He also highlights the importance of policy reforms to encourage healthier, sustainable eating habits.

Ecological economics is all about staying within planetary boundaries while providing prosperity for all. This, however, means that we desperately need to transcend both our growth-centred worldview and our fully growth-dependent economic and social systems. The solutions proposed by ecological economics cover messages of true political nature. While bottom-up initiatives are incredibly important in this transition, drastic top-down policy changes would make a massive difference. Our guest today, Tim Jackson is most certainly among those top ecological economists who are in constant liaison with policymakers trying to influence their decisions to move towards beyond growth institutions. In today’s podcast host Alexandra Köves is asking him, just how far is this concept beyond the political rationale for today’s decision-makers? Edited by Aidan Knox.

Talking about ecological economics often invokes the mentioning of limits. Ecological and social limits to growth are often brought up in the context where we need to respect these external boundaries and restrain ourselves accordingly. Today’s guest, Giorgos Kallis in his book Limits puts forward an unusual but compelling argument that instead of seeing a world where human wants are unlimited and the environment limits them, we should start seeing a world where human desires are limited, and the ecological environment is abundant. While his line of thought is unorthodox in so many ways, understanding it should be essential to all those who are concerned about our growth-frantic world. Hosted by Alexandra Köves. Edited by Aidan Knox.

The sustainability transition ecological economists urge would mean that we radically transform our economies and societies. Such a transformation is not without disruptions and therefore we need tools to make it just. Our guest today, Vincent Liegey argues that the Unconditional Autonomy Allowance, in which all citizens are provided with guarantees to a minimum sustenance without any conditionality is just the tool we need in Degrowth transitions. It not only mitigates the insecurities around the changes and starts the redistribution much needed for a just and sustainable world but also helps decolonising our imaginaries. Hosted by Alexandra Köves. Edited by Aidan Knox. For more written material on the subject, check out: http://www.projet-decroissance.net/?p=2871; http://www.projet-decroissance.net/?p=2742; http://www.projet-decroissance.net/?p=2745;  http://www.projet-decroissance.net/?p=2745 Find Exploring Degrowth: A Critical Guide book here: https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745342023/exploring-degrowth

In this engaging discussion, Paul Brockway, an academic researcher from the University of Leeds, delves into the intricacies of ecological economics and energy systems. He unpacks why conventional decarbonisation models may lead us astray and highlights the significant role of energy efficiency in economic growth. Paul introduces the concept of exergy, emphasizing its critical importance for understanding energy dynamics. His insights on recycling and circular economies challenge prevalent assumptions about energy consumption, urging a deeper evaluation of our sustainable practices.

In our podcast series we have already covered many different perspectives on the necessary transformation of the monetary system to establish an ecologically sustainable and socially just world. Our guest today, Joe Ament argues that thinking about money differently allows us to think differently about sustainability. Much of our worldview on money is that it is a commodity and is therefore limited. Thinking instead that money is a social relation allows us to think of it as something not physical and hence, abundant. Edited by Aidan Knox.

As of 2020, the physical mass of all the world’s man-made structures exceeded that of all the world’s living things. And there’s raw materials – sand and construction minerals - at the heart of these structures, but we rarely notice them, or think about where they come from. In this episode we speak with Dr Aurora Torres, one of the leading experts in the sustainability implications of society’s hunger for sand and construction minerals, and explore the ecological economics of the sand supply networks that underpin most of contemporary society. Edited by Aidan Knox.

Herman Daly, one of the founders of ecological economics, died on the 28th of October 2022 at the age of 84. His work questioning the pursuit of economic growth and articulating the alternative of a steady-state economy, has been foundational to sustainability science. Daly observed that mainstream economics completely omits the natural world and in reality, the economy is not an isolated system, but a subsystem of the biosphere. All of the resources used by the economy come from the environment, and all of the wastes produced by it return to the environment. Hence, economic activity can be analysed not only in terms of flows of money, but also in terms of flows of biophysical resources and social outcomes. Moreover, the finitude of the biosphere implies that there are limits to how large the physical economy within it can grow. Daly argued that we have in fact moved from an “empty world” to a “full world”. In this end of year episode we are paying tribute to Herman Daly. Alexandra Köves talks to Dan O'Neill, the President of the European Society for Ecological Economics in an episode that covers not just an incredibly rich life's work but most of the basic concepts of ecological economics. Edited by Aidan Knox.

There’s one huge structural driver of unsustainability that ecological economists rarely talk about, is fiendishly complex, and deliberately opaque in part to avoid accountability. We’re talking about the financial sector. So we’re happy to welcome Katie Kedward onto the show to help talk us all through the key basics. Katie is a Research Fellow in Sustainable Finance at the Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose at UCL, and we cover issues spanning the role of different actors throughout the financial sector, the limitations of current approaches to reduce its climate and biodiversity impacts, and the role of the state in shaping finance so it works for society. There were some technical difficulties in the recording so apologies for a small change in audio quality during the course of the interview. Sound quality rescued by Editor Aidan Knox.

Ecological economics is about finding ways to achieve environmental and social justice in our sustainability transitions. However, justice is a fragile and ambiguous concept, and it is in the eye of the beholder where it gains meaning. Colonialism did not end with previously colonialised countries gaining their freedom. It lives on in our global culture, economy, social processes and in the perception of self-worth in all of us. Science is no exception. Knowledge production is still vastly biased towards Western, masculine, often cartesian values. As transformation is only likely to be successful if we transcend currently dominant paradigms, decolonising knowledge production is key not only in terms of justice but also in terms of finding adequate solutions. In this episode our guest, Brototi Roy - ecological economist, political ecologist and Degrowth researcher from the Autonomous University of Barcelona and Central European University - sheds light on why. She is talking to Alexandra Köves. Edited by Aidan Knox.