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42:39
website of the Geological Survey of Finland there is a great piece of research there by Simon Michelle which
42:46
explains some of the things I was saying before it's really very difficult to see
42:51
A Bottom-up Insight Reveals: Replacing Fossil Fuels is Even More Enormous Task Than Thought | GTK
https://www.gtk.fi/en/current/a-bottom-up-insight-reveals-replacing-fossil-fuels-is-even-more-enormous-task-than-thought/
https://love-and-theft-2014.blogspot.com/2022/08/a-bottom-up-insight-reveals-replacing.html
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0:00
uh hello everybody it's a great pleasure to um be with you can everyone hear me
0:09
yeah I can assume you can hear me yeah all right thank you um I am speaking to you from the
0:16
Adelaide Hills so I would like to start with an acknowledgment which I'm in the
0:22
habit of doing I live uh somewhere called old gay in the Adelaide Hills which is on the
0:28
traditional land of the paramank people so I like to say at the beginning of a talk that I acknowledge and pay my
0:34
respects to the Paramount people the original inhabitants of the Adelaide Hills and recognize their ongoing
0:40
connection with this land which was never seated okay having said that
0:46
what is uh someone who spent most of their adult life training bankers
0:52
doing talking to you about modern monetary Theory and ecological
0:58
economics I I perhaps I should give a little bit of background um
1:03
when thinking about the future and about the ecological challenges that
1:10
we face in this generation and the generations to come you can fall into two traps I think one potential track
1:16
which I'm prone to myself is catastrophism and just thinking that whatever we do is
1:24
not going to be enough to avoid a series of crises which are
1:29
going to undermine um our economies and and modern societies
1:35
with goodness knows what consequences and that's one extreme and it can become
1:42
an irrational Viewpoint that you can take but on the other side there's equally irrational
1:49
view which is Extreme optimism everything's going to be okay we're going to transition to a clean
1:58
green economy over the next decade or a couple of decades we'll get to Net Zero
2:04
by 2050 and that's all that we need to do technology will save us all that kind
2:09
of thing I would like to start then by saying one optimistic thing and one pessimistic
2:16
thing the optimistic thing that I have to say is that in my view based on a
2:22
dispassionate at least from my perspective reading of the evidence
2:27
um it's not too late we can build at Future economies which are consistent
2:34
with maintaining and improving the quality of life of hundreds of millions
2:39
billions of people over time uh while uh defending and
2:45
restoring the natural environment within which we live and of which we're apart that's the optimistic statement the
2:51
pessimistic statement we can't do this if our economic narrative remains
2:57
dominated in the future as it has been to a greater or lesser extent in various
3:03
forms for the last hundred years by a new classical economics neoclassical
3:08
economics has always been misleading and we've now reached a point in our history
3:14
where it's not just misleading it's an existential threat
3:19
I've thought this for oh probably at least 10 years partly because my closest
3:24
economics friend and colleague in Adelaide um Phil Long is Australia's leading ecological
3:31
Economist and about five years ago the two of us got together and you know you
3:37
think what could we do to in a small way make a difference on this planet and we
3:44
decided to try and put together a set of postgraduate qualifications because
3:49
after all we're teachers um in heterodox economics but uh centered
3:56
on the two elements in non-neoclassical economics which we think are most important
4:02
if we are going to um if only
4:07
we can uh gain influence in the next five or ten years in policy institutions
4:15
around the world to deliver a sustainable future economy
4:22
um with improved living standards for all and those two elements were modern
4:27
monetary Theory and I think of myself as an mmt economist although that's not really what I'm going to be talking about today
4:33
and ecological economics which is Phil's area of expertise we spent the next
4:39
couple of years trying to interest universities in doing this and in
4:45
Australia and we could couldn't for a long time we couldn't find any takers particularly because
4:53
um if you go to a university that has an economics Department it's invariably a department dominated by neoclassical
4:59
economists and they are simply not interested in in in offering what we
5:05
thought was was important because we we really need a production line of economists training him into who
5:12
understand ecological issues that's so important so in the end a couple of years ago we quit our jobs
5:18
and we set up a charity called modern money lab which you could see the name of in the top left-hand corner there in
5:24
Adelaide and eventually we found a university it's the newest university in
5:30
Australia it has to be one of the two private units in Australia none of the public unions were interested called
5:35
Torrance University and we are launching our postgraduate courses including a
5:42
master's degree in the economics of sustainability which is really in mmt
5:47
and ecological economics in a couple of weeks time
5:54
um the abstract that I gave the organizers for this event is very similar to the first note that I wrote
6:01
to the vice Chancellor at Torrance University I I maybe I will just very quickly read through it with you living
6:08
with implanetary boundaries is Central to the pursuit of sustainable well-being if we are to do this in time to preserve
6:15
a stable environment we need policy makers to admit the scale of the challenges we face and to be informed by
6:21
competent economic analysis both Phil and I believe and this is not
6:26
the same thing as saying necessarily that Real gross domestic product has to
6:31
fall but both of us believe that we must abandon the objective of Perpetual growth focus on our real resource and
6:38
ecological constraints and not be distracted by neoclassical myths relating to the monetary system the
6:44
appropriate functions of government or the economics of climate change and we both believe passionately that
6:51
insights derived from Modern monetary Theory and ecological economics are essential tools if we're to meet the
6:57
challenges of this Century with confidence so with the help of lecturers and subject writers like dirkins who is
7:04
there with you and Scott fullwiler who many of you will have heard of and others too and with the advice of
7:10
Stephanie Carlton and Fadel kabu that's exactly what we've been spending our
7:16
time doing for the last couple of years
7:21
I guess most if not all of us have had a training in neoclassical economics and I
7:27
even taught it for 20 years after after I graduated and I'm
7:34
embarrassed now by some of what I used to teach what I used to in culco into
7:41
into people's minds you remember I'm sure that the neoclassical approach is based
7:49
on the an explicit or implicit General equilibrium model centered on
7:54
individuals with impossible access to information and cognitive capacity and with the
8:03
power to make decisions which maximize their well-being So based on preferences
8:09
which are not influenced by other people and which they they uh um very well
8:16
understand they're able to decide how much to work and how much leisure time to take now and when they work the pay
8:23
they get depends on their marginal productivity which in turn depends on how much they have invested in this
8:29
human capital in the past and they make rational decisions able to look into the future with almost perfect foresight
8:35
about how much to borrow and now pay back later or say now
8:41
we know that in new Keynesian economics they have a full monopolistic
8:47
competition so that they can have price setting but basically the default Market model which is what is in the back of
8:53
everybody's mind the whole time is perfect competition with any deviations from this treated as market failures and
8:59
if they think about ecological issues at all if they think about for example
9:04
carbon dioxide emissions at all they see them as a negative externality given all
9:10
their other assumptions it's possible to look into the future to identify precisely the social costs of those
9:18
negative externalities and identify an optimal tax and if you internalize the
9:24
externality by uh implementing and optimal tax then in theory there are
9:30
substitutions in consumption and in production processes and there are technological changes which means that
9:37
you get an ideal release a Pareto optimal allocation of resources and the
9:42
economy can continue to grow forever and there is no issue about the scale of our
9:50
impact on the environment within which we live and of which we are apart
9:57
but put the cartoon on the left hand side on this slide this is a magical world
10:03
of preposterous assumptions it has always stood in the way
10:08
of maximizing the well-being of hundreds of millions of people
10:14
it always led to inequality Financial instability and crisis and but now it's
10:22
a threat to our survival or at least the survival of our civilizations
10:27
so we need an alternative a set of economic foundations and what's
10:34
more and this is the difficult thing as far as I'm concerned we need social tipping points political tipping points
10:40
to to occur before ecological ones do
10:45
because we need these foundations to be incorporated in the way that real world
10:52
politicians treasuries central banks other institutions make decisions
10:58
the most important elements not the only elements but the most important elements in this new economics are modern
11:05
monetary Theory and ecological economics and our level with you uh I five to ten
11:13
years ago um sometimes felt that there was an ecological problem
11:19
with mmt that mmt was too often seen by people as an efficient way of growing
11:27
economies faster um I don't think that anymore I think that the work of well let's
11:34
mention Steve Keane and uh kenz who are with you amongst many other people and
11:39
Fadel Kabob but especially Stephanie Kelton has pulled modern monetary Theory
11:45
towards ecological economics over time and in many respects
11:53
um if you compare the Great popularizing Book of mmt the deficit myth with the
11:59
Great popularizing Book of recent years for ecological economics which is donor economic by Kate rower
12:04
there are very major similarities between those two books when you put
12:09
them side by side and you read them and the quote you can see in the bottom left hand corner of this screen are just a
12:16
more prosperous world one that combines ecological sustainability with full employment human well-being a lower
12:22
degree of inequality and excellent public services that meets the needs of all is Within Reach now that could come
12:29
from either of these books it actually comes from Stephanie's book but we have been dragging mmt and
12:37
ecological economics together I like to think that a conference we held in Adelaide at the beginning of 2020 where
12:43
we had Stephanie Curtin and Bill Mitchell but we had very well-known ecological economics not economists not
12:50
just Phil but Robert costanzo and Mark diesendorf and others as well might have played a small part
12:56
in this so if MNT and ecological economics are
13:01
so important and if I if they're going to be the center of the Master's Degree which we're just having our first intake
13:08
for in a few weeks time um what are the main elements what are
13:15
the core elements of these two schools of thought I hardly need to talk to you
13:20
about the mmt column here we all know who the main figures have been in
13:28
building the foundations of modern monetary theory yes on the shoulders of previous generations of economists like
13:34
Abalone and Wing Godly and Jaime Minsky but the big four I always think are
13:42
Warren Mosler and Bill Mitchell and Randall Ray and Stephanie Kelton she's
13:47
not just a popular writer of mmt but as Stephanie Bell um she wrote a couple of early papers
13:54
which are very important in the foundations of modern monetary Theory so you know perfectly well that modern
14:01
monetary Theory when you think about it in a descriptive sense is about the monetary system
14:07
um the distinction between currency issuers and currency users is of vital importance
14:13
understanding the determinants and the significance of monetary sovereignty is important too we all know you're a
14:20
monetary Sovereign if you issue the currency that you collect taxes in if
14:25
that currency is not convertible into any commodity or foreign currency that
14:30
you could run out of at a fixed rate and if you have no significant foreign currency denominated it's a little bit
14:36
more complicated than that but that's the essentials we know if you are a monetary Sovereign you face real
14:43
constraints of course you do but you face no purely Financial ones you're not going to run out of your own currency we
14:50
all know that we also know about when God leaves sexual balances approach to
14:55
macroeconomics we know that if at full employment the non-government part of
15:01
the monetary system and desires to accumulate net Financial assets then
15:07
it's vital that the currency issuing government runs a definite deficit in
15:13
order to Supply those financial assets and support the economy that's a descriptive side of mmt we also know mmt
15:20
has a free scripted side we often talk about the aim of maintaining non-inflationary full employment which
15:27
is one way of helping to create more equitable distribution of income but that's not the only reason full
15:33
employment is important we know that a federal job guarantee will do that as well as helping to
15:40
stabilize the economy across the economic cycle and we often talk about the use of monetary sovereignty to
15:46
pursue something called the public purpose although we don't always specify in detail what the public purpose is
15:52
well that's mmt what ecological economics all about I I
15:57
perhaps before I go on I I'd like us to be able to stop using the term mmt and
16:03
just call that left-hand column macroeconomics I would like to stop using
16:10
um the term ecological economics in the right hand corner we all should be ecological economists and just say well
16:16
this is what we think about at the beginning of econ 101 this is where we start from
16:22
we don't start from here do we but we should ecological economics was
16:28
developed by Kenneth balding he deserves a mention there is a brilliant essay
16:33
please look this up online and read it if you never have done that hero in 1966
16:38
called the economics of the coming spaceship earth which is really about
16:44
the implications of the human impact on our environment exceeding the bio
16:53
capacity of that environment to absorb our waste and allow us to draw resources
16:59
from it without deteriorating over time um but the other founders of ecological
17:04
economics Nicholas Joe gesture Rogan you may have heard of in his student Herman Daley who I'm going to mention in a
17:11
moment Kate rawat as I said is the modern very very effective uh popularizer of ecological economics if
17:19
you haven't read donor economics please read it so the descriptive part the economy is
17:25
well it sits within Society of course and Society is a subset of the biosphere
17:31
so given that our biosphere is limited we have planetary boundaries that we
17:37
need to live within if we are going to retain a stable and livable environment
17:45
then we have to concern ourselves with our impact on that environment with our
17:50
ecological footprint what's the prescriptive part of ecological economics
17:57
um they don't always talk about equality first but radically lower levels of
18:02
inequality in most countries are always almost always an issue at the Forefront
18:08
of the minds and discussions of ecological economists ecological sustainability we're going to
18:14
come back to that of course they often talk about efficiency I prefer to use the word Effectiveness because that word
18:20
efficiency is has sort of almost been stolen from us by neoclassical economies when we talk about Effectiveness you
18:26
know if we've got limited ecological resources we have to use them effectively to maximize the well-being
18:32
of the present generation without threatening the well-being of generations to come
18:37
so what does this lead to it leads you to thinking about quantitative cumulative limits not just on carbon
18:45
dioxide emissions but uh for any scarce ecological resources we should be
18:51
rethinking what we value does it make sense to talk as though maximizing the
18:58
growth in something called GDP it's our overwhelming objective
19:03
we yes we need to rethink distribution as I was kind of just talking about
19:09
and this does evolve as mmt sort of implies I think a much greater role for
19:15
governments and for public Investments of course it does and regulations and
19:21
ecological economists often talk about cap and trade because if you want
19:28
to strictly limit carbon emissions you need some way of actually ensuring that you're you're going to do that there are
19:35
of course political problems and existing cap and trade schemes are far from uh ideal and there may be
19:43
Alternatives like carbon currency and that some of you may have heard of as
19:48
well to ensure that we don't continue to
19:55
indefinitely to uh Produce near emissions of carbon dioxide which will increase the concentration of carbon
20:02
dioxide and other greenhouse gases in our atmosphere and drive us towards more
20:08
and more crisis so what should be the public purpose oh
20:13
and remember spaceship earth uh I don't need to read all these things again I'm more or less repeating myself
20:19
but much of what is on this slide will be shared by almost all mmt economists
20:24
and as well as almost all ecological economists if you want to use the word degrow fine
20:31
but I prefer to be agnostic in two respects where gross domestic product is
20:37
concerned if gross domestic product can grow while you are living within your
20:42
planetary boundaries that's fine um I am not going to a prioritize say
20:49
that we need to massively scale back on GDP around the world of gross World product although I am extremely
20:58
um what's the word skeptical about the potential for long-run economic growth I mean just just the
21:05
arithmetic it's enough to do that really if you imagine growing the world economy at three percent per annum for 200 years
21:13
a bit more than 200 years you'd have an economy a thousand times bigger than the one at the moment that is just not going
21:18
to happen at some stage the global economy is going to stop growing in terms of GDP well I'm agnostic about GDP
21:26
in another sense too we need to change the way we organize
21:33
um our economies the management of our economies we need to rethink what and how we produce and consume we need to
21:42
grow some things and degrow others and when we're talking about that GDP statistic we need to build an economy
21:50
where people's well-being will be maintained with a gross domestic product Rises or not
21:56
none of any of this is Meaningful if we don't have a healthy biosphere we don't
22:02
have a healthy planet to live on if your house is burned down or is under the water
22:08
maintaining and improving human well-being requires a fundamental change in in the way in which we see the
22:15
environment which is not something separate to ourselves it is something of which we are apart and on which we
22:21
depend so we need to get ourselves off the global growth machine and the global
22:26
growth machine has been absolutely amazing particularly during the Great acceleration since the year 1950 now of
22:34
course 1950 to 1975 that was sort of good keynesianism wasn't it enormous
22:40
growth especially in high income countries where the benefits were widely shared
22:46
but you can see what happened as far as the scale of global economic activity it should be called Gray's World product
22:52
really is concerned we've had an enormous expansion in the global economy
22:57
over the last 70 years and it's done great things it has lifted or it's
23:05
helped to lift hundreds of millions of people out of poverty to give people a
23:12
quality of life which previous generations couldn't have been dreamed of and all the modern technology that
23:17
goes along with it as well I would however just briefly suggest
23:23
that well first of all the the benefits of this growth have gone disproportionately to the global
23:31
North U.S Australia Japan and Western Europe of course they have
23:36
it's been built on extracting renewable and non-renewable resources from the
23:42
planet and particularly on the use of fossil fuels to power our economy so
23:47
we're we're the ones that are responsible historically for the carbon dioxide emissions which have put us in
23:53
the position we are now and most importantly I think there is reasonably clear
23:59
evidence that once you get on a per capita basis to about the size of the
24:05
Estonian economy there's no statistically significant benefit to going beyond that
24:11
in high income countries it's not that the economy isn't big enough to provide
24:17
everybody with a good quality of life the issue is about distribution not the scale of economic activity
24:24
and you can you can see this using all sorts of metrics I just took this particular one it's not the best one but
24:31
it happened to be convenient because it was on my computer if you look at subjective life satisfaction against GDP
24:39
per capita and you restrict yourself to countries with a GDP per capita above
24:45
that of Estonia you find there's no statistically significant relationship now if I put a
24:50
line of best fit through that chart on the right it would be marginally upward sloping but as I said it's not
24:55
statistically significant and there have been some other years if I wanted to cheat 2015-16 where it would have slowed
25:01
downwards actually and that's also true if you're talking about
25:08
um uh life expectancy if you're talking
25:13
about crime rates if you're talking about a wide variety of metrics of what
25:19
it means to have a successful Society once you get beyond the income per head of about Estonia higher income doesn't
25:27
seem to do very much for you on the other hand it is always the case
25:32
when we're looking at these metrics or what it means to have a successful Society uh homelessness for example
25:39
that's another one it's always the case that lower inequality and a more
25:44
successful Society go together so it seems that in lower income countries growth in GDP
25:52
really matters in terms of improving the quality of people's lives but in the
25:57
rich world and it's the rich world that's living unsustainably at the moment there really isn't evidence but in my
26:04
view that that's the case at all remember at the moment I'm trying to
26:11
stay agnostic on growth okay then let's go back to the beginning
26:18
of econ 101. uh what's the first diagram you had in your introductory economics
26:23
course it was probably a production possibility Frontier you remember that one it shouldn't have been the
26:30
production possibility Frontier because that production possibility Frontier leaves the natural world of which we're
26:37
apar and on which we depend out it should have been something like this
26:43
chart which is taken from Professor descriptors uh um 2021 report for the UK
26:51
Treasury as we were saying the economy is a subset of the biosphere the biosphere at
27:00
least as far as material is concerned is effectively a closed system nothing gets in or out well virtually nothing gets in
27:06
or out as far as energy is concerned it takes in energy from the Sun of course and emits uh waste heat into near space
27:18
economy involves us extracting from the biosphere renewable and non-renewable
27:24
resources energy to produce goods and services which as
27:29
we consume them provide us with well-being use value but then we have
27:34
used up those goods and services or they have depreciated and we've returned them
27:39
or their constituent Parts anyway as waste to the natural environment to the
27:45
biosphere now this graph already suggests that there is potentially a problem as the economy expands relative
27:53
to the biosphere I know that's a little bit over simplistic but let's go with it
27:58
for the moment if we uh if we
28:05
oh hang on sorry I'm having a few issues here if we um if we extract too many renewable and
28:11
non-renewable resources if we emit too many wastes then the biosphere our natural Capital which we depend will
28:17
deteriorate over time and that will eventually have implications for what is
28:22
possible for us to do within the economy and of course for um societies themselves
28:30
bearing all this in mind let's go back to um one of the founders
28:37
of ecological economics Herman Daley if you want to learn about him there was either last year at the beginning of
28:43
this year there was a really good intellectual biography of him published by another well-known ecological
28:49
Economist Peter Victor um Herman Daley's economics for a full world well what Herman Daley said back
28:55
in the 1970s is that if on spaceship earth we want to
29:02
live sustainably we don't want to you know when when governments deficits
29:07
spend they're not borrowing from future Generations but when we live beyond our bio capacity
29:13
we are in a sense if we don't want to do that then we must emit waste at a rate
29:18
which does not exceed the absorptive capacity of the environment that means
29:23
as far as carbon dioxide emissions are concerned we need to move very rapidly well before 2050 to zero net emissions
29:32
we need to use Renewables at a rate which does not exceed the rate for which they can be renewed clearly
29:40
um you can't cut down the whole growth forests without there being some impact
29:45
on your well-being in the future and the well-being of the natural environment you can't catch other fish in the sea
29:52
um and thirdly use non-renewables at a rate which does not exceed the rate at which well either you can discover other
30:00
non-renewables to do the same thing or at which renewable substitutes can be
30:05
adopted and there is potentially a problem with the rapid electrification
30:12
of our economy and moving rapidly towards 100 Renewables because of the
30:19
material footprint but doing that because of the construction which will be necessary in order to allow that to
30:27
take place quickly but we'll come back to that in a few moments
30:32
everybody loves the idea of a circular economy the right to repair
30:38
Recycling and governments yes governments should use Investments public ownership uh regulation
30:46
taxes and subsidies to promote as rapid a transition to a far more circular
30:53
economy than we are doing at the moment and the same thing is true of regenerative agriculture but the term
30:59
circular economy is to an extent a misnomer because you can never have 100 percent
31:05
recycling there will always be some waste economic activity will always to
31:12
an extent be linear it will always evolve to an extent taking in nutrients
31:18
from the environment using them and then uh and them ending up being waste matter or
31:26
or hate so there will always be environmental limits there are two main
31:33
approaches which have been taken scientifically to identify the environmental limits on our impact on
31:40
the planet one is when you you might be from the middle familiar with from the
31:46
Earth Systems scientists at the global footprint Network where they have devised a way of
31:55
attempting to identify for individual countries and for the whole planet the
32:00
bio capacity the capacity of the planet too as I've
32:05
just mentioned provide those resources which we're extracting from it absorb the waste which we are producing without
32:13
our natural Capital deteriorating over time um a book which you can read to learn
32:19
about how this is done is in a couple of slides times I'll refer to it when we when we get to it
32:26
but an interesting thing from my perspective uh about
32:32
this chart that you can see on the right hand side here is that it identifies that we were using
32:41
up uh our bio capacity on a global basis in
32:47
around the year 1970 so prior to 1970 economic activity occurred locally cause
32:54
the um deterioration and collapse of ecosystems but on a
33:01
global level the planet was able to sustain our impact on it until about 1970. since
33:08
then we've had an ecological deficit and you're probably familiar with Earth
33:14
overshoot Day that relates to this chart it's now the case that according to
33:19
these guys we are using up about 1.75 planets worth of resources every year we
33:24
are not living consistently with Hermann Daley's principles of sustainability and of
33:31
course that's an issue and we can't help but notice that that's coming back to bite us already
33:37
another approach which you might prefer to talking about environmental limits
33:44
whilst eventually popularized by Kate rather's 2017 book donor economics which
33:49
I've already mentioned the planetary boundaries approach Johan rockstrom will Stefan and others a bit more than 10
33:56
years ago now identified nine planetary boundaries one of which was to do with
34:04
greenhouse gases and uh and climate change but only one of which which we
34:09
need to um we need to respect if we are going to deliver to your children and their
34:17
children a safe hospitable planet on which they
34:22
can enjoy at least the same level of well-being if not a greater level of well-being than we're enjoying now so
34:29
there'll always be limits now this is one of the problems with neoclassical economics neoclassical economics was
34:36
devised in around about 1870 1870 to 1900 and certainly in 1870 there was
34:44
basically no footprint at all from fossil fuels they hadn't really got going so there was a tiny human
34:51
footprint on the planet relating to the buyer capacity of the planet ecological issues were essentially in irrelevance
34:58
at least at the global level and they played no part in the development of
35:03
neoclassical economics even in 1950 when the Great acceleration
35:09
started according to the guys at the global footprint Network the human footprint on the planet was
35:15
only about 50 of planetary biocapacity so if Keynes didn't spend a lot of time
35:22
worrying about ecological issues given that he died in 1946 we can forgive him because at a global level uh ecological
35:30
issues were not you need to be very far-sighted anyway to see some people did to see ecological issues as a
35:37
relevant constraint for economic activity but then came the great acceleration and what an acceleration it
35:45
was and how naive we might have been not to expect this to have an impact on our natural environment over time you can
35:51
see again what happened to real GDP that basically real GDP and primary
35:56
energy use have been almost perfectly correlated with each other there's very limited scope for relative decoupling
36:04
where primary energy use is concerned at least based on evidence up until now and of course you see carbon dioxide uh
36:13
concentrations increasing the same thing is true of other greenhouse gases and eventually with a delay which I won't
36:20
worry about now you see surface temperature rising as well that's the gray acceleration as people like will
36:27
Stefan would tell you it's related to the transition from the anthropocene
36:33
to the from the Holocene I should say to the anthropocene it's the transition
36:40
from a 10 to 12 000 year period incredibly stable and and friendly
36:47
climatic climate conditions the conditions which allow for all human civilizations to develop and economic
36:55
developed to take place to a a set of circumstances now where our natural
37:01
environment and the climate uh within which we have to live depends on our own
37:08
activities so it's 1970 we are using up according
37:15
to the people behind the global footprint um Network
37:20
that's a book I recommend you read ecological footprint by Mathis Vaca Nagel and bias it's a fascinating
37:27
book um that's when we reached our bio capacity uh people often talk about living within
37:35
your means and as we know if you're a monetary Sovereign government um that that means nothing to you as far
37:42
as financial resources are concerned we talk about real constraints in mmt this
37:48
is the ultimate real constraint at least in the end if you live
37:53
perpetually beyond your bio capacity then eventually your ability to produce
37:58
goods and services to maintain your quality of life to maintain something like our modern societies is is eroded
38:08
decoupling is then a word that people use a lot why can't we continue to grow GDP but at the same time reduce our
38:16
ecological footprint well we've been quite successful in relative decoupling ecological
38:23
economists they generally write it down in a much more complex form but they rely on something often called the impact equation you can see why it's
38:31
called the impact equation from the top line here our impact on the biosphere our ecological footprint depends yes it
38:39
depends on how many of us there are and it depends on our level of economic activity per person real GDP per person
38:46
it also depends on what you can call technology if you like but what is a a a
38:52
measure of archaeological impact per dollar of real GDP
38:57
and that technological variable our impact per dollar has fallen rapidly
39:03
over the last 50 years we've been very successful in reducing the resource
39:08
active the resource intensity of economic activity over that 50-year period just checking
39:15
the time over that 50-year period and the global population has a little
39:20
bit more than doubled I don't want to imply that rapid population growth in low-income
39:27
countries is the problem here certainly not the main problem because it is not in those countries where
39:34
people are living unsustainably it's real GDP per person has also
39:39
increased globally by a factor of a little bit more than two but our ecological impact only gone up
39:45
by or maybe 1.75 now so there has been relative decoupling in some countries
39:51
there's been some absolute decoupling but globally there's only been relative
39:57
decoupling this is true whether you are talking about the ecological footprint
40:02
in aggregate or whether you are talking about carbon emissions if you're talking
40:08
about carbon emissions there are some countries that have managed some degree limited degree of absolute decoupling
40:17
but as far as the planet is concerned it's just relative decoupling that we
40:22
have we've managed to do what does this suggest this suggests that the problem is
40:30
perhaps the continuing growing scale of our economic activity if GDP continues
40:36
to grow our primary power use will continue to grow alongside it now we may
40:42
be able technologically to Electrify our economies to move towards Renewables
40:47
maybe some of you would like to move back towards nuclear power or that if if you want to go in that direction that
40:54
takes time to do as well but the trouble is it's much harder to
41:00
do that in a global economy which keeps growing rapidly over time and it may not
41:05
be a feasible thing to do so we end up in 2022 rapidly eating into our natural
41:12
Capital we end up with a growing biodiversity crisis and of course people
41:19
are beginning to understand that global warming is not just about the average uh temperature increasing over time it's
41:26
about increasingly extreme climate events one after another what Bill
41:31
Mitchell in a blog post the other day talked talked about called uh polycrisis
41:38
compounding on each other and if they were to continue in the next decade or
41:45
two threatening our ability to provision ourselves and provide a quality of life
41:51
that we used to let alone improve our quality of life as for emissions yes everybody is
41:59
talking about moving towards net zero emissions well you know we've been
42:05
talking about this politicians environmental scientists especially economists since the early 1990s and so
42:13
far we have utterly failed they record you for Global carbon
42:19
dioxide emissions ever will be 2022. so far we have made no progress
42:26
whatsoever in moving towards net zero carbon dioxide emissions and I would
42:33
also uh uh at this stage I'd like to urge you at some stage to go onto the
42:39
website of the Geological Survey of Finland there is a great piece of research there by Simon Michelle which
42:46
explains some of the things I was saying before it's really very difficult to see
42:51
how particularly if we continue to pursue growthism as our overriding
42:57
objective as far as policy is concerned um we'll be able to transition quickly
43:04
enough to Renewables to allow ourselves um without making some uh uh what to my
43:12
mind are implausible assumptions about technological advances or in geoengineering uh uh to uh zero net
43:20
carbon emissions to retain a stable climate every year while carbon
43:26
emissions are positive we are adding you know we're familiar with stop flow analysis in mmt from Godly and the war
43:34
and all that but here's another application stop flow analysis as we put more carbon dioxide and other greenhouse
43:41
gases into our environment then concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere
43:47
goes up when I was in my 20s uh we used to say that what people used
43:54
to say that a concentration of about 350 parts per million was a safe
43:59
concentration consistent with global warming of no more than about one degrees Celsius
44:06
um nobody talks about that anymore because we've gone far past it and it
44:12
what people tend to say now is that if we go from 350 to eventually 450 and
44:18
we're we're on route to getting to there uh in say 15 years time if things
44:24
continue as they are at the moment if we don't get the promised and very rapid reductions in carbon dioxide emissions
44:32
well if 350 uh parts per million was alarm Bells 450 Parts million would be
44:40
potentially catastrophic as far as global warming is concerned that's what
44:46
the climate scientists including some quite well-known ones who have now joined the extinction Rebellion approach
44:52
to protesting about these issues are saying um this is uh data drawn from uh the
45:01
ipcc um scientific report that came out last year
45:07
um I don't want to dwell on this for too long apart from to say that if we want
45:12
according to this data a 50 likelihood of meeting the Paris climate change
45:19
commitment then we've not got much more than 10 years worth of emissions left at the
45:27
current level of emissions depending on the assumptions you make about non-carbon dioxide emissions of of
45:33
greenhouse gases uh that's very difficult to do we're getting to the point where that would involve going
45:40
from circumstances where carbon dioxide emissions are growing every year to reducing them by something like well
45:47
close to 10 per annih every year year after year if we were to bring that
45:52
about um that's essentially not going to happen so if we put aside unlikely uh
46:01
scientific advances 1.5 degrees Celsius global warming has gone
46:08
the 1.7 degree still non-catastrophic figure has not gone it seems much more
46:14
achievable and two degrees of global warming based on this data looks very achievable
46:20
indeed I mean even if we could reduce our emissions by something like three percent per annum and just keep doing
46:25
that difficult to do you know rapidly growing global economy but if if we could do
46:32
that then we could we could meet that carbon budget the problem is
46:38
would you get on a plane and fly to Australia if somebody told
46:43
you there was a 50 chance the plane was going to crash
46:49
no of course you wouldn't why do they talk about 50 or 66
46:54
likelihoods because when you talk about 90 likelihoods the data looks very
47:00
different and much less encouraging in fact if you and it was a a former
47:08
leading executive of the coal industry that pointed this out to me and some other people if you take a 90 likelihood
47:15
of keeping global warming below two degrees we have already used our Park carbon budget
47:21
it's too late to do that the issue then of course is that once
47:29
you get to two degrees Celsius of global warming or Beyond it environmental
47:34
tipping coins become far more likely we are reading all the time more and more stories about the erosion of Arctic
47:41
summarize that may have a knock-on effect as far as Atlantic circulation is
47:48
concerned which may have a knock-on effect as far as the weather the climate the local climate over the Amazon
47:54
turning the Amazon from the carbon sink into a emission emitter of carbon
48:00
dioxide and why this is risky is because if we do if we do tip these tipping
48:07
points then we could lose control of a climate system and then we have a far
48:12
less Hospital future to deal with than than we would like
48:18
so we need to end Grocers um I'm not necessarily saying
48:26
that gross domestic products in high income countries has to be has to shrink I am saying that the pursuit of
48:33
continued economic growth as without even thinking about it the be all an end or objective of
48:41
managing our economies has got to be abandoned Donella Meadows the lead
48:47
author of The Leominster growth report which came out in the early 70s soon after we passed the Earth by a capacity
48:55
in terms of our ecological footprint put it very nicely on one occasion
49:00
growth of what and why and for whom and who pays the costs well you know growth
49:07
so far has been largely at the benefit of the global North who has paid the cost at the overwhelming majority almost
49:15
all climate related deaths so far have been in the global South
49:20
how much is enough how are we going to manage our economies in the future
49:26
that's where we get from Stephanie kelton's deficits that matter to Kate
49:31
rower's donor economics her donut model the nine planetary boundaries that
49:38
rockstrom and Stefan and others identified in 2009 are listed around the outside of
49:45
Kate Roller's donut if we are inside those boundaries we are
49:50
living sustainably but what K of course pointed out is that if you're at the
49:55
center of that Circle you'll be living within all those boundaries but you'll be living a life poverty and destitution
50:01
we have to use up some of the Earth's resources to provide people with food water energy housing income and work
50:11
so the problem in terms of future Economic Development and if you are a
50:17
young person learning about modern monetary Theory this is your problem I'm afraid we're passing it on to you
50:22
largely the problem is how do we manage our economies in the future to ensure
50:27
that whatever set of social foundations we might identify and Kate's measures
50:33
were based quite closely on the UN sustainable development goals we can meet those social foundations for
50:41
the great mass of people for virtually everybody while living within our ecological
50:49
ceiling that is the challenge for the Next Generation you understand modern monetary Theory
50:56
you understand the appropriate role for the government the government budget to play Within the economy you understand
51:01
that the government's not going to run out of its own currency the government should be using monetary sovereignty in
51:08
the years to come to promote the public purpose what is the
51:14
public purpose to meet the social foundations of the good quality of life while not staying outside our ecological
51:20
ceiling and of course making the Investments that we need to make in the years to come
51:25
is likely to involve a significant growth in Real GDP for a time but we
51:32
need to be aware that we are eating in to our natural Capital we're making Investments now to allow us to live
51:39
within to restore that natural Capital later on these are the kind of issues we need to think about
51:45
how well our country is doing at the moment
51:50
um research by okay is linked to Oxford University but research by colleagues of
51:55
character ecological economists at the University of Leeds and the well-known
52:01
lse Anthropologist Jason heckrell has investigated this most recently in a
52:08
paper from this year um in order to have data which is comparable for almost all countries
52:15
around the world they've had to vary um the the data that they use for social
52:24
foundations and ecological ceiling a little bit from what you find in casebrook but it's the same basic idea on the horizontal axis we have
52:31
biophysical boundaries transgressed per capita for most of the countries in the
52:36
world on the vertical axis we have the number of social foundations achieved a
52:41
developed economy would be in the top left-hand corner of this chart where you
52:47
can see that donut to get there the quote Bill Mitchell's Blog the organization of economic
52:53
activity our patterns of consumption and conduct of Economic Policy must all change radically
53:00
all countries need to change put in another way there are no developed economies at the moment but not all in
53:07
the same way the high income economies like Australia where I live
53:12
they are meeting almost all the social thresholds of a good quality of life and
53:18
to the extent that they are not generally this is related to a problem
53:24
for the distribution of income and wealth so the problem there is to
53:30
maintain and even improve the quality of life for the majority of people while moving within our biophysical boundaries
53:37
in a country like Australia I think that inevitably if only we could get to this
53:43
Tipping Point this social and political Tipping Point involves public ownership of the energy system of public transport
53:54
of Public Services in general and even I'm working with a private university I
54:00
include in that um well a decommodified public services which means free
54:08
education including higher education but it involves a variety of other things
54:14
too different countries will have different ways of achieving it but that's the problem in those countries
54:20
the countries in Orange here well their countries that are not on a per capita basis transgressing
54:27
and many of their biophysical boundaries they are living largely sustainably ecologically speaking but the problem
54:34
for those countries is to improve the quality of people's lives while continuing to live sustainably and that
54:40
relies on a transfer of real resources and Technology from the high income
54:45
countries among other things and then there's the third group of countries which are not living
54:51
ecologically sustainably but are also not meeting the social thresholds and
54:57
those countries tend to be countries very high levels of inequality but everybody needs to move towards the top
55:05
left-hand corner and we somehow have to do this on a global level it's not just negotiations relating to carbon
55:11
emissions it's all those planetary boundaries it's all the elements
55:17
contributing towards our ecological footprint while dealing with the
55:25
um the consequences of colonialism and neocolonialism and Global Injustice
55:31
which means so many people the people who are suffering the consequences of of
55:36
of climate change at the moment have not enjoyed the benefits of the economic
55:42
activity which the exploitation of fossil fuels and the materials we've taken out of our biosphere has allowed
55:49
the rest of us to do so I need to hurry up and finish
55:54
what's the first thing we need to do we need to stop talking about growth in Real GDP as being something which is
56:00
good in itself it is at the most and means to an end but we need then to start asking questions like the
56:07
questions Donald Meadows used to ask um what's the cost of that growth now who bears that cost
56:13
so we need to change the goal from growth to development we can use a panel of indicators as with Jason hickle and
56:21
his co-authors in order to measure this or if you're going to use the approach which my close friend and colleague Phil
56:28
Long and some other ecological economists have pioneered then you can argue that the genuine progress indicate
56:35
is a metric of economic success of the impact of
56:42
economic activity on human well-being Which is far superior to GDP in that it
56:49
at least attempts to identify both the benefits and the costs economic and
56:55
social of economic activity and to subtract a measure of the environmental
57:01
cost the environmental impact of that activity so you are looking at a measure of the net benefit to society or of
57:10
economic activity over time and maximizing the genuine progress indicator rather than maximizing GDP
57:19
um would give policy makers more of an incentive to introduce those policies
57:26
which are consistent with finding the safe and just just space for
57:33
Humanity the Ring of Kate rower's donor so either of those two approaches is
57:39
fine we need to guarantee everybody Economic Security and the opportunity to
57:45
contribute to social provisioning a job guarantee is important in ecological
57:51
economics as it is in in modern monetary Theory we need to fund and of course
57:57
monetary Sovereign governments are the institutions which are in a position to fund the very large-scale Investments
58:04
that we need to make in renewable energy in green infrastructure in all the things that we need to do in order to
58:12
transition to a sustainable future economy we need to rethink issues like
58:18
working week and the retirement age and what we value
58:23
one way or another we need to adopt binding cumulative quantitative limits
58:29
for all planetary boundaries otherwise we really don't have much of a future
58:35
and where do we find the money well there was a uh I wrote a chapter for a
58:41
book that was published at the beginning of this year sustainability in the New Economic synthesizing ecological economics and modern monetary Theory
58:48
there's a chapter from Steve Keane in there as well by the way edited by Stephen Williams
58:54
and Lord Taylor which which discusses um
59:00
well generally who needs to fund it High income monetary suffering
59:07
governments from the global North how can we pay for a green New Deal that
59:13
is uh um mmt authors have have tackled that issue very well indeed already but
59:20
it's not just about a national free new deal it's about a global free New Deal
59:26
where we are about maximizing human well-being while living within our
59:32
planetary boundaries and this is something that I think is going to happen to you we are going to over the
59:40
next decade experience a series of climate and potentially other ecological
59:47
crises that are going to make it more and more obvious to people that business
59:53
as usual is not an option that the approach to managing these issues which
59:59
has been put forward and promoted by a neoclassical economists is not good
1:00:04
enough and that we need to try a different approach and I think at some stage
1:00:10
um I hope at some stage that people with a thorough understanding of modern monetary Theory
1:00:17
of what is important to human well-being of
1:00:23
um ecological economics of our planetary boundaries if you like are going to basically be in a situation
1:00:29
where when when politicians have tried everything else they'll be turning to us and we need to be ready to meet that
1:00:38
Challenge and in a sense it's the same old mmt challenge we're not going to be
1:00:43
sure of US Dollars we're not going to be short of Euros we're not going to be sure of Australian dollars we're not
1:00:49
going to be sure of Japanese Yen we are going to be sure of the real resources we need to improve human well-being over
1:00:57
time and while there is still time avoid social collapse finding the money should
1:01:03
be the easy part I'm just an economics teacher I'm not a great researcher or anything so I'm just
1:01:12
doing what I thought it was useful for me to do and so with our chief executive
1:01:19
Gabrielle Bond and someone who is a really good economics researcher as I
1:01:24
mentioned before Australia's leading ecological Economist Phil long we eventually managed to persuade Torrance
1:01:31
University to let us offer a global online Master's Degree in the economics
1:01:38
of sustainability which we have been working like mad people to get ready in
1:01:45
time for the first intake of students which is the beginning of next month
1:01:51
and I hope that people coming through this program and I hope that there will
1:01:56
be more programs like this the more competition we get the better around the world as time goes by I had people
1:02:03
coming through this program are going to transform policy institutions uh
1:02:08
um business finance some of them are working not-for-profits maybe eventually some of
1:02:16
them will even overthrow mainstream or neoclassical economics departments and we can get on and deal
1:02:23
with the problems which we undoubtedly face in the next century with tools
1:02:28
which are fit for those problems and neoclassical economics as I said was
1:02:34
misleading in the last century but it's dangerous in this one the economics was dominated our narrative in the 20th
1:02:41
century is not fit for purpose in the 21st and it's up to people like you to
1:02:47
replace it and that's the end of the talk
1:02:58
thank you thank you so thank you very much Professor Hale
1:03:03
for this exciting and thrilling lecture uh so now let me open uh the Q a session
1:03:10
so if you have questions please come over here so first and ask you questions
1:03:21
Steve and I greeting to you in uh Adelaide my name is Freddie from Sydney I'm um oh hello I'm actually joining
1:03:29
your program as you first intake one of your first interviews I recognized your name yes and my good looks like it
1:03:36
um the question I have is about the adoption of the language Net Zero by 2050 and that's become widespread as a
1:03:43
Target to be understood it's the wrong target truly it has to be gross Zero by 2050. NetZero means we simply don't keep
1:03:50
adding to the atmosphere and the Earth can sequester through the land sector huge volumes of atmospheric
1:03:56
CO2 but Net Zero means that ability is used to offset pollution so shouldn't we
1:04:01
have the language of net pollution zero pollution by 2050 and net sequestration otherwise we're too late thank you
1:04:10
thanks that's great question uh Timothy yeah I agree with you the only way I disagree with you is I think 2050 is an
1:04:16
irrelevant figure um I think that's far too late
1:04:23
um I think that um the 2050 figure
1:04:31
when you look at ipcc reports um scenarios which are consistent with
1:04:37
us keeping global warming below two degrees with Net Zero by 2050 they very
1:04:43
often they're either extremely optimistic about about our ability to
1:04:49
cut emissions so the assumption is always that we're going to start kind of the next year they make that every year
1:04:56
and and we never get around to doing that and the the second way in which they're often
1:05:02
um or most of those scenarios are unrealistic because they make assumptions about carbon capture and
1:05:08
storage which uh are are on the optimistic side so I am with
1:05:16
climate scientists like Kevin Anderson and Earth system scientists like will Stefan who are more likely to talk about
1:05:25
um zero emissions by the early 2040s or even the late 2030s if you seriously
1:05:31
wanted to aim for uh 1.7 degrees of global warming I you can tell I'm not an
1:05:39
expert in this area I'm really just I wish I had Phil with me because he is but uh I'm trying to justify I suppose
1:05:47
why we are trying to change change and it seems a very arrogant thing to do we're trying to change economics
1:05:53
education I think every economics degree should be
1:05:58
centered on ecological economics and modern monetary Theory we are offering this program which will be great to see
1:06:06
you on Freddie um because uh there are a few places
1:06:12
where Modern monetary Theory makes a significant part of the of the
1:06:18
curriculum there are a few more places where you can study ecological economics but as
1:06:27
far as we're aware there aren't any places other than where you can train in both and I think
1:06:33
they're both extraordinarily important elements of an economics for the the 21st century but yes I agree with you
1:06:54
hi my name is Amos and um I wanted to ask uh you discussed wealth and the income
1:07:02
inequality and assuming that trade unions are
1:07:08
an important or major instrument in reducing inequality I want to ask if there's an internal
1:07:15
conflict or contradiction between the goal of reducing CR missions
1:07:20
or in-house gas emissions and maintaining powerful trading movement as
1:07:28
unionized label today is based mostly in carbon-based Industries
1:07:35
I don't think that there is no and in fact I am not only a member of a trade
1:07:41
Union but I'm very much in favor of a powerful Trade union movement uh I think
1:07:47
that I mean in Australia for example uh I think obviously we're big exporters of
1:07:54
uh coal and natural gas too and I yes I believe that we need to go through a
1:08:01
planned reduction in scale of those Industries and as far as
1:08:06
thermal coal is concerned it needs to be phased out quite quickly um I when we had our conference
1:08:15
in Adelaide two years ago the leader of the coal miners Union in
1:08:20
Australia and Tony Mayer was at the conference was a speaker at
1:08:27
the conference and um I think that
1:08:33
um people are rapidly becoming aware of what we need to do in the future
1:08:38
and then it's important first of all that um communities for example coal
1:08:45
communities they need to see that there is a good future for them beyond the
1:08:52
coal industry people need to see that they're going to have employment opportunities
1:08:58
and people need to be compensated we can't pass the transition costs on to a
1:09:05
small group of people coal miners are not responsible for the emissions which
1:09:12
result from the burning of of Carl as a fossil fuel so I think discussions with
1:09:19
trade unions and Trade union leaders have a very important part to play in a
1:09:26
transition to a sustainable future and we can't do it without them but of course in the long run
1:09:32
they have children and grandchildren two so I think when we talk about uh
1:09:39
ecological constraints we're just talking about reality we have to find a
1:09:44
way to have honest conversations with people and I think this is beginning to
1:09:50
happen now very slowly um we have that's why we had Tony Mayer at the conference
1:09:56
um we uh got on really well he was very
1:10:02
interested in the idea of a federal job guarantee he understands that the coal industry is going to close between now
1:10:08
and 2050. the coal miners Union understand that perfectly well
1:10:13
and then it's about looking after their members and the communities in which their members live people have to be
1:10:20
offered however you do it a a a a a future where their standard of living
1:10:28
is maintained and where they have employment opportunities decent
1:10:34
employment opportunities it's not easy to do but uh it's it's a a vital part of
1:10:40
the transition so no I don't I don't see that there is necessary a conflict I think trade unions are a vitally
1:10:46
important part of a transition to a just
1:10:52
uh future where we are living sustainably people having a good quality of life people are still in employment
1:10:58
but they're not doing the same things they were doing before
1:11:07
foreign
1:11:17
I'm wondering you were showing this graph where you show to us that
1:11:23
um first of all the major fossil fuel extracting countries are really on the
1:11:30
wrong side and I wonder whether you know about countries or movements or political
1:11:37
parties who are somehow taking up these challenges which you have been
1:11:43
describing and maybe if there are what we could learn from them
1:11:50
okay as I said I know an expert Kate rower will tell you that if you wanted
1:11:56
to identify a country which was uh um which was doing better in terms of
1:12:04
pursuing a sustainable uh a future with a
1:12:10
circular economy and a regenerative Approach To Nature the best candidate is probably Costa Rica
1:12:17
but I can't claim to tell you all about that I know there are some videos about about that that you can look at online
1:12:25
in terms of political parties and I reluctantly have been in recent years
1:12:31
a member of a political party um uh they have flaws like all other
1:12:38
political parties do and this term doesn't mean the same thing in every country around the world
1:12:44
either but I am a member will be a non-active one of the Australian greens I give them a membership fee and they
1:12:53
main reason for that really is that they continue to argue for targets for
1:13:00
reducing carbon dioxide emissions in Australia which are consistent with the
1:13:05
science we have a better government in Australia now than we had earlier this year we
1:13:11
have more challenging and more challenging Target than we had before
1:13:16
um but we still have very limited policy decisions to to promote a more
1:13:24
rapid transition to lower carbon emissions we still have a government that talks about
1:13:30
um buying carbon credits internationally and I really don't think uh I I don't
1:13:36
as far as I'm aware um uh the
1:13:42
uh that system is not one that I trusted so
1:13:48
uh and we've got a government with a a a target for from 2005 to 2030 uh
1:13:57
40-something percent reduction in carbon emissions including those that come from
1:14:03
uh land use changes um we need to be 75 or more in Australia
1:14:09
and other countries otherwise there's no way we are heading for 1.7 degrees of
1:14:15
global warming we're heading for 2.7 or more and even quite conservative climate scientists will tell you that
1:14:22
um so I think everyone depending where you are in the world you need to look for
1:14:28
political parties or politicians to support and to get behind who are prepared to
1:14:38
argue for policies which are consistent with at least as far as climate change is concerned with uh with um with the
1:14:47
science and in Australia the Liberal Party are
1:14:52
conservative certainly aren't but even the labor party even the government we have now they've sort of taken half a
1:14:58
step in the direction of sustainability but they got much further to go they're being pressured on that by the greens
1:15:05
and others and while the greens continue to pressure them on that then I'm going to keep paying my membership fees to the
1:15:11
Australian greens I can't say the Australian greens always
1:15:17
talk as though they understand modern monetary Theory however I have to say
1:15:27
so also from you very thank you very much for the the presentation um and also I think very important to to
1:15:32
connect the the ecological transition to mmt because I think rather from going of
1:15:38
a narrative of scarcity and abstinence uh towards a prosperous future for
1:15:44
everyone I think because that wind in the end majority is which we need uh to to get them to the planet and then not
1:15:50
the planet but us surviving um but still I'm wondering because I
1:15:55
think the transition for the industrialized world is already hard enough but we also have to move up plenty of people living in extreme
1:16:02
poverty so how confident are you that we can are able to lift these people up
1:16:07
while remaining in the planetary bonus
1:16:14
um if Bernie Sanders was the U.S president
1:16:20
if Stephanie Carlton was the U.S treasury secretary
1:16:25
if uh if we had uh Steve Keane and Bill Mitchell involved in the Australian
1:16:31
government I'd be a lot more confident than I am at the moment
1:16:36
uh I don't think that it is too lame
1:16:41
um from an you know from an economics point of view or from a from a climate
1:16:47
science point of view I sometimes think it's too late from a political point of view because I'll be honest with you I
1:16:54
can't see um it's it's not going to happen tomorrow the political Tipping Point and if a
1:17:03
republican wins the next U.S presidential election I'll be very pessimistic indeed and
1:17:10
my colleague at modern money lab Gabrielle Bond already is on the streets getting arrested
1:17:16
and gluing herself to the road I'll be doing that
1:17:22
give it five years and if we have not seen major political
1:17:27
changes especially in North America and I the Biden government of course is a
1:17:35
great Improvement on the Trump one but um they're going to go back to Republican Administration or they may do
1:17:42
um uh so how optimistic am I I don't have the expertise to say I am confident uh
1:17:51
if people like Stephanie Kelton and Kate rowers and Mariana maticato and
1:17:59
Economist like there had more influence and we had genuinely Progressive governments in high income countries
1:18:06
that also understood and were prepared to tell the truth about the injustices from historical and
1:18:14
present-day colonialism and to look for just as we should have a treaty in Australia with our first
1:18:20
Nations people here so the global North there should be a global treaty for work
1:18:25
with those countries that have suffered the consequences of of colonialism his historical could
1:18:32
we do all those things could we build a future where everybody had a good
1:18:38
quality of life and we were living sustainably yes um will we I don't know the answer to
1:18:46
that question that doesn't mean I'm going to the other catastrophic extreme
1:18:51
that we're going to be faced with social collapse but it does mean that we are going to have I'm sure we're going to
1:18:57
have a a significantly more global warming we have already we're going to go
1:19:03
um or probably well beyond two degrees of global warming there are going to be
1:19:08
tens of millions of climate related deaths and other deaths relating to uh
1:19:15
uh indirectly to issues like a loss of biodiversity and as always historically
1:19:23
the great cost is going to be on low-income people in the global South
1:19:29
and it's our responsibility I can see some of you are young and you're European
1:19:35
it's your responsibility to get involved in politics and economics and do
1:19:41
something about this
1:19:52
so let me um let me conclude uh and thank you very
1:19:59
much Steven uh for your time and for the talk uh we hope to see you next year
1:20:05
probably uh okay so uh that was it and please send me your presentation because
1:20:11
I I think I don't have it absolutely and thank you very much everybody for listening I hope I haven't bought
1:20:17
everybody to death and thanks to the organizers of uh of this summer school
1:20:23
it's a it's really a really important ongoing contribution to mmt education
1:20:29
and uh I just want to say to everybody what you're learning now is going to place you in a position
1:20:36
in five or ten years time when uh everybody in the world is going to want
1:20:43
to know about what you know now and the supply of that expertise is going to be very limited you're you are you are
1:20:50
important people like you are going to be very important in the next five 10 15
1:20:56
20 years I wish you all the best uh enjoy the rest of the summer school and thanks for listening to me thank you
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