Are recordings for the new series available yet?

This podcast interview of Benjamin Franta is worthwhile listening to. It’s mainly about climate litigation, but it refers to his paper “Weaponising economics: Big oil, economic consultants and climate policy delay” in Environmental Politics (2022; 31(4):555-575) which is open access. The paper gives case studies of the abuse of economic analysis to delay climate policy, focused on an economic consultancy Charles River Associates. Nordhaus is referred to in supporting these economic consultants and downplaying climate impacts on economies.

I'm speaking at a conference for Asian and Arabic finance professionals next week in Dubai (and I'll be hitting them with the attached presentation on the economics of climate change), and given both length and time zones. my flight back clashes with both classes: Wednesday Mastermind and Thursday Diamond. We'll resume the next week (the week starting March 4th). Advance notice on other breaks: I'm speaking at Scotonomics on Thursday March 21st, and between Wednesday April 10 and Thursday May 3rd I'll be in Sydney, to work on Ravel with its programmer Russell Standish

If we’re looking to incorporate human needs, Maslow is rather limited and dated (1941). There are other approaches which are more relevant. The common representation of Maslow as a pyramidal hierarch doesn’t bear much scrutiny. Eg. “Physiological” needs (food, shelter, clothing) can only be met if a person is already embedded in social structures and relations; there’s a lot of self-actualisation in materially poor communities, and often not a lot of self-actualisation among the barbaric rich. Etc etc The focus of Maslow is also on individuals so perhaps fits better with neoclassical methodological individualism, and meeting needs by market mechanisms. There are lots of other suitable frameworks. For example, Max-Neef’s Human Scale Development (1991) is better embedded in social, ecological, political contexts etc; it has useful concepts concerning “poverties”. Max-Neef was a dissident development and ecological economist…. There’s a link to the book in Max-Neef’s Wikipedia entry.

I took a Covid RA test this morning, and saw the dreaded two-red-stripes again. I am feeling a lot better, but I will err on the side of caution and cancel this week's lecture as well. Everyone knowledgeable that I've spoken to about Covid emphasises that pushing yourself too hard early on risks a relapse, and/or longer term symptoms. Since I'm already pushing my luck by travelling to London today to present my work on climate change to the Bank of England tomorrow, I'll leave it at one over-the-top exertion per week. I hope to get a negative RAT later this week.