I’m going to start a new serious in this blog, “Points Of Progress,” a once-monthly report of things happening in our world, policies, articles, and practices in-line with the steady state economy, that are worth some time to read about -  the good news, the promising results. This stems from the many articles I have been scoping through on google reader (a great RSS feed tool, for those of you interested in getting updates via rss).

Through the 50-100 posts I receive daily, I manage to pick out a handful of good ones and post on twitter (follow me), but some of these deserve some recognition on this blog. This monthly report is for the exciting things happening I just don’t have time to post about in-depth. Here are some cool things happening in the world:

Maryland’s New Alternative Metric: The GPI

Herman Daly’s home state has just instituted their version of the Genuine Progress Indicator. This alternative to the grossly inadequate GDP takes into account 26 factors, from incorporating the costs of crime to the costs of ozone depletion. The state is using the GPI as a tool to education the public and policymakers on the balance between costs and benefits of decisions regarding resource use.

As Governor O’Malley said, “The GPI will help us ensure that our economic growth will not come at the cost of our natural resources, and that they both support our progress toward a sustainable future and a better qualify of life for all Maryland families.”

21 Hours: Work Less, Live More

Part of the many policies of a steady state economy, adjusting the work hours for increases in efficiency is a policy that could revolutionize our society. Not only does this policy fight unemployment head-on by making more work available, it frees up time in our weeks to do something really important – live.

The new economics foundation’s new report, 21 Hours: Why a shorter working week can help us all to flourish in the 21st century outlines how the average time worked in Britian, 21 hours, should  be the new standard. As nef explains, “A ‘normal’ working week of 21 hours could help to address a range of urgent, interlinked problems: The average overwork, unemployment, over-consumption, high carbon emissions, low well-being, entrenched inequalities, and the lack of time to live sustainably, to care for each other, and simply to enjoy life.”

The IMF Rethinks Macroeconomics

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has not only recently acknowledged that macroeconomic policy may have “exacerbated the recent financial crisis,” but also has begun to rethink those policies.

Olivier Blanchard, the IMF’s chief economist, published a paper, “Rethinking Macroeconomic Policy” (pdf), stating that better economic policies might include increased government involvement, higher inflation, and help for the poor. The IMF’s typical policy of telling governments that less intervention and low inflation were powerless to prevent the “Great Recession.” Great news for those of us hoping for changes in the IMF and World Bank.

Taking inspiration from economist James Tobin, the new UK campaign for a “Robin Hood Tax” is a great example of the type of social movement for economic reform we need across the world. A global Robin Hood tax is a crucial part of transition from a growth-based economy to one that is people-based. This type of financial policy can be instuted to actually help eliminate poverty and hunger, fight climate change, and put social equality into a system that rewards greed instead of good.

By taxing a minuscule amount of each financial transaction (we’re talking half a percent – 0.5%) you could raise up to $500 billion or more a year, reduce speculative investing (the kind that promoted the recent Great Recession), and put the banks in check (those guys we just bought out with taxpayer money that made $5 million bonuses).

Check out the video here:

Growth Will Kill Us All, If The Hamster Doesn't Get Us First

The new economics foundation (nef) has released a report title Growth Isn’t Possible, which is available for free download (pdf here) or purchase in a bound copy. The low-down is simple: in order to maintain the international goal of avoiding an increase of 2°C in global temperatures from carbon emissions we must stop economic growth. Basically, economic growth will kill us if we don’t “change our economy to live within its environmental budget.”

nef figures that with a growth rate of only 3%, the global economics “carbon intensity” would need to decrease by 95% by 2050 from 2002 levels. This requires an average annual reduction of 6.5%, which is even optimistically impossible in the best of circumstances. All of the “magic bullets” in the public discourse: carbon capture, nuclear, geo-engineering, et cetera are “dangerous distractions from more human-scale solutions.”

Sure, our carbon intensity has nearly flatlined in the last few years, but we need to reverse this trend not flatten out or encourage growth. Technological efficiencies can help, but physical laws limit the amount of efficiency you can pump out of any system. Worse yet, we’ll never match growth in efficiency with even mild economic growth that our system has been designed to need. It’s simple mathematics, which neoclassical economists have never been good at in the first place.

A broader support for community-scale projects like decentralized energy systems are needed over the pipe dreams currently getting all the political attention and funding. nef’s research shows that in order to prevent runaway climate change we need to change. An economy that took into account environmental thresholds will be more likely able to not only avoid runaway climate change but provide improved human well-being in the future.

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First off let me say that I have had a crazy couple of weeks between holidays and family and then getting my wisdom teeth pulled. As such, I haven’t had much time to read, let alone write, so the blog will be a little slow for the next week or so. But feat not! In just two weeks I will be on my way to the Capital City to attend the New Green Economy Conference. There I will be keeping you all up to date on the daily workshops, volunteer activities, and events!

While reading an article I was reminded of a topic I have been trying to formulate words on: measuring progress. As George Monbiot puts it,

“In our hearts most of us know it is true, but we live as if it isn’t. Progress is measured by the speed at which we destroy the conditions which sustain life. Governments are deemed to succeed or fail by how well they make money go round, regardless of whether it serves any useful purpose. They regard it as a sacred duty to encourage the country’s most revolting spectacle: the annual feeding frenzy in which shoppers queue all night, then stampede into the shops, elbow, trample and sometimes fight to be the first to carry off some designer junk which will go into landfill before the sales next year. The madder the orgy, the greater the triumph of economic management.

“Though we know they aren’t the same, we can’t help conflating growth and well-being… GDP is a measure of economic activity, not standard of living.”

Read through Prosperity Without Growth and the new economics foundation’s publications and you will find tons of information about prosperity, progress and the measuring of it. In fact, there are numerous metrics out there to choose from. I just wrote a post for new project I am working on with some fellow steady staters on the subject of measuring progress, read it here.

We Hold the Future in Our Hands

You may have noticed that in spite of all my posts about climate change I have been silent on the subject during these past weeks. Whilst the Copenhagen Climate Conference has been filling the media, blogs and my spare time I have decided to keep my blog free of yet another Copenhagen report. If you would like to learn about the (mostly) disappointing results of the conference I suggest you go elsewhere.

The alternative for me is to discuss solutions instead of pointing fingers. This is a pivotal time in the history of our species – not our nation or group of nations, the whole world – all of humanity is at stake here. Time is short for positive action.

There are so many solutions out there – many that will work, many that will not. We should be conservative and aim for strong goals with multiple redundancies. It would be rash to place all our eggs in one basket. The worst thing that happens if we are over conservative in our efforts is we have less climate change harm and a more sustainable society. The worst thing that happens if we are not conservative enough is (besides wasted efforts) runaway climate destabilization that kills millions, threatens billions more and irreversibly alters the very face of human society on Earth (not to mention the planet itself).

I have done some research, as much as I can, and written about possible solutions for adverting climate destabilization. Ultimately I can talk all I want about what needs to be done, but by this point you have probably heard more than a few ideas of solutions. In truth, what our governments do is incredibly important if we want to transform our societies into sustainable versions. However, the people are likely to do the changes and prepare for the shift regardless of the talking heads in the state house.

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This post is by guest blogger Angela Tam, a fellow steady stater, the author of Sustainable Building in Hong Kong and Progress. Progress? Angela also maintains the blog Sustainable Living Hong Kong.

Remember the Make Poverty History campaign of 2005? Idealistic youngsters wearing the T-shirt and rubber wristbands poured through the streets of London, Edinburgh and elsewhere, urging world leaders to forgive Third World debt, led by the likes of Bono, the rock star who’s multiplied his music earnings goodness knows how many folds through canny investments.

The idea of “making poverty history” seems great doesn’t it? How can we hope to see social justice when there are millions of people in the world making less than a dollar a day? Now, the whole issue of poverty and social justice is in the spotlight again due to climate change.

There is no doubt the poor will suffer much much more than the rich because of climate change. While the rich can afford higher prices, horde goods and obtain the best medical treatment, the poor will suffer hunger, drought, disease and the effects of increasingly frequent and devastating weather events.

This seems so obvious that when someone with all the right credentials comes up with an idea for “alleviating poverty”, he instantly wins widespread support. But what exactly is “poverty”? Is it possible that we have been fooled into fighting shadows?

This is where we have what I call “The Battle of the Sachses”.

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The New Green Economy

It’s official! I’m heading to the National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE) New Green Economy Conference! Through my volunteer work with the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (CASSE) I was invited to volunteer at the conference (and attend when off-duty). The goal of the conference is to form “a set of recommendations on how to move towards a green economy in the US and in the world… The recommendations will be presented to the Obama Administration and to Congress, as well as to other key stakeholders.”

While there are still a few months before the conference, I thought I would share the good news. There are tons of different topics being covered, and only three days to fit them in, so I have to choose wisely. During that week I will be posting each day about the things learned and experienced, and hopefully some good pictures too! I am really looking forward to helping out with this great conference, meeting some change-makers, and learning more about the many concepts of the Green Economy.

Here’s what NCSE has to say about the conference:

“Marking a decade of history, NCSE’s signature national conference will engage leading thinkers and doers from a diversity of disciplines, sectors, and perspectives in a structured conversation about the meaning of the green economy and how investment in green education, research and jobs can help solve both the economic and environmental crises.

Welcoming over 1000 attendees, The New Green Economy will bring together leaders in sustainable business, environmental policymakers, civil society, university faculty, students from across the nation, and educated citizens.

NCSE leverages a multi-disciplinary and multi-sectoral approach to bring together involved scientists and decision-makers from a wide range of organizations. Our conferences are highly interactive, including renowned speakers, topical symposia to explore issues in more depth, and breakout sessions to develop (and publish) recommendations on how to advance science and connect it with policy and decision-making.”

I am looking forward to helping with the conference and bringing some of the new back to you! More to come in a few months…

P.S. I aware of the environmental downsides of air travel, and I am not necessarily fond of it, nor do I have much faith in offsets, however I am looking for the best offset program for my trip to at least do something. Any suggestions are welcome. The NCSE does offer an offset service as part of their registration, but I would like to find the best option out there.

The Wall Fell, But We Didn't Learn

The fall of the Berlin wall was a monumental event in history. Interestingly enough it acted as the end of a large-scale governance/economic experiment. Here we have two societies, each with similar backgrounds, but each with drastically different views of government and economics. On one side was placed a highly controlled society and on the other was placed a free market society. The prevalence of the capitalism in this instance was taken as proof of its superiority and also acted to secure it in our minds as they way for the future. However, there have not been any others to step up in competition – even if they would have been allowed socially.

So we are still locked in the same debate – capitalistic democracy or communism/socialism. Note how it is one or the other in this debate; no one seems to question that perhaps neither is the correct form for human prosperity. Given that the two extremes are both unsustainable, and the incredibly unlikely (and perhaps socially unwanted) possibility of a green, benign dictator coming to our rescue, we are ultimately left to our own devices to re-envision government So how do we make this change in the bureaucracies we have established and entrenched in unsustainable growth? How do we transition to a truly beneficial and socially just form of governance?

I would suggest we first ignore the initial pessimistic view (however likely it might seem to be) of a collapse of society in favor of an optimistic view of successfully transitioning without collapse. Why bother? Because the latter option gives us a challenge to work towards while the former option encourages laziness (and, in my case, would significantly increase my drinking habits in order to cope).

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