By GLOBUS Correspondent Diogo Santos We have all heard of investing before, but what is it? Investing refers to the action of allocating resources, usually money with the expectation of generating future profit. It can take many forms such as buying stocks, bonds, funds, real estate, commodities, and many more. For the purposes of this... Continue Reading →
Can A Doughnut Save The Planet?
by Ilaria Ravazzolo, GLOBUS Correspondent When you think of a doughnut you usually think of a tasty, sweet ring of dough pumped full of sugar and topped with even more sugary icing – it’s somewhat of a guilty pleasure. What does this delicious pastry have to do with saving the planet though? Well, the doughnut... Continue Reading →
Making Money Tackling Climate Change?
Unique ways we can all address Climate Change By Diogo Santos, GLOBUS Correspondent Inspired by Nicola Blasetti’s talk entitled ‘Finding your role in climate change - what ignites your passion?', delivered at the TED Countdown event organised by TEDxWarwick and GLOBUS. I would like to think that my sustainability journey started quite unusually – as... Continue Reading →
Green Words and their Impact: The Role of Language in Greenwashing
By Ilaria Ravazzolo, GLOBUS Correspondent Anyone who has read up on greenwashing will know that the topic is highly complex. It’s being increasingly considered by companies, investors, governments, and NGOs because of how big of an effect it can have on everyone involved. The Volkswagen scandal in 2015 is only one example of how greenwashing can have... Continue Reading →
Nutrient credit trading: a way to curb nitrogen and phosphorus pollution and the expansion of oceanic dead zones
By Faye Palmer, GLOBUS Correspondent What are dead zones? Dead zones are anoxic areas of water that cannot sustain biodiversity. They occur naturally, but there is increasing concern that anthropogenic activities are accelerating their growth. Nitrogen and phosphorus fertilizers are primarily responsible for dead zone expansion as they cause eutrophication – they overload the water with nutrients. Due... Continue Reading →
Degrowth: letting go of our desire for development
By Eszter Vlasits, GLOBUS Correspondent The ideas of mainstream sustainable development question several fundamental things about our world: the uneven distribution of wealth and opportunities, the way we exploit our environment, and the unsustainable structures of industry and society. But they leave one thing unquestioned: the absolute necessity and prioritization of development. The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs)... Continue Reading →
COVID debt – a Sustainable debt?
By Rex Chiu, GLOBUS Correspondent Since SARs-CoV-2 struck the UK in late February/ early March of 2020, the UK government has been forecasted to spend £280 billion pounds to support the nation’s businesses, jobs and the wider economy. While the furlough scheme in this spending package has won major applause for maintaining employment levels and has been adopted globally, the implications of this... Continue Reading →
THE ECONOMIC VALUATION OF ECOSYSTEM SERVICES
By Sara Azeem, GLOBUS Correspondent Let us take a walk in the park and become enveloped by the sweet fragrances of the surrounding flowers, those that exist because of pollination. Or a nice long swim in the ocean, along the coral reefs as they protect the shorelines from storms and erosion. Or maybe a stroll... Continue Reading →
ThE Economics and ENTERPRISE of Renewable Energy
By Naomi Harris, GLOBUS Correspondent Renewable energy is the hope for the future. As the climate situation worsens, bringing with it ever greater environmental devastation, there has been a surge in the demand for renewable energy. It is clear that we cannot continue to rely on fossil fuels any longer. Renewables give us the opportunity... Continue Reading →
GDP: Time For an Upgrade
By Kira Bradley, GLOBUS Correspondent. Gross domestic product (GDP) is the measure used to determine economic progress and growth. Governments use GDP to monitor their rates of consumption, investment and government spending. This proxy is important for many economists and government officials, as it is said to measure the size and health of an economy, and can be used... Continue Reading →
The Circular Economy: A Solution to the Climate Crisis?
By Silia Tsigka, GLOBUS Correspondent The sustainable use of natural resources has been imperative for the continuation of human life on Earth for years now. However, climate denialism along with uneven economic development in certain countries have been obstacles to adopting more sustainable lifestyles. And yet, the clock is still ticking - we cannot afford... Continue Reading →
The Orangutan-Palm Oil Conflict
By Joe Forsey This piece is part of a series of assessment submissions from Warwick Economics’ Introduction to Environmental Economics module for first-year students. Executive Summary Time is running out for orangutans. In 2016 the International Union for Conservation of Nature classed the species as critically endangered (Ancrenaz et al., 2016), one slip away from extinction. In... Continue Reading →
Behavioural Nudging and Meat-Heavy Diets
Using behavioral nudges (labeling) in order to shift UK consumer preferences away from ruminant-heavy diets By Joel Ramlill This piece is the first of a series of assessment submissions from Warwick Economics' Introduction to Environmental Economics module for first-year students. Executive Summary Food production is a major factor of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions with just... Continue Reading →
Come Together: Future Building in a Divided World
Why is the incorporation of economic theory into the climate action movement important? By Todd Olive, GLOBUS Editor-in-Chief As this correspondent has, so far this series, intended to demonstrate, economics is a fundamentally flawed – even failing – discipline, that nevertheless can be co-opted to understand, encourage and deploy positive solutions for combatting the climate... Continue Reading →
Saving Grace: Entrepreneurial Economics for Climate Action
How can we reconcile economic theory and market systems with the climate emergency? By Todd Olive, GLOBUS Editor-in-Chief In the first of this series, this correspondent outlines the forgotten, and fundamental, assumption that underlies conventional neoliberal economic theory, and the functioning of modern-day markets: that finite environmental assets underlie every transaction made on our planet.... Continue Reading →
The Forgotten Assumption: Economics and the Environment
By Todd Olive, GLOBUS Editor-in-Chief Nearly twelve months ago, this correspondent set out to answer the question ‘has economics failed?’ (Olive et al, 2018) in a prior editorial for this publication. The conclusion? “Modern economics, with its – albeit slow – growing grasp and integration into interdisciplinary methodologies, is therefore by no means a failure:... Continue Reading →
Eco-Marxism: The Road to Sustainability?
"Humanity is at stake." Politics Correspondent Celia Tsigka examines the alternative economic paradigm of eco-marxism, outlining how it might help keep resource use and consumption at sustainable levels.
Happiness: Is there a price? (2/2)
In last week’s article I discussed the ways in which we have attempted to quantify happiness, through the prism of case studies such as Bhutan and its Gross National Happiness index. The study of wellbeing is thought to be relatively new, but the challenge of quantifying wellbeing has been something which economists, philosophers and psychologists... Continue Reading →
Happiness: Is there a price? (1/2)
By Ana Lopez de Arenosa, GLOBUS Correspondent “Money can’t buy happiness” This is a statement we will all have heard many times, probably most often as a child, when the value of money was not as important during that period of your life as it has come to be now. Yet the validity of this... Continue Reading →
Economics: Long Live the King?
By Todd Olive (C), GLOBUS Editor-in-Chief, with contributions from Dr Marta Guerriero (L) and Dr Leon Sealey-Huggins (R), Senior Teaching Fellows, Global Sustainable Development Division, University of Warwick Economics: Long Live the King? Header Image: Photo by Chris Li on Unsplash ‘Has economics failed?’ – the question asked by a Financial Times article read recently by this correspondent, and... Continue Reading →