To solve the Climate Crisis increasing economic productivity and energy efficiency is not sufficient. Absolute decoupling of economic growth and environmental degradition, including global warming is not feasible (Hickel and Kallis (2019) Is Green Growth Possible?). We will have to stop economic growth itself or even degrow on a global scale. Growth economists have always had models that in the long run end in a steady state. That’s just mathematics. Many economists have been thinking about ‘steady state economics’ for a long time....

There exists a well-known Swedish song from my childhood. It begins like this: Lyckliga gatan, du finns inte mere Du er försvinnen med hela kvarteret ... In English the meaning would be: Oh Happy Street of my Childhild you no more exits You are now gone together with the whole quarter ... The lyrics profondly catches the sorry mood of someone experiencing the arrival of the ‘Development Machine’ in their neigbourhood....

Nordic differences My Swedish friend Torbjörn just sent me a paper clip containing a notice of a Swedish economics professor commenting on the economic situation in Norway. Lars Calmfors in DN 22 feb 2021. The notice is triggered by his involvement in a Norwegian Green Paper Commision on Labour and Income Policy. NOU 2019:7. The Commision shouldpropose new measures to increase labour participation in Norway. Internationally the Nordic (sometimes only Scandinavian) countries are mostly treated as fairly much of the same under the heading of ‘The Nordic Model’....

Some Time Soon - things will be the same, but different. However, we did not notice the emerging change? - or did we? David Roberts tweet the day after the Trump-mob storm on Capitol: Feels like we’re trapped in a script, a play, that has been performed several times around the world recently. And even though we know exactly how the fall-of-democracy script plays out – every beat, every chapter – we’re just trapped, helpless, watching it play out...

“The Climate Crisis is Capitalism’s Waterloo” (Yanis Varoufakis) “Black Swan” is a label for highly upredictable events with extreme impacts. The concept was made popular by Nassim Nicholas Taleb with his 2007 book of the same title. Some will say the Financial Crisis in 2008 was a black swan. As Queen Elizabeth famously asked the community of Britsish Economists: “Why did nobody see this coming?” - Although some saw it coming, but not among the mainstream scholars....