The auction from the future

Which objects from our recent bonfire of the economic vanities will seem so strange in 2059 that they would become collectable? That’s the entertaining question posed by the artists Hollington & Kyprianou in their project with Bristol’s Arnolfini Gallery, called, ‘Adams & Smith, auctioneers of late-capitalist period artefacts‘. It’s part of the Arnolfini’s ‘100 Days’ series, in the countdown to Copenhagen. The objects range from a packet of upmarket cigarettes to a golf ball and tee. (There’s a full list below the fold).

The problem with carbon trading

A short post to note the Friends of the Earth report critiquing carbon trading, “A Dangerous Obsession” (opens in pdf).

In summary, these are the problems:

• It is  ineffective at driving emissions reductions.
• It fails to drive technological innovation.
• It leads to lock-in of high-carbon infrastructure.
• It allows for, and relies on, offsetting (rather than promoting carbon reductions).
• It creates a risk of subprime carbon.
• It provides a smokescreen for lack of action on climate finance by the developed world.

Challenging Britain’s energy assumptions

No sooner had I published yesterday’s post on the wide disagreement about future oil production, than Britain’s Industry Taskforce on Peak Oil and Energy Security has called on the government to reassess its currently dismissive view of the risk of oil shortages. The Taskforce produced the Oil Crunch report which I mentioned in yesterday’s post.

Fudging the oil numbers

The row over whether the International Energy Agency has or has not nurdled its oil data to (a) prevent financial market panic or (b) appease the Americans or ‘(c) neither of the above, is interesting but a bit of a sideshow. What’s more interesting is how fast the notion that ‘peak oil’ is imminent has moved from being a contested minority view to being mainstream.

Rupert versus the internet

It’s difficult to know at first sight whether Rupert Murdoch doesn’t understand the internet, or whether he is just going through contortions to to delay the likely loss of value it represents for his multi-billion dollar media business. The evidence for the former is that News Corp was late in engaging with the internet, despite his well-publicised splash on MySpace. The evidence for the latter is that News Corp’s businesses tend to be built around businesses where value can be defended through infrastructure, and his latest remarks are designed to defend this. There’s a third theory as well; that he’ll make deals wherever they make sense.

Down to the ground

Whether you’re alarmed or reassured by this chart, from the National Institute for Esonomic and Social Research, probably depends whether you’re a glass half-full or glass half empty sort of a person. It shows the comparative paths of five recessions – the red tracks the 1930s, the incomplete black line tracks the present  slump. It scared me.

Banks ‘too big to save’?

Allen & Overy is the London banker’s solicitor of choice, so when its senior partner offers a view on the future of the banking sector it’s probably worth listening. Especially when that view seems some distance away from the platitudes offered by the politicians about the success of the bank bail-out.

Greening the tax base

I’ve not been able to post for a few weeks, due to a combination of work deadlines and holiday. Normal service will be resumed shortly.

For the moment, though, I have a post over at the Futures Company site, on this week’s launch of the Green Fiscal Commission’s report on the value of environmental taxes. The case for:

Environmental taxes are effective in changing behaviour, and efficient to administer. They create jobs (around half a million to 2020) at only a fractional cost to economic growth, and they are also, almost certainly, essential if we are to have a hope of meeting the tough carbon reduction targets in the Climate Change Act.

The case against is mostly down to political will. More here.

Opening up the museum

I went to the Radical Nature exhibition at the Barbican in London yesterday. It raises some interesting questions about how we see emerging issues, which I hope to write about later, but it also  suggested some interesting trends for the future of the museum and gallery. These are about openness and accountability.

The strange death of party politics

We’re so used to the dominance of party politics and party alignment in the UK that it’s hard for us to notice that it’s disappearing, and increasingly quickly, in front of our eyes. In fact, at a national level in the UK, the single member constituency/ first past the post system is disguising the collapse of the main parties and the shifting landscape.