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The Appallingly Bad Neoclassical Economics of Climate Change, with Professor Steve Keen

Release Date: 02/01/2021

Physical Attraction

In the last episode, we briefly introduced "climate change doomers" and some of their misleading claims. In this episode, I talk about despair, and why we cannot give in to it.

Climate 201: Climate Doomism (I)

Physical Attraction

We're going there. In this episode, I discuss why civilization is not going to imminently collapse due to climate change, explain why doomism is a new form of denialism, and debunk some of its most misleading claims.

UNLOCKED: Book Club: Tim Wu's The Attention Merchants

Physical Attraction

A new episode released from behind the Patreon paywall. This episode, we'll review and discuss some of the issues raised by Tim Wu's The Attention Merchants, a book that details the history of the advertising industry.

Climate 201 NETS XI: Direct Air Capture, p2 and NETS conclusion

Physical Attraction

In this episode, we will continue our analysis of Direct Air Capture and conclude the series on negative emissions - crucial component of decarbonisation, or a techno-utopian distraction from the real problems we face? [Don't expect an actual answer]

Climate 201 NETS X: Direct Air Capture, part 1

Physical Attraction

Direct Air Capture - machines that suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Could this be the solution to a scaleable negative emissions industry? We'll discuss the pros and cons of the technology in this episode.

BONUS: Black Mirror IRL pilot - Be Right Back

Physical Attraction

Hi all! This is a slightly special bonus episode. Some years ago I had plans for another series "Black Mirror IRL", which was going to be a series of episodes looking into the technologies mentioned and featured in the Netflix Series Black Mirror. Is anyone working on these technologies in real life? What would their potential social implications be if they were developed? How scientifically feasible would it actually be to develop something like this? The plan would be to explore one technology alongside each episode of the show. However, time has passed and I've moved onto other...

Climate 201: NETS VII: Ecosystem Restoration and Mangroves

Physical Attraction

What are "nature-based solutions" to climate change? Can we restore the ecosystems that we've destroyed? And how can restoring mangroves help us to suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere?

Climate 201, NETS IX: Ocean Iron Fertilization

Physical Attraction

"Give me a tanker full of iron, and I'll give you a new Ice Age." It might sound like something Hank Scorpio would say, but this episode will deal with the very real idea of stimulating plankton blooms to remove CO2 from the atmosphere - ocean iron fertilization.

Climate 201: NETS VIII: Enhanced Weathering

Physical Attraction

How could grinding up rocks and sprinkling the dust over vast areas help to combat climate change? In this episode, we deal with "enhanced weathering" as a potential source of negative emissions.

Climate201 NETS VI: Planting Trees and Afforestation

Physical Attraction

Mention carbon capture, and the refrain you'll often hear is "why invent a machine that captures CO2? We already have one - it's called a tree." But is large-scale afforestation as a negative emissions solution so simple? We dig into its potential in this episode of our series on negative emissions.

More Episodes

This episode, we have a guest on the show that I'm very excited about. Professor Steve Keen is an economist and author who has been a longstanding critic of neoclassical economics, which has included writing the bestselling Debunking Economics book and hosting the podcast of the same name, as well as developing several alternative models of the macroeconomy. In recent years, he has turned his attention to how neoclassical economics has tried to deal with the issue of climate change... and, well, the fact that his paper is called "The appallingly bad neoclassical economics of climate change" probably tells you something of how he has responded to it.

I was lucky enough to detain him for quite a while, so I've split the interview into two parts. They complement each other, but they can be listened to independently, depending on what you're interested in.

The second part dives deep into the critique of the neoclassical economics of climate change: specifically, how economists have consistently been overconfident in their projections of climate damages and arguably helped lead us towards weak climate policies, and how we might hope to change this in the future. I think this is an incredibly important message and subject to discuss and debate, because unfortunately this stuff has been extremely influential - to the point where one of the main culprits has the so-called Nobel Prize in Economics - so I really urge everyone to listen to that.

Thank you for listening to this episode of Physical Attraction, and thank you to Steve Keen for being so generous with his time and agreeing to be interviewed. You can find Steve on Patreon at www.patreon.com/ProfSteveKeen where you will have access to a good number of podcasts and posts on economics for free, and where you can subscribe for further access to more shows. He's also on Twitter @ProfSteveKeen where you can keep up with the latest news on this work.

You can find us online at physicspodcast.com. There, you'll find the episode guide on the About page, where you can find all of the episodes we've done on subjects ranging from the birth of stars to the end of the world, and the episodes in the ongoing Climate 201 series which talk about the science, economics, and policy of climate change in much, much greater depth. There you can also get in touch with me with any comments, questions or concerns you might have through the contact form, and you'll also find links to support the show on Paypal for a one-time donation or Patreon for longer-term subscriptions. Thanks very much to everyone who has done that already. Until next time then, please do - take care.

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