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World Energy Outlook
Future Energy Use
Book Reviews

INTRODUCTION

Irish economists' attitudes to sustainability
A Feasta survey finds that our sample's views fall into two distinct camps.

PROFESSOR HERMAN DALY

The Feasta lecture, 1999:
The complete transcript of Professor Herman Daly's talk 'Uneconomic Growth: In Theory and in Fact' in which he explains how economic growth can, in fact, be uneconomic because it can destroy more wealth than it creates.

Five policy recommendations for a sustainable economy

The irrationality of homo œkonomicus

DR DAVID KORTEN

The Feasta lecture, 2000
The complete transcript of Dr David Korten's talk 'The Civilising of Global Society' in which he sets out why he thinks that public attitudes are changing for the better, particularly in the United States.

Rights of money versus rights of living persons

Life after capitalism

JAMES ROBERTSON

Sharing the value of common resources through taxation and public expenditure
James Robertson argues that radical changes in the taxation system and the introduction of a citizen's income would help the move towards sustainability.

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WORLD ENERGY OUTLOOK

The imminent peak of global oil production

Colin Campbell presents evidence for his belief that humanity has already burned around half of its total endowment of oil. The result, he says, is that from now on, our most convenient form of energy will become increasingly scrace and expensive.

Panel: Oil Scarcity No Problem, says CIA

After oil

David Fleming asks why governments have failed to plan for the looming oil shortage and the massive changes to the structure of the economy and society it will bring..

Bye-bye Irish energy pie

Kevin Healion examines Ireland's current energy consumption pattern and concludes that it will have to change radically in the next few years. Unfortunately, he says, government policies have almost completely failed to take this into account.

Outdated thinking slows Ireland's progress towards energy sustainability

Michael Layden says that the Irish policy is stuck in the 1980s when oil shortages and global warming weren't seen as problems and the only thing that mattered was price. Not only is Ireland less sustainable as a result, but commercial opportunities are being missed.

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FUTURE ENERGY USE

Making Western agriculture more sustainable

Folke Günther assesses the sustainability of European agriculture and outlines the changes that will be required not only to make it less dependent on fossil fuels but also to conserve phosphates, which will become much more expensive in real terms as energy prices climb.

Designing an economy with built-in sustainability

Lothar Mayer tries to establish the desigh principles of an economy with built-in sustainability. The money supply has to be linked to energy use, he says, and this could be achieved by monetarising carbon dioxide emissions rights.

Panel: Carbon Dioxide Rationing Proposals Already Well Worked Out

Panel: How The CO2 Economy Would Work In Practice

What next for slowing climate change?

Aubrey Meyer A group within Feasta used the opportunity presented by a conference in Holland to draw up plans for a radical restructuring of the world's monetary systems. They incorporate a carbon dioxide emissions backed currency.

Panel: World Climate Liable To Sudden, Rapid Change

Panel: Proposed World Currency System

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BOOK REVIEWS

Misleading us or deluding themselves?

Malcolm Slesser reviews Natural Capitalism by Paul Hawken, Amory B Lovins and L.Hunter Lovins

Panel: Amory Lovins In His Own Words

Three tiger sightings, but its stripes are in dispute

Peadar Kirdy reviews The Making of the Celtic Tiger: The Inside Story of Ireland's Boom Economy by Ray Mac Sharry and Padraic White, The Celtic Tiger: Ireland's Continuing Economic Miracle by Paul Sweeney, and Inside the Celtic Tiger: The Irish Economy and the Asian Model by Denis O'Hearn