Feasta – Page 78 – The Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability

The strange idea of negative interest

This article by Graham Barnes addresses the role of demurrage (negative interest) in the design of new currencies. But it takes a roundabout route with diversions around the zero and negative interest rates being currently applied to fiat money; and a detour via positive interest which is itself a stranger idea than we have been led to believe. It suggests that demurrage is worth a place in the designer's kitbag, but not for the reason normally postulated.

What Feasta is doing

If you'd like to get an overview of Feasta's activities over the past couple of years, please take a look at our latest Annual Report. Whether you are interested in a particular Group, Feasta events or publications or just want to scan out of curiosity, we are sure you will find it interesting.

CapGlobalCarbon has been accepted as a Beautiful Solution

We're very pleased to announce that CapGlobalCarbon has been accepted to the Beautiful Solutions Lab on Naomi Klein's website. If you'd like to help promote CapGlobalCarbon, a quick and easy way to do so would be to go to the website and click on "love this idea". If enough people do this, it will be featured in the Beautiful Solutions gallery.

Unconventional gas field development and optimism bias: submission by Brian Davey to the UK Environment Agency

In this submission made in response to a drilling application by iGas, Brian Davey argues that the judgements made on behalf of IGas are flawed by what occupational psychologists and management theorists call “optimism bias”.

Shale Euphoria: The Boom and Bust of Sub Prime Oil and Natural Gas

In this update to his book Credo, Brian Davey argues that the shale industry, whether extracting oil or gas, has never been financially sustainable. How could this be? It seems paradoxical and defies ordinary economic logic.

Cheap Food Costs Dear: review of the Compassion in World Farming report by Martin Peck

Martin Peck comments that "anything I write could not do justice to this report. I can only urge everyone to read it and to try to ensure that policy makers are made aware of it." It draws attention to interrelated aspects of the many externalities of agriculture and the food system, including soil erosion and greenhouse gas emissions.

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