Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Market failures and political failures

This gloomy, but unfortunately very realistic, column by one of my favourite writers, George Monbiot, sets out the almost-completely failed state of climate change negotiations. As he puts it, Lord Stern's warning that climate change constitutes "the greatest market failure the world has seen" has been followed by the greatest political failure the world has seen.
  I'm looking forward to seeing how the textbooks handle this one. To admit the abject political failure would open the door to examining the power of big business -- what Monbiot calls "familiar political problems", although not ones that get any attention in the texts -- and also "deep rooted human weakness" in dealing with problems involving the long-term future.
RH

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