Basic financial security should be a right for all members of society, yet our present social-welfare system does not adequately support this right and has many other serious flaws. Anne Ryan explains how a universal basic income would increase everybody’s capacity to cope with financial shocks and uncertainties far more effectively than the current system and how it would also improve general quality of life, while supporting many different kinds of work, with or without pay.

In this presentation given at Maynooth last week, John Jopling explains why governments cannot be expected to adequately address the climate crisis and instead proposes a commons-based approach that would involve a wide range of non-governmental organisations in a cooperative and participatory process.

In this talk given to the Cafe Economique in Nottingham on August 30 Brian Davey takes us on a lightning tour of economic thought from the ancient Greeks onwards, describing the increasingly shaky relationship between economics and moral philosophy.

This talk given by David Knight on July 4th describes three possible future scenarios: runaway climate change; collapse triggered by peak oil; and “green future”. He takes into account recent claims that peak oil can be postponed by the adoption of unconventional methods of oil production, and he concludes by presenting a wish list of actions by governments and citizens.

At the Feasta climate weekend in Wales last month David Knight gave a presentation on ‘fracking’: the use of unconventional methods for extracting natural gas. Fracking has become the subject of much controversy on both sides of the Atlantic as the energy industry lobbies for its widespread adoption. Knight discussed its viability in terms of energy return on investment, its potential as a pollutant and its effect on climate change. You can download his powerpoint slides from this site now, along with the script he used while giving the presentation.

Nick Bardsley, a Feasta member and lecturer in climate change economics at the University of Reading, has prepared a slideshow presentation for the recent Feasta Climate Group weekend which is now available for download. In it he discusses the problems associated with a biofuel-based economy, drawing on the work of energetics analysts Mario Giampietro and Kozo Mayumi. Nick also discusses his own challenges as a lecturer in ecological economics.

This essay by Brian Davey forms part of a Nottingham University open source radical engineering course. It explains where economic growth comes from, rival understandings of it in economics and what problems it causes. It also introduces “ecological economics” which is a concept system that recognises these problems and seeks solutions to them within the bio-physical carrying capacity of the planet.