PRESENTATIONS

Annual Lectures

Since its foundation, Feasta has held an annual public lecture to promote awareness and inspire action. The texts of all the lectures, together with other articles by the lecturers, are printed in the Feasta Review and will be published on the website (the first four lectures are already online, and are linked to below). The most recent lectures are available now in QuickTime 7 format (if you have difficulty viewing the linked files below, you may need to download the latest software which is available for free for both MacOSX and Windows.) This is a list of the speakers and their lecture topics.

The 2009 Feasta Lecture by Allan Savory:

Keeping Cattle: cause or cure for climate crisis?
Allan Savory is a Zimbabwean biologist and farmer who was the 2003 winner of the Australian Banksia Environmental Foundation prize. He argued that while livestock may contribute to climate change, they can also be an important part of the solution. He has demonstrated time and again in Africa, Australia and North and South America that, properly managed, they are essential to land restoration. With the right techniques, plant growth is lusher, the water table is higher, wildlife thrives, soil carbon increases and, surprisingly, perhaps four times as many cattle can be kept.
A video of this presentation will be available for download shortly.
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The 2008 Feasta Lecture by Chris Cook:

Capital Partnerships
Chris Cook, an international expert on Open Capital and a widely published energy market consultant, discussed his ground-breaking ideas for capital partnerships, a financing structure that could provide a debt-free solution to the Irish property crash. The global financial crisis has highlighted the urgent need to refinance trillions of euros' worth of property-backed securities and debt. Cooke proposed an innovative, sustainable solution: a new class of affordable, asset-based property finance, using the legal structure of limited liability Partnerships. amongst their other advantages, they dissolve the distinction between rental and purchase options, offering the benefits of both.
view Introduction by Richard Douthwaite (28:07, 30.3 MB QuickTime movie file)
view Lecture (35:07, 34.1 MB QuickTime movie file)
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The 2007 Feasta Lecture by Peter Barnes:

Who Owns The Sky?
Peter Barnes is a successful US social entrepreneur and author of Capitalism 3.0, whose previous career has ranged from setting up one of the first solar energy companies in California to pioneering the use of charity credit cards and ethical phone services at www.workingassets.com. He described how a "cap and rebate" system is the best option for an ethical economic framework to stabilise the climate which would "pay" citizens and communities substantial sums of money every year to benefit from rapidly rising carbon prices. He also talked about the need for a strong new independent "Third Sector of Commons' Trusts" in the economy with the remit of protecting and sharing out the benefits of commons such as the atmosphere - so overcoming the "tragedy of the commons".
view Lecture (44:36, 38.3 MB QuickTime movie file)
listen to Questions + Answers (35:16, 16.2 MB mp3 audio file)
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Following the lecture, Richard Douthwaite of Feasta gave a brief introduction and update on Cap and Share which is closely related to the "cap and rebate" system that Peter Barnes talked about.
view C+S description (11:53, 21.2 MB QuickTime movie file)
listen to C+S description (11:28, 5.25 MB mp3 audio file)

The 2006 Feasta Lecture by Nic Marks:

Re-Thinking Progress: Well-Being as the Focus of Policy
Nic Marks is the head of the Centre for Well-Being at NEF (The New Economics Foundation) and has recently set up a new global measure of progress, the Happy Planet Index, which shows the ecological efficiency with which human well-being is delivered around the world. He talked about how the economy is only really a means to an end and that we should be measuring the 'ultimate end' of people's well-being instead of measuring GDP. He showed how simply relating the length and satisfaction of people's lives to their ecological footprint creates a much more useful way of comparing the progress of different countries.
view Lecture (57:00, 38.8 MB QuickTime file)
view Questions + Answers (35:52, 24.8 MB QuickTime file)

The 2005 Feasta Lecture by Roger Levett:

How to Live Well without Carbon: Decouple Life Satisfaction from Economic Growth, as well as Economy from the Environment
Levett, a member of the British Government's Sustainable Development Commission, spoke on the practical steps that national and local government can take to reduce energy use and climate impact.
view Lecture (53:00, 25.9 MB QuickTime file)
view Questions + Answers (43:01, 26.9 MB QuickTime file)

The 2004 Feasta Lecture by Wolfgang Sachs:

Resource Wars - or a Fair Future?
As a Senior Fellow at the Wuppertal Institute for Climate, Energy, Environment, in Germany, Sachs leads a variety of projects on globalisation, sustainability and world trade. His talk surveyed resource conflicts around the world from the twin perspectives of fairness and justice.

The 2003 Feasta Lecture by Marjorie Kelly:

Designing a Truly Democratic Economy
Kelly, a US ethical business advocate, spoke on how the rights of shareholders in contemporary companies are similar in many respects to those enjoyed by the aristocracy of feudal regimes. Kelly is the author of Divine Right of Capital - Dethroning the Corporate Aristocracy and the editor/co-founder of Business Ethics, a US publication on corporate social responsibility.

The 2002 Feasta Lecture by Stan Thekaekara:

PEOPLE FIRST: Justice in a global economy
Stan Thekaekara's approach to economics has been heavily influenced by the tribal people of the Nilgiri Hills in Southern India with whom he and his wife Mari have worked for the last 20 years. As a result, he questions a lot of the basic building blocks of western thought, such as the right to own land and the purpose of work.

Web Version

PDF Version

The 2001 Feasta Lecture by Dr David Fleming:

THE LEAN ECONOMY: A vision of civility for a world in trouble
The depletion of oil and gas, the degradation of the environment and the decline of social capital all threaten to collapse the market economy. Fleming argues that such a collapse cannot be averted and that public policy should concentrate on laying the foundations for the political economy that could rise from the ashes.

The 2000 Feasta Lecture by Dr David Korten:

The civilising of global society
Daivd Korten sets out why he thinks that public attitudes are changing for the better, particularly in the United States.

The 1999 Feasta Lecture by Professor Herman Daly:

Uneconomic Growth: In Theory and in Fact
Herman Daly explains how economic growth can, in fact, be uneconomic because it can destroy more wealth than it creates.

Frank Rotering: An Economics for Humanity

Introduction to Feasta website articles

Frank Rotering is a 54-year-old Canadian who lives near Vancouver and writes on economic issues. In this introduction he outlines his developing interest in economics and his attempt to formulate an economic theory for those concerned about humanity and nature.

This paper is also available in PDF format

An Economics for Humanity: PART 1 - THE MAIN ISSUES

This part deals with preliminary issues which lay the groundwork for a human-oriented economic theory.

This paper is also available in PDF format

An Economics for Humanity: PART 2 - A PRIMER ON ECONOMIC ANALYSIS

A primer on economic analysis, covering such important concepts as marginal quantities, optimization, value, and cost. This is intended for people with no background in the subject.

This paper is also available in PDF format

An Economics for Humanity: PART 3 - THE HUMAN FRAMEWORK

Presents the concepts required to define a humane economy. An analytical tool is developed to determine the optimum quantity of a final output.

This paper is also available in PDF format

An Economics for Humanity: PART 4 - THE ECOLOGICAL FRAMEWORK

Presents the concepts required to define a sustainable economy. The framework offers a simplified representation of nature and develops a method to address threshold effects. As well, it determines the ethical limits of the present generation's economic activities.

This paper is also available in PDF format

From the second Feasta Review:

Human economics: Putting human health before profit

by Frank Rotering

The current economic system sets out to maximise profits. Suppose we had a system that set out to maximise human well-being instead, measuring it in terms of human health? Such a system was outlined on a Feasta e-list and provoked a lively debate. This is a summary of the proposal that emerged.

Commentary on human economics

by Douglas McCulloch

It might not be possible to base a new economics on maximising human health because health is actually quite hard to measure, says a professor of health economics. His verdict? Rotering's 'rather satisfying theoretical construction cannot work.'