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This working group is focused on sustainable economics and financial balance within resilient social ecologies.

The mission of this working group is to build sustainable economy and financial balance within resilient social ecologies.

Members

Corey Watts david hastings Elhadj Drame John Girard Kathy Gilbeaux LintonWells
Maeryn Obley mdmcdonald Samuel Bendett

Email address for group

economics@m.resiliencesystem.org

Keystone: The Pipeline to Disaster

huffingtonpost.com - by Jeffrey Sachs - February 3, 2014

CLICK HERE - Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement for the Keystone XL Project - Executive Summary January 2014 (44 page .PDF report)

The new State Department Environmental Impact Statement for the Keystone Pipeline does three things. First, it signals a greater likelihood that the pipeline project will be approved later this year by the administration. Second, it vividly illustrates the depth of confusion of US climate change policy. Third, it self-portrays the US Government as a helpless bystander to climate calamity.

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Don't Bet on Coal and Oil Growth

huffingtonpost.com - January 24th, 2014 - Kumi Naidoo

A mind-boggling sum of about $800 for each person on the planet is invested into fossil fuel companies through the global capital markets alone. That's roughly 10 percent of the total capital invested in listed companies. The amount of money invested into the 200 biggest fossil fuel companies through financial markets is estimated at 5.5 trillion dollars.

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Former BP geologist: peak oil is here and it will 'break economies'

A former BP geologist speaks out on the danger of peak oil. Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images

Photo: A former BP geologist speaks out on the danger of peak oil. Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty Images

theguardian.com - December 23rd, 2013 - Janet Larsen and Emily E. Adams

A former British Petroleum (BP) geologist has warned that the age of cheap oil is long gone, bringing with it the danger of "continuous recession" and increased risk of conflict and hunger.

At a lecture on 'Geohazards' earlier this month as part of the postgraduate Natural Hazards for Insurers course at University College London (UCL), Dr. Richard G. Miller, who worked for BP from 1985 before retiring in 2008, said that official data from the International Energy Agency (IEA), US Energy Information Administration (EIA), International Monetary Fund (IMF), among other sources, showed that conventional oil had most likely peaked around 2008.

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Aid to the Philippines: Who is Giving What?

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Fossil Fuels Receive $500 Billion A Year In Government Subsidies Worldwide

           

Credit: Shutterstock

thinkgrogress.org - by Emily Atkin - November 7, 2013

Producers of oil, gas and coal received more than $500 billion in government subsidies around the world in 2011, with the richest nations collectively spending more than $70 billion every year to support fossil fuels.

Those are the findings of a recent report by the Overseas Development Institute, a think tank based in the United Kingdom.

“If their aim is to avoid dangerous climate change, governments are shooting themselves in both feet,” the report, headed by ODI research fellow Shelagh Whitley, said. “They are subsidizing the very activities that are pushing the world towards dangerous climate change, and creating barriers to investment in low-carbon development and subsidy incentives that encourage investment in carbon-intensive energy.”

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Al Gore: world is on brink of 'carbon bubble'

, environment correspondent. theguardian.com, Thursday 31 October 2013 21.08 EDT

The world is on the brink of the "largest bubble ever" in finance, because of the undisclosed value of high-carbon assets on companies' balance sheets, and investment managers who fail to take account of the risks are failing in their fiduciary duty to shareholders and investors, Al Gore and his investment partner, David Blood, have said.

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Achieving Resiliency and Peace in Abyei

           

Photo / AP

huffingtonpost.com - by Pam Omidyar - September 23, 2013

Historians have well documented the changing characteristics of war over the past century, from those fought across borders to, increasingly, those fought within borders. There is a general perception that portrays these civil conflicts as battles for power, fought by equals. Yet in the case of Sudan, war is most often fought between government supported soldiers and civilian populations. . .

. . . Recently, an outstanding research report, Stabilizing Abyei: Trauma and the Economic Challenges of Peace, was released, that highlights the relationship between traumatized people and their outlook and capacity for reconciliation and peace.

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Research Report - Stabilizing Abyei: Trauma and the Economic Challenges of Peace

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2.5 Billion People Don't Have Access To A Toilet. Here's Why You Should Care. (INFOGRAPHIC)

            

A woman and her child walk between shacks, past a communal toilet in Khayelitsha township on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa, Tuesday, Oct. 20, 2009. South African President Jacob Zuma says mayors need to clean up corruption and stop political squabbling in the face of sometimes violent protests over lack of city services. (AP Photo/Schalk van Zuydam)

huffingtonpost.com - by Jessica Prois - September 12, 2013

The infographic below highlights the fact that 2.5 billion people have to seek out other options in lieu of a loo -- and it's just not OK.

Funny euphemisms aside, the World Bank created this illustration to detail the fact that lack of access to sanitation costs the world $260 billion yearly in health and productivity.

Health costs include $51 million spent on medication, transportation and hospitalization.

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For The First Time Ever, Combined GDP Of Poor Countries Exceeds That Of Rich Ones (CHART)

          

huffingtonpost.com - by David Yanofsky - August 28, 2013

For the first time ever, the combined gross domestic product of emerging and developing markets, adjusted for purchasing price parity, has eclipsed the combined measure of advanced economies. Purchasing price parity—or PPP for short—adjusts for the relative cost of comparable goods in different economic markets.

According to the International Monetary Fund—the supplier of this data—emerging and developing economies will have a purchasing price parity-adjusted GDP of $42.8 trillion in 2013, while that of emerging economies will be $44.4 trillion. In other words, emerging markets will create $1.6 trillion more value in goods and services than advanced markets this year.

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Arctic Methane Time Bomb Could Have Huge Economic Costs

      

Increasing temperatures in the Arctic region are reducing sea ice cover and increasing the possibility of methane leaching from the sea bed

bbc.co.uk - by Matt McGrath - July 24, 2013

Scientists say that the release of large amounts of methane from thawing permafrost in the Arctic could have huge economic impacts for the world.

The researchers estimate that the climate effects of the release of this gas could cost $60 trillion (£39 trillion), roughly the size of the global economy in 2012.

The impacts are most likely to be felt in developing countries they say.

The research has been published in the journal Nature.

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RESEARCH - NATURE - Climate science: Vast costs of Arctic change

Climate science: Vast costs of Arctic change (3 page .PDF file)

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