Archive for category Podcast
Peter Neal (UNSW) on Carbon Capture and Storage
Posted by sangus in Development, Interview, Podcast on 28 May, 2009
Dr Peter Neal is a research associate at the Cooperative Research Centre for Greenhouse Gas Technologies (otherwise known as the CO2 CRC), and is located in the School of Petroleum Engineering at the University of New South Wales, Sydney. As part of this group, Dr Neal works on modelling the economics of Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technologies. In this interview, Dr Neal describes how CCS works, where the technique is being applied current, and what the important economic factors in its use will be. Towards the end of the interview Dr Neal looks ahead to where CCS will be utilised in both the developed and the developing nations of the world.
Matt Chamberlain (CSIRO) on Ocean Modelling and Climate Change
Posted by sangus in Development, Interview, Podcast on 26 May, 2009
Listen to CSIRO research scientist Dr Matt Chamberlain — he gives an excellent description of how oceans and the climate interact, and how modern scientific methods are used to try and understand this interaction. Matt’s background is in geology and geophysics and he has worked both in the wilds of Antarctica, and in the deserts of America for the University of Arizona and then the Planetary Science Institute. His work focusses on bio-geochemical interactions in the ocean, these are important to understand since the ocean is understood to play a very big role in the carbon cycle, and hence, changes to both the atmosphere above the ocean, and the currents and temperatures in the oceans themselves may have large implications for the way that these cycles operate.
Cobus de Swardt on Transparency International and the fight against Corruption
Posted by sangus in Development, Interview, Podcast on 20 May, 2009
Cobus de Swardt is the Managing Director of Transparency International (TI) which is well known for producing the annual Corruption Perceptions Index which ranks 180 countries on a scale of 0 to 10 for their level of perceived corruption. As Cobus emphasises in the interview, this is only one part of the work of TI, the main impact of TI is in its many country-based ‘chapters’: small, grass-roots TI organisations which work for greater transparency and accountability in their host countries.
Jakob Madsen on Models of Economic Growth
Jakob Madsen, Professor of Economics at Monash University has spent many years in Macro-economic research. He has a particular interest in long-run growth, the models that have been used to explain it, and the data that aims to test these models. In his recent work, he is examining so-called ’second-generation’ endogenous growth models, such as the Schumpeterian growth model. In this interview, Professor Madsen talks about some of his recent work on economic growth and how this bears on economic policy for development in the world’s poorest regions.
Michael Hanemann on Climate Change Policy
Posted by sangus in Interview, Podcast, Sustainability on 30 April, 2009
Michael Hanemann is Chancellor’s Professor at the Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics, University of California at Berkeley. He’s also the Director of the California Climate Change Center. He was in Australia towards the end of 2008 to speak at several universities (including Monash) and to hold discussions with policy makers in the Australian Government. The interview discusses different approaches to climate change policy including what options Australia might take based on experiences internationally, especially in California.
Tim Hatton on Height and Health in Britain 1880-1950
Professor Tim Hatton of the Economics Program at the Research School of Social Sciences (ANU) spoke to us about his research on health and height (stature) in turn-of-the-century Britain. What is interesting about his work, is that his data set comes from the 1937 study by Sir John Boyd Orr of working class children in 16 locations in England and Scotland and allows the study of the famous `quality, quantity tradeoff’. The interview begins by asking Tim to explain exactly what this means.
Greg Clark on Social Darwinianism and the Industrial Revolution
Posted by sangus in Development, Growth, Interview, Podcast on 30 April, 2009
Greg Clark, Professor of Economics at University of California, Davis and author of A Farewell to Alms was recently in Australia to present a seminar on his controversial theory of Social Darwinianism to explain the industrial revolution in England. Prof. Davis, was kind enough to speak to EconomicsNow! about this work, the Malthusian Trap and why doing Economic History is well worth the effort!
Lessons from the GFC for the GEC
Posted by sangus in Development, Podcast on 7 April, 2009
I was recently prompted by James O’Loghlin (host of Sunday’s with James O’Loghlin program on ABC Local radio, Sydney) to think about solutions to both the GFC (Global Financial Crisis) and the GEC (Global Environment Crisis). What he was after, was a discussion of solutions that would solve both problems at the same time .. the old, ‘two birds with one stone’ approach. On the surface of things, this sounds like an impossible task: when one thinks about the hardship that is still building in world economies due to rising unemployment, shouldn’t we be thinking only of fixing up the economy? Shouldn’t we wait until ‘better times’ return for us to then worry about the environment. I mean — the dangers of climate change and its associated dooms-day predictions are important, but surely not that important to rank them above the pressing troubles of the now?
Whilst I’ll write some more on the solutions side of things later, my first thought was not actually ’solutions’ as such, but to do with lessons that we can take from the one to the other.
The other climate debate - Background Briefing - ABC
Posted by sangus in Podcast, Sustainability on 24 March, 2009
A superb Background Briefing report investigating the forthcoming Renewable Energy Target (presently, 20% of energy production to be greenhouse gas free by 2020) for Australia. Other countries have a similar target, but will Australia be able to deliver? What are the incentives? Are there differences in policy across the states? What are the key forthcoming policy decisions to be made by the Commonwealth. It’s all here.
Read the transcript at:
Peter Singer on the Ethics of Giving to the Very Poor
Peter Singer was recently interviewed by Kate O’Toole on Triple J’s current affairs program, Hack. In the interview and ensuing discussion, Singer raised some interesting points with one central theme: the rich world (that’s us) have a moral obligation to give a significant percentage of our incomes to the developing world. No ifs. No buts.
To begin with, Kate O’Toole describes a thought experiment that Singer introduced to motivate the ethical argument of his book, The Life You Can Save (he has a website of the same name). In short, the picture is this: imagine walking home one day from university with your bag over your shoulder, and you pass a local lake — you do this every day, except that this day you notice for the first time that there is a child who is stuck in the lake and is drowning not far from the edge. What should you do?
Have a think about it.
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