Economy and ecology ought to go hand in hand

Sometimes I wonder why everything becomes so complicated when we talk about economy, I mean from private, national to global economy. When we talk about ecology or actions against global warming its more straightforward so that what you do as a private person (save energy, use environment friendly car, etc) always is good for the national and global level. Make the same example with the economical eyeglasses and you suddenly get a discussion about how we must act on the private level to get the wheels in the global economy to roll.

This week professor Paul Krugman spoke at a Quality fair in Göteborg and there is an article in today’s Svenska Dagbladet. He warned about that the world economic crisis not yet are over. Nations has to keep the interest rate low so that we invest and consume at such a high level that the bank system will recover and re-capitalize. Always it is this economic mantra that we must consume more to get the economic wheels to roll. Economics ought to deal with how we get the best welfare in certain economic situations and not to maximise the economic value in every moment. I also spoke at the quality fair about a project I described earlier in this blog – How 100 families learned and enjoyed to live in a more environmentally and friendly way. The audience in my session was small and very enthusiastic with lots of questions. The audience at Pual Krugmans session was enormous because of his fame but I doubt that they were familiar enough with the science of economy to ask questions. The environmental issues are complex and also rely on politics and economy to get solved, but the economy as a science is too complicated or one way looking to be a good tool in the war against global warming.

Covenant of Mayors

Yesterday, the 10:th of November 25 Swedish municipalities signed the covenant of mayors during a ceremony attended by Dion Wierts, representative for the office of the covenant of mayors. Earlier we have 6 Swedish municipalities who have signed the covenant. So now there will be 31 Swedish municipalities among 978 cities in the world who have signed the agreement. The municipalities undertake to do more than the EU climate goals demand. One of the municipalities was Karlstad, where I work. Our work with a new Environmental and Climate strategy has begun, although we even earlier have good plans for the energy and transport issues.