The Cockatoo Chronicles
It Will Get Darker Before The Dawn
COVID 19 is not a ‘black swan’ – a singular, unexpected event. It is the first in a series of what NYT’s Tom Friedman referred to as a ‘herd of stampeding black elephants’ – multiple, predictable and economically catastrophic events. Events that everyone knows are coming but our political and business leaders have consciously chosen not to deal with.
Choices have consequences….
COVID-19 And The Death of Market Fundamentalism
On top of the countless human tragedies, there will be many long-lasting social and economic impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic. Perhaps none will be more profound though, than the death of free market fundamentalism and the return of the State…
COVID-19 presents a blindingly powerful economic case for change. It shows that an ideological, quasi-religious approach to regulating markets, sometimes called neo-liberalism and, until the virus, the dominant political approach in the west, is fatally flawed. It creates a weak and unstable economy, which magnifies risks and is unable to manage shocks1. It threatens itself.
Our Collapsing House of Cards
It was always going to come to this. Whether it was a pandemic triggering a shutdown, a climate emergency bursting the carbon bubble, a populist backlash against inequality, wars over water or countless other possible triggers, this moment has long been inevitable.
COVID-19 is just like a match thrown on a tinder dry forest floor on a hot windy day and starting a wildfire. The match isn’t the key – it’s where it lands.
Climate Contagion 2020-2025: So It Begins…
You can pretty much hear it now. It’s like being in a forest and hearing the leaves rustling in the tops of trees, just before the storm hits. Then it comes with a roar, everything shakes, and we look around wondering what will fall – and will it fall on us.
This is how I see the global economy and climate change. Everything is ready, everyone knows it’s coming, we’re just waiting for the storm to hit.
When it does, it will be the climate emergency meets financial contagion. When the global market flips to FOMO – from fear of acting too early, to fear of being left behind as everyone races for the exits.
Fossil Fuels Are Finished. The Rest Is Detail.
It’s time to make the call – fossil fuels are finished. The rest is detail.
The detail is interesting and important, but unless we recognise the central proposition: that the fossil fuel age is coming to an end, and within 15 to 30 years – not 50 to 100 – we risk making serious and damaging mistakes in climate and economic policy, in investment strategy and in geopolitics and defence…
It is now becoming clear we’ve reached a tipping point where fossil fuels will enter terminal decline, independently of climate policy action. Given climate policy action is also now accelerating, fossil fuels are double dead. To paraphrase Douglas Adams, “So long and thanks for all the energy”.