What's Inflation For?

Why do we have, and want, inflation?

I recently watched some of a documentary- "The Monopoly of Violence"- an attack on the state from a libertarian perspective. It is the kind of thing Elon Musk and fellow Ayn Randians love to go on about- how jackbooted and totalitarian the evil state is, over the little people and wonderful entrepreneurs of our sadly oppressed Western countries. How compulsory taxation, schooling, and legal responsibility is an affront to the natural rights of man. Maybe it is better somewhere else less governed, like maybe Haiti, or Mars! The absurdity of it is grating, as they rant from comfortable chairs, protected by the innumerable services of the state.

One such service is management of the monetary system. Back in the wonderful days of unregulated money, anyone could found a bank, and any bank could issue money. Sounds nuts, right? Well it was nuts, and led to numerous booms and busts in the 1800's, and countless smaller bank failures, lost fortunes, swindles, etc. Early Mormon history gives us just one small example, where Joseph Smith set up the Kirtland Bank on a fraudulent basis, issued an ocean of notes, and collapsed less than a year after founding. As the old saying has it, man is wolf to man. And anarchy, while sometimes conducive to self-organization and initiative, is more often the province of con men, swindlers, gangs- criminals of all kinds.

The recent inflation scare brought the topic of inflation front and center in the news again, after a couple of decades in remission. The Fed has a target of two percent, which seems arbitrary. Why not something else? Why not zero? If you read lots of history or Victorian novels, it becomes apparent that this idea of having, even wanting, ongoing inflation, is a modern idea. Economies used to run on a gold standard, on the pound sterling, or the Roman denarius, which were stable in value (barring debasements in the coinage) for centuries. What happened?

Modern economics happened, along with heightened trust in government institutions such as the Federal Reserve. Where we once relied on the perceived and relatively constant value of rare minerals like gold and silver for money, we have spent the last century getting off that standard and graduating to a standard simply of trust in collective insitutions to issue, manage, and account for .. notional (fiat) money such as the dollar. With that transition, we now have far more flexible ways to manage the value of this money, both preventing large swings during crises, (such as crises of balance of payment, or lack of gold mines, or episodic depressions in the business cycle), and seeking that inflation rate mentioned at the top.

John Maynard Keynes played a large role in this change, explaining why the gold standard was a barbaric relic, and that the central banks failed to mentally leave the gold standard world behind in their mismanagement of the Great Depression. He helped design the post-war Bretton Woods arrangement of exchange rates, which gradually helped wean the world off the gold standard fully, to where we are today, with fully floating exchange rates and fully fiat government issued currencies, unbacked by crystals, metals, coconuts, or anything else. 

Lots of inflation is, naturally, bad.

But why do these issuers seek inflation? Under mismanagement, inflation can easily run rampant, as the government creates money for itself to spend, beyond the economy's capacity to absorb, and beyond what its taxation policies bring back in. It is exceedingly tempting, but in the US, the citizenry and media are quite negatively inclined towards inflation, limiting our government's profligacy in that direction. But low inflation, that is a different story entirely. The Fed's two percent target is founded on several beneficial consequences:

• Low and consistent inflation encourages investment, as opposed to hoarding cash. If cash loses value continually, then savers need to find places to put their money where it can grow and that means investing in hopefully productive pursuits like stocks, bonds, businesses, real estate, etc... things that make our economy go around.
• Low and consistent inflation takes money from workers, silently. It is a subtle way to sink the general wage scale, lowering pay for non-innovative sectors and increasing (relative) productivity, as more dynamic sectors engage in more active wage negotiations and give higher pay. This effect is mitigated by union negotiations that seek to make up for inflation losses, and sometimes exceed them, thus accelerating inflation.
• Low and consistent inflation guards against deflation, giving the central bank more scope to lower interest rates in a crisis. At two percent inflation, interest rates may be at four percent, so setting rates at zero in a crisis would have a stimulatory effect, which would not be possible if inflation were already at zero. Granted, the Fed and the Federal government has plenty of other tools to prevent deflation, but deflation is also far more dangerous than inflation, thus a preference for low inflation as a consistent policy target.
• Low and consisten inflation creates a psychological impression of growth, as the monetary value of things goes inexorably up. Real estate is most obvious, but everything is worth "more" over time, and, like the wage theft argument, people think generally in nominal (monetary) values, giving a subjective impression of gains in wealth. Values like this can be baked into the language, in terms like "millionaire".

So, while it is weird to live in a world where the value of money goes continually down and the monetary value of things continually goes up, there are positive aspects to it. At two percent, values double every 35 years and go up ten-fold every 115 years. So someday, the dollar will either become a notional, almost valueless currency, or we will want to rebase it by a couple of orders of magnitude. At any rate, monetary consistency is the gift that the state brings us, deploying its many powers to keep the monetary system stable, and thus a critical support for a flourishing society where people do not have to think too much about fluctuations in the value of their money.

• Was it monopoly power and greedflation?
• No getting away from our masters and servants.
• Is nuclear the only answer?
• Breaking news... homelessness tied to high housing costs.

Haiti is Desperate

Let's help Haiti, and try to do nation building right this time.

We have a desperate situation on our doorstep, in Haiti. Governance has broken down, and anarchy is rampant, with the usual sad story of gangs, kidnapping, killing, looting, and mayhem. While the US has no formal obligation to help, and we have a long history of trying to help (as well as harm) Haiti, it is hard to stand idly by. The US has a frought history with "nation-building". We started in the nation-destroying business, laying waste to one Native American nation after another. Then we had a turn at destroying our own nation in the Civil War. After that came the quasi-imperial ambitions in the Philippines, the United Fruit Empire of Central America, including Panama and the Canal. The high point was our reconstruction of both German and Japanese societies after the second world war, though these societies were definitely not reduced to anarchy, only to temporary leaderless-ness and penury after the defeats of their somewhat abberrant fascist governments. Our more recent attempts to run countries like Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan have been thoroughgoing disasters, ending in various degrees of embarrassment. Why ask for more?

Notable US activities in Haiti:

• Sided with Whites in Haiti's war for independence (i.e. the slave revolt) ~ 1800
• Waited ~60 years to recognize the resulting Haitian government.
• Occupied Haiti 1915-34.
• Colonial-style trade with France and the US continued to immiserate Haiti, ongoing.
• Occupied Haiti 1994-97 to prop up elected president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. 
• Aristide was later ousted in a coup by the Haitian military, which had been extensively supported by the US.

One reason for all this failure is that our nation-building work has never been very conscious. We were faced with weak allies or vanquished enemies, and wanted little more than to have military access for our jihad du jur, and to get out as soon as possible. The social and the long-term was, perhaps with the exception of the post-WW2 reconstructions, always secondary to military objectives. But as we learn, the military is always ultimately political and social as well. As a super-power, we have a naturally narcissistic mind-set, caring little about the dynamics of other countries and having little patience with their deep histories and un-American ways. This has been particularly evident in our building of other nation's militaries, those in Vietnam and Afghanistan being made in our image and promptly failing in our absence.

But another thing that has been evident through all these adventures is that nation-building is very, very important. Our own revolutionary experiment fed us a civic myth of tremendous power and durability. Our many failures, bottoming out with Donald Rumsfeld's scorn of nation-building in Iraq as it melted down in flaming anarchy, should have taught us by now that attending to nation-building is a top priority in any military relationship, and in most international relationships generally. There is no military effectiveness without a national moral and civic ethos behind it. 

That leads to the question of whether any nation can "nation-build" for others. Like teenage development, nations develop typically in opposition to others, via revolutions, wars, conquest. "Help" is rarely relevant, and mostly harmful. But hope springs eternal, and sometimes desperate situations call out for a special effort.

What is the situation in Haiti? I am far from an expert, but it is mostly one of collapse of institutions (never competent to start with), amid repeated natural disasters, (indeed, eco-cide on a large scale), huge inequality and corruption, extreme poverty- even starvation, and a custom of right-wing military coups and meddling. We can not expect democracy to be the immediate solution, given the depth and long history of the dysfunction. Some kind of stabilization and gradual re-introduction of governance and civic society needs to be envisioned.

Gang-based governance is not working well in Haiti.

So, contrary to our last few nation-building projects, the one in Haiti needs to be a partnership between a minimal military or police presence and extensive social, civic, economic, and especially governmental / political support. The current administration has announced a very low-key plan of aid and consultation, but no prospect of fixing the underlying dysfunctions. Indeed, food aid and similar kinds of aid are notorious for degrading indigenous agriculture and other non-dependent economic activities. Current development aid is necessarily channeled through the existing structures of the target society, and this tends to increase the divisions and inequality of those societies, introduce corruption, and foist foreign ideas that are sometimes quite harmful. The US project in Afghanistan was certainly well-meaning in its focus on the rights and position of women in the society. But harping on this theme was immensely destructive with respect to any influence we were seeking in conservative areas. In the end, cosmopolitan Kabul collapsed pathetically in the face of traditional values. Engaging Haitians and people with knowledge of Haiti, and willingness to keep an open mind and an ear to the ground, would be essential as we navigate this process. 

I would envision a high level commission, of mixed composisiton, with people like Barack Obama, leading Haitians from various sectors, and knowledgeable Biden administration officials, dedicated to going to Haiti and spending a half year or year doing a bottom to top assessment of needs and prospects for reform, principally in government and the economy. It might be a bit reminiscent of the peace process in Northern Ireland that we participated in. The group would issue a recommendation / plan, covering constitutional changes, civic development, security, educational development, and economic development. They also might recommend some sort of conservatorship over higher levels of the government, run through the UN, or the US itself, including peace-keepers, hopefully not carrying cholera, or other temporary security help. At this point, some pressure might have to be brought to bear to force some of the changes and personnel into implementation. 

Democracy can't be the first order of business, as conditions and civic culture are so dire. So perhaps a program of progressive democratic development, from local institutions at the start, to progressively higher level elections and political development, could be envisioned, as security and civic conditions improve. A "foster" system might be a bit like the Chinese communist system, where democracy is not front and center(!), but competence is, and the higher levels spend a lot of time figuring out who is effective at lower levels of governance, including aspects such as managerial competence, lack of corruption, people skills, ability to work in an established legal system, economic vision, among much else. 

In Haiti, economic reconstruction would not be based on huge influxes of outside aid, but a be concerted effort, as part of the more general governance project, to determine and build the infrastructure for a sustainable indiginous economic basis, perhaps in light industry and agriculture- something like the relationship the US has with Mexico, minus the drugs and immigration. Subsistence agriculture is very popular in Haiti, and presents a fundamental choice for the nation. While the independence and simplicity it represents are understandably attractive, (indeed, consonant with a lot of red state rhetoric from the US), subsistence agriculture can not support an advanced economy. It can not support imports that are obviously desired, and may not even support Haiti's current population with the best security and governance. But whatever the economic choices Haiti makes, better governance would improve its people's conditions and happiness.

One long-term focus would be education. Education in Haiti is run almost entirely on a private basis, at best, via international NGOs. That would not change very soon, but clearly universal, compulsory, and free education is important for improving Haiti's future. General literacy is hardly above 50%. Education stands at the root of Haiti's problems- its lack of economic development as much as its tragic governance. There are many other issues, such as the proliferation of NGOs with private agendas and lack of cooperation with the government, and the way food aid from the US has destroyed native agriculture. Governance is not the only issue, in this extremely poor, ill-educated, and traumatized country, but it is a function that must be fixed if any other aspect of the society is to progress.

Lastly, there is the perennial problem of whom to trust. Foreigners coming into a country, however good-willed, do more harm than good if they do not have good information. Our occupation of Afghanistan was notorious for repeatedly killing the wrong people, because we got information from those who had private grudges or competing interests. Without adopting a state of surveillance and/or terror, how are we to sift wheat from chaff? This is where expertise comes into play, and why sending the military in to run things tends to go haywire, with illusions of power. So we need people who know the language, and something about Haiti. There are a lot of emigre Haitians in the US who could be helpful in that regard.

If we took such a project seriously as a long-term and cooperative venture, we could do a great deal of good in Haiti, which would be positive not only for Haiti, but for the US and our wider interests. Our relations throughout the hemisphere have been strained for decades, ridden with excessive militarism, condescention, colonialism, and the US-sponsored spread of drugs, gangs, and guns. We have a lot to answer for, and should make a greater effort to bring positive change to our friends in this hemisphere.

• Jamaica is another country with slow development.
• In the coming cold war, we need all the friends and skills we can get.
• Fake science is coming for the children.
• Santa does get some people worked up.
• Is big tech going to do us all in?

A Hard Road to a Cancer Drug

The long and winding story of the oncogene KRAS and its new drug, sotorasib.

After half a century of the "War on Cancer", new treatments are finally straggling into the clinic. It has been an extremely hard and frustrating road to study cancer, let alone treat it. We have learned amazing things, but mostly we have learned how convoluted a few billion years of evolution can make things. The regulatory landscape within our cells is undoubtedly the equal of any recalcitrant bureaucracy, full of redundant offices, multiple veto points, and stakeholders with obscure agendas. I recently watched a seminar in the field, which discussed one of the major genes mutated in cancer and what it has taken to develop a treatment against it. 

Cancer is caused by DNA mutations, and several different types need to occur in succession. There are driver mutations, which are the first step in the loss of normal cellular control. But additional mutations have to happen for such cells to progress through regulatory blocks, like escape from local environmental controls on cell type and cell division, past surveillance by the immune system, and past the reluctance of differentiated cells to migrate away from their resident organ. By the end, cancer cells typically have huge numbers of mutations, having incurred mutations in their DNA repair machinery in an adaptive effort to evade all these different controls.

While this means that many different targets exist that can treat some cancers, it also means that any single cancer requires a precisely tailored treatment, specific to its mutated genes. And that resistance is virtually inevitable given the highly mutable nature of these cells. 

One of the most common genes to be mutated to drive cancer (in roughly 20% of all cases) is KRAS, part of the RAS family of NRAS, KRAS, and HRAS. These were originally discovered through viruses that cause cancer in rats. These viruses (such as Kirsten rat sarcoma virus) had a copy of a rat gene in it, which it overpoduces and uses to overcome normal proliferation controls during infection. The viral gene was called an oncogene, and the original rat (or human) version was called a proto-oncogene, named KRAS. The RAS proteins occupy a central part of the signaling path that external events and stresses turn on to activate cell growth and proliferation, called the MAP kinase cascade. For instance, epidermal growth factor comes along in the blood, binds to a receptor on the outside of a cell, and turns on RAS, then MEK, MAPK, and finally transcription regulators that turn on genes in the nucleus, resulting in new proteins being expressed. "Turning on" means different things at each step in this cascade. The transcription regulators typically get phosphorylated by their upstream kinases like MAPK, which tag them for physical transport into the nucleus, where they can then activate genes. MAPK is turned on by being itself phosphorylated by MEK, and MEK is phosphorylated by RAF. RAF is turned on by binding to RAS, whose binding activity in turn is regulated by the state of a nucleotide (GTP) bound by RAS. When binding GTP, RAS is on, but if binding GDP, it is off.

A schematic of the RAS pathway, whereby extracellular growth signals are interpreted and amplified inside our cells, resulting in new gene expression as well as other more immediate effects. The cell surface receptor, activated by its ligand, activates associated SOS which activates RAS to the active (GTP) state. This leads to a kinase cascade through RAF, MEK, and MAPK and finally to gene regulators like MYC.

This whole system seems rather ornate, but it accomplishes one important thing, which is amplification. One turned-on RAF molecule or MEK molecule can turn on / phosphorylate many targets, so this cascade, though it appears linear in a diagram, is acutally a chain reaction of sorts, amplifying as it goes along. And what governs the state of RAS and its bound GTP? The state of the EGFR receptor, of course. When KRAS is activated, the resident GDP leaves, and GTP comes to take its place. RAS is a weak GTPase enzyme itself, slowly converting itself from the active back to the inactive state with GDP. 

Given all this, one would think that RAS, and KRAS in particular, might be "druggable", by sticking some well-designed molecule into the GTP/GDP binding pocket and freezing it in an inactive state. But the sad fact of the matter is that the affinity KRAS has to GTP is incredibly high- so high it is hard to measure, with a binding constant of about 20 pM. That is, half the KRAS-bound GTP comes off when the ambient concentration of GTP is infinitesimal, 0.02 nano molar. This means that nothing else is likely to be designed that can displace GTP or GDP from the KRAS protein, which means that in traditional terms, it is "undruggable". What is the biological logic of this? Well, it turns out that the RAS enzymes are managed by yet other proteins, which have the specific roles of prying GDP off (GTP exchange factor, or GEF) and of activating the GTP-ase activity of RAS to convert GTP to GDP (GTPase activating protein, or GAP). It is the GEF protein that is stimulated by the receptors like EGFR that induce RAS activity. 

So we have to be cleverer in finding ways to attack this protein. Incidentally, most of the oncogenic mutations of KRAS are at the twelfth residue, glycine, which occupies a key part of the GAP binding site. As glycine is the smallest amino acid, any other amino acid here is bulkier, and blocks GAP binding, which means that KRAS with any of these mutations can not be turned off. It just keeps on signaling and signaling, driving the cell to think it needs to grow all the time. This property of gain of function and the ability of any mutation to fit the bill is why this particular defect in KRAS is such a common cancer-driving mutation. It accounts for ~90% of pancreatic cancers, for instance. 

The seminar went on a long tangent, which occupied the field (of those looking for ways to inhibit KRAS with drugs) for roughly a decade. RAS proteins are not intrinsically membrane proteins, but they are covalently modified with a farnesyl fatty tail, which keeps them stuck in the cell's plasma membrane. Indeed, if this modification is prevented, RAS proteins don't work. So great- how to prevent that? Several groups developed inhibitors of the farnesyl transferase enzyme that carries out this modification. The inhibitors worked great, since the farnesyl transferase has a nice big pocket for its large substrate to bind, and doesn't bind it too tightly. But they didn't inhibit the RAS proteins, because there was a backup system- geranygeranyl transferase that steps into the breach as a backup, which can attach an even bigger fatty tail to RAS proteins. Arghhh!

While some are working on inhibiting both enzymes, the presenter, Kevan Shokat of UCSF, went in another direction. As a chemist, he figured that for the fraction of the KRAS mutants at position 12 that transform from glycine to cysteine, some very specific chemistry (that is, easy methods of cross-linking), can be brought to bear. Given the nature of the genetic code, the fraction of mutations that go from glycine to cysteine are small, there being eight amino acids that are within a one-base change of glycine, coded by GGT. So at best, this approach is going to have a modest impact. Nevertheless, there was little choice, so they forged ahead with a complicated chemical scheme to make a small molecule that could chemically crosslink to that cysteine, with selectivity determined by a modest shape fit to the surface of the KRAS protein near this GEF binding site. 

A structural model of KRAS, with its extremely tightly-bound substrate GDP in orange. The drug sotorasib is below in teal, bound in another pocket, with a tail extending upwards to the (mutant) cysteine 12, which is not differentiated by color, but sits over a magnesium ion (green) being coordinated by GDP. The main job of sotorasib is to interfere with the binding of the guanine exchange factor (GEF) which happens on the surface to its left, and would reset KRAS to an active state.

This approach worked surprisingly well, as the KRAS protein obligingly offfered a cryptic nook that the chemists took advantage of to make this hybrid compound, now called the drug sotorasib. This is an FDA-approved treatment for cancers which are specifically driven by this particular KRAS mutation of position 12 from glycine to cysteine. That research group is currently trying to extend their method to other mutant forms, with modest success. 

So let's take a step back. This new treatment requires, obviously, the patient's tumor to be sequenced to figure out its molecular nature. That is pretty standard these days. And then, only a small fraction of patients will get the good news that this drug may help them. Lung cancers are the principal candidates currently, (of which about 15% have this mutation), while only about 1-2% of other cancers have this mutation. This drug has some toxicity- while it is a magic bullet, its magic is far from perfect, (which is odd given the exquisite selectivity it has for the mutated form of KRAS, which should only exist in cancer tissues). And lastly, it gives, on average, under six months of reprieve from cancer progression, compared to four and a half months with a more generic drug. As mentioned above, tumors at this stage are riven with other mutations and evolve resistence to this treatment with appalling relentlessness.

While it is great to have developed a new class of drugs like this one against a very recalcitrant target, and done so on a highly rational basis driven by our growing molecular knowlege of cancer biology, this result seems like a bit of a let-down. And note also that this achievement required decades of publicly funded research, and doubtless a billion dollars or more of corporate investment to get to this point. Costs are about twenty five thousand dollars per patient, and overall sales are maybe two hundred million dollars per year, expected to increase steadily.

Does this all make sense? I am not sure, but perhaps the important part is that things can not get worse. The patent on this drug will eventually expire and its costs will come down. And the research community will keep looking for other, better ways to attack hard targets like KRAS, and will someday succeed.

• PR, AI, hype, and the end of the world.
• Whether masks are effective at all against respiratory infection remains contentious and uncertain.
• Can America be militarily and politically successful at the same time?
• The lonely solar house.

Eco-Economics

Adrienne Buller on greenwashing, high finance, and the failures of capitalism viz the environment, in "The Value of a Whale".

This is a very earnest book by what seems to be an environmental activist about the mistaken notion that capitalism gives a fig about climate change. Buller goes through the painstaking economic rationales by which economists attempt to value or really, discount the value of, future generations. And how poorly carbon taxes have performed. And how feckless corporations are about their climate pledges, carbon offsets, and general greenwashing. And how unlikely it is that "socially conscious" investing will change anything. It is a frustrated, head-banging exercise in deflating illusions of economic theory and corporate responsibility. Skimming through it is perhaps the best approach. Here is a sample quote from Buller's conclusion:

Given this entrenched perspective, it is unsurprising that resistance to the kinds of bold change we need to secure a habitable planetary future for all and a safe present for many tend to focus on what we stand to lose. Undeniably, available evidence suggests that 'addressing environmental breakdown may require direct downscaling of economic production and consumption in wealthier countries'. This is an uncomfortable idea to grapple with, but as philosopher Kate Soper writes: 'If we have cosmopolitan care for the well-being of the poor of the world, and a concern about the quality of life for future generations, then we have to campaign for a change of attitudes to work, consumption, pleasure, and self-realization in affluent communities.' There is a sense that this future is necessarily austerian, anti-progress, and defined by lack. Indeed, the same media study cited above found discussion of economies defined by the absence of growth to focus on bleakness and stagnation. Comparatively little attention is directed at what we stand to gain - but there is much to be gained. Understanding what requires us to ask what the existing system currently fails to provide, from universal access to health case and education, to basic material security, to free time. It certainly does not offer a secure planetary future, let alone one in which all life can thrive. And it does not offer genuine democracy, justice or freedom for most. Absent these, what purpose is 'the economy' meant to serve?

Unfortunately, the book is not very economically literate either, making its illusions something of a village of straw men. Who ever thought that Royal Dutch Shell was going to solve climate change? Who ever thought that a $5 dollar per ton tax on CO2 emissions was going to accomplish anything? And who ever thought that the only reason to address climate heating was to save ourselves a dollar in 2098? All these premises and ideas are absurd, hardly the stuff of serious economic or social analysis. 

But then, nothing about our approach to climate heating is serious. It is a psychodrama of capitalism in denial, composed of cossetted capitalist people in the five stages of grief over our glorious carbon-hogging culture. Trucks, guns, and drive-through hamburgers, please! Outright denial is only slowly ebbing away, as we sidle into the anger phase. The conservative Right, which mixes an apocalyptically destructive anti-conservative environmental attitude with a futile cultural conservatism, is angry now about everything. The idea that the environment itself is changing, and requires fundamental cultural and economic change, is an affront. The eco-conscious left is happy to peddle nostrums that nothing really has to change, if we just put up enough solar panels and fund enough green jobs. 

Objectively, given the heating we are already experiencing and the much worse heating that lies ahead, we are not facing up to this challenge. It is understandable to not want to face change, especially limits to our wealth, freedoms, and profligacy. But we shouldn't blame corporations for it. The capitalist system exists to reflect our desires and fulfill them. If we want to binge-watch horror TV, it gives us that. If we want to gamble in Las Vegas, it gives us that. If we want to drive all around the country, it makes that possible. Capitalism transmutes whatever resources are lying around (immigrant labor, publically funded research, buried minerals and carbon, etc.) to furnish things we want. We can't blame that system for fouling up the environment when we knew exactly what was going on and wanted those things it gave us, every step of the way.

No, there is another mechanism to address big problems like climate heating, and that is government. That is where we can express far-sighted desires. Not the desire for faster internet or more entertaining TV, but deep and far-reaching desires for a livable future world, filled with at least some of the animals that we grew up with, and maybe not filled with plastic. It is through our enlightened government that we make the rules that run the capitalist system. Which system is totally dependent on, and subservient to, our collective wisdom as expressed through government. 

So the problem is not that capitalism is maliciously ruining our climate, but that our government, representative as it is of our desires, has not fully faced up to the climate issue either. Because we, as a culture, are, despite the blaring warnings coming from the weather, and from scientists, don't want to hear it. There is also the problem that we have allowed the capitalists of our culture far too much say in the media and in government- a nexus that is fundamentally corrupt and distorts the proper hierarchy of powers we deserve as citizens.

The US games out in 2012 how various carbon taxes will affect emissions, given by electricity production. These are modest levels of taxation, and have modest effects. To actually address the climate crisis, a whole other magnitude of taxation and other tools need to be brought to bear. The actual trajectory came out to more renewables, no growth for nuclear power, and we are still burning coal.

Let me touch on just one topic from the book- carbon taxes. This is classic case of squeemish policy-making. While it is not always obvious that carbon pricing would be a more fair or effective approach than direct regulation of the most offensive industries and practices, it is obvious that putting a price on carbon emissions can be an effective policy tool for reducing overall emissions. The question is- how high should that price be to have the effect we want? Well, due to the universal economic consensus that carbon pricing would be a good thing, many jurisdictions have set up such pricing or capping schemes. But very few are effective, because, lo and behold, they did not want to actually have a strong effect. That is, they did not want to disrupt the current way of doing things, but only make themselves (and ourselves) feel good, with a slight inducement to moderate future change. Thus they typically exempt the most polluting industries outright, and set the caps high and the prices low, so as not to upset anyone. And then Adrienne Buller wonders why these schemes are so universally ineffective.

Carbon prices in California are currently around $30 per ton CO2, and this has, according to those studying the system, motivated one third of the state's overall carbon reductions over the current decade. That is not terrible, but clearly insufficient, even for a forward-thinking state, since we need to wring carbon out of our systems at a faster pace. Raising that price would be the most direct way for us as a society to do that. But do we want to? At that point, we need to look in the mirror and ask whether the point of our policies should be addressing climate heating in the most effective way possible, or to avoid pain and change to our current systems. Right now, we are on a sort of optimal trajectory to avoid most of the economic and social pain of truly addressing climate change, (by using gradualist and incremental policies), but at the cost of not getting there soon enough and thus incurring increasing levels of pain from climate heating itself- now, and in a future that is measured, not in years, but in centuries. 

The second big point to make about this book and similar discussions is that it largely frames the problem as an economic one for humanity. How much cost do we bear in 2100 and 2200, compared with the cost we are willing to pay today? Well, that really ignores a great deal, for there are other species on the planet than ourselves. And there are other values we have as humans, than economic ones. This means that any cost accounting that gets translated into a carbon price needs to be amplified several fold to truly address the vast array of harms we are foisting on the biosphere. Coral reefs are breaking down, tropical forests are losing their regenerative capability, and the arctic is rapidly turning temperate. These are huge changes and harms, which no accounting from an economic perspective "internalizes". 

So, we need to psychologically progress, skipping a few steps to the facing-it part of the process, which then will naturally lead us towards truly effective solutions to get to carbon neutrality rapidly. Will it cost a lot? Absolutely. Will we suffer imbalances and loss of comforts? Absolutely. But once America faces up to a problem, we tend to do a good job accepting those tradeoffs and figuring out how to get the results we want. 

• An earth systems perspective.
• I hope you are appreciating this free-range, hand-made, artisanal prose.
• Loneliness.
• Plastic is a thing too.
• Natural gas and the future of Europe.
• Maybe having cars parked everywhere isn't the best idea.
• Thoughts on the drug war.