tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post4141520016040076662..comments2024-03-24T11:01:27.668-04:00Comments on Resource Insights: Brexit and the energy equationKurt Cobbhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05330759091950742285noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8861605.post-60439358348619699642018-08-15T06:41:55.734-04:002018-08-15T06:41:55.734-04:00Good idea, but it looks like your article is inclu...Good idea, but it looks like your article is inclusive. After reading we still struggle to see the link between becoming an energy importer and a rise in national pride. To solve that conundrum let’s try and forget the usual “self interest” principle (Adam Smith). Indeed it’s the assumption you make in this piece: each individual votes in favour of its own best personal interest, after receiving and sorting all available information. That’s nice and all. But clearly leads to a paradox: Brexit will be detrimental to the standards of living of the British people. And have little obvious consequence in outside economic field. All in all, the bottom line is therefore negative. No one discusses that. Recent polls even show than MOST Brits are aware of it, INCLUDING most of Brexiters. Hence the initial assumption cannot be correct.<br /> <br />Instead of that, let’s consider another idea where when the final state of a socio-economic system is known (and can be calculated), that system will CONVERGE towards that state if we assume there is no externality. Admittedly it is a very strong assumption. Indeed the UK is a democracy. People choose their leaders who then make decisions, which should influence the future of the country. Stating that some final states are inescapable negates a part of that freedom. Personally I am fine with that for a lot of reasons, one of them being that it can be shown that freedom is in fact a super power. I won’t explain those reasons here, I let you do that work for yourself.<br /> <br />Now we know by Kaya’s equation what is the final state of the world economy in 2050. I won’t develop that into great details but one of the aspects is that we cannot continue consuming so much oil. Unless of course if we want to destroy the climate and risk extinction. Globalisation is the exchange of goods throughout the world. 98.5% of those exchanges are powered by... oil! Hence the final state of the global economy is not global. It’s local, it’s NATIONAL, maybe even regional. The destruction of the EU is therefore only one of the many steps which will make us converge towards that final state.Unknownhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06398352602826967887noreply@blogger.com