Guest essay by Eric Worrall
College of London Economist Mariana Mazzucato thinks the entrepreneurial spirit of government employees should be harnessed, to solve big problems like plastics pollution and climate change.
Fixing climate change, poverty and ocean plastic requires a ‘Moonshot’ approach, economist Mariana Mazzucato says
ABC Radio National
By Belinda Sommer and Richard Aedy for The MoneyNearly six decades ago, President John F Kennedy’s famous “Moonshot speech” rallied the US public behind the Apollo mission to send astronauts to the Moon.
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Leading economist Mariana Mazzucato isn’t the first to ask why, if humans can land on the Moon, they can’t also solve some of the huge challenges here on Earth such as climate change, poverty or a plastic-free ocean.
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Her answer? Governments should adopt the “mission-oriented approach” of the Apollo project.
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“The reason I think it worked is because NASA was very confident,” she says.
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Professor Mazzucato contrasts this with modern governments, where consultants are thick on the ground.
She points to the UK, where Cabinet Office minister Lord Agnew accused the British civil service of becoming “infantilised” by an “unacceptable” reliance on expensive consultants.
He said public servants were being deprived “of opportunities to work on some of the most challenging, fulfilling and crunchy issues” such as Brexit and COVID-19.
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Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-04-02/mariana-mazzucato-government-changing-capitalism-climate-mission/100036000
I tried working as a government employee. Generous pension scheme, job security, on paper it looked really appealing. But I can’t take the tedium. I like to fix problems. But nobody fixes problems in government service, and nobody wants to fix problems, because fixing problems is a threat to job security. Fixing problems reduces the number of work hours required to fulfil the department’s responsibilities.
There are exceptions, islands of excellence. In my experience well managed police departments are usually run by former operational police officers, who genuinely care about the quality of support people on the front line receive. Electricity utilities used to be staffed by people who cared – until Western governments made their job impossible. Wartime governments hire people who fix problems, because the threat of imminent invasion tends to focus people’s minds. And of course, occasionally great projects like the Apollo Moon Landing can fire people’s imagination to such an extent, people set aside personal convenience for the greater good.
Is solving the alleged climate crisis a project which fires people’s imagination like the moon landing? I doubt it. Climate action consistently appears at the bottom of people’s lists of priorities. Most serious engineers I’ve met think the climate crisis is a joke. Those engineers and scientists who do believe, who care enough to try, quickly learn the task is impossible with anything resembling current technology. Even for those who believe, solving a future problem simply does not carry the immediacy and emotional punch of working to plant a flag on the moon, or stopping a military invasion.
Calling for a renewable energy Apollo project to make renewable energy viable, with current technology, is like calling for the world to be powered by magic – and about as unlikely to produce a worthwhile outcome.
Update (EW): Chris Hanley has posted one of my favourite analysis of why the renewable revolution is a pipe dream.
I am in my late 40’s and I have been hearing about government fixing a lot of things for more than 40 years. If they couldn’t fix anything by now, I don’t think they will do anytime soon.
I’m a bit older, my experience is just a bit different.
Governments and their departments I got to know are a bit like single cell organisms, no brains but very good at multiplying themselves, then collapse under their own weight, and hey presto, a new government comes along but no change, the same single cell biology takes over again, and so on, presumably ad infinitum.
Vuk,
Oh, no, they do not ever collapse under their own weight.
They tax, tax, tax, until they get some semblance of “result”
They declare victory after a debacle, or hide, and then move on to create the next debacle, because that is what they are capable of.
Let’s not forget, we only have 10 years until climageddon destroys the earth and renders it uninhabitable.
If Government or even Google could do it, it would have been done by now and probably with Cold Fusion
And the 10 years started 30 years ago
It’s worse than you think: Kerry says we only have nine years left.
Yes, even filling potholes seems to stretch their level of competence.
BTW, has it become fashionable in the U.K. for officials to use a balloon to comb their hair?
“Yes, even filling potholes seems to stretch their level of competence.”
So true, even though they have propositions here for taxes to do just that.
Defund politicians.
They already carry balloons for their hot air source — might as well double as a comb.
Government consists in identifying problem, getting elected to fix them, but not risking fixing them for fear they will then have served their purpose.
” …… entrepreneurial spirit of government employees ….. “.
Biggest oxymoron I’ve seen for a long time.
Government employees will certainly be as innovative as your average citizen, but then the bureaucracy comes into the picture and gets in their way.
Your bright idea has to pass muster with the bosses, and the bosses are of the mindset “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it” and so they don’t look with enthusiam on proposals from below to change the status quo.
The only way a bureacracy can be really innovative is if the bureaucracy has a real visionary leader at the helm who wants to go in that direction. If the boss wants it done, then the bureaucracy can get it done because the boss will make sure of it.
Unfortunately, too many government bosses don’t have much vision and are not willing to put their position and reputation on the line in order to make big changes.
Bureaucracies are everywhere, not just in government. And they all operate the same way because human psychology is involved in all cases.
We had one of those “visionary leaders” for a while. He wanted things done at “Warp Speed”. He was used to projects done “ahead of time and under budget”. He posed such a threat to the bureaucracy that he could not be allowed a second term.
He got a lot done while he had the power.
And don’t of course forget the Peter principle.
“Your bright idea has to pass muster with the bosses, and the bosses are of the mindset “if it’s not broken, don’t fix it” and so they don’t look with enthusiam on proposals from below to change the status quo.”
It’s not just the bosses. Co-workers at your level complain because an innovation might mean they will have to do more work.
Just like government has made housing and education better & cheaper? Why doesn’t this guy focus on fixing the stuff that the government already mismanages and then perhaps he won’t find such resistance to other moonshot goals.
Also consider that landing on the moon (the easy part) and getting people back alive (the hard part) was a completely quantifiable objective. It was clearly achieved or it wasn’t. Fixing “climate change” has no such objective certainty. Also consider that the vast majority of the plastic in the ocean comes from places where we have little to no influence in the matter.
Governments have consistently made education better and cheaper. Is there a single example of universal education in any country entirely privately funded? Similarly in the
the UK for example social housing built after WWII improved the lives of millions compared to the slum landlords of previous times. It was only the mass sell off thanks to Thatcher that ruined it.
Really? People now going 6-figures into debt for bachelors degrees because freely available government-backed loans allow them to bid up the price for an education to near infinity. Have you already forgotten the housing meltdown where freely available government-backed loans allowed people who’d never otherwise quality for mortgages to bit up the price of housing?
And studying for degrees & diplomas in disciplines that provide no job prospects outside of government employment.
If you can’t get a job with your Bachelor or Master of Underwater Basket Weaving degree, you can always become a Jurinalist (Swedish pronunciation).
.
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Yah, but… you’re right, Leo. Most just end up with a government job or become PPPs (Paid Professional Protesters).
I’m paying thousands in school fees every year for my kid, because of the horrific bullying my kid endured in government schools. At five years old, my kid started trying to pretend to be sick to try to escape yet another day of misery. When my kid finally gave one of the little thugs a smack, the teacher called me in to explain my kid is not allowed to hit other kids, even in self defence.
So I’m not a fan of government funded schools Izaak.
Of course if we stayed in Britain it would have been even worse – at least Australia doesn’t seem to have large areas controlled by child rape gangs, who seem free to enter government managed child facilities at will and ply the kids with hard drugs.
Children, girls and boys, with “benefits”, is socially forward thinking. Well, for a minority anyway. I don’t think society in the majority is prepared for social progress. No judgment? New labels.
It’s sad, but we know that the public schools do not exist for the children. Beyond the indoctrination, anyway.
Eric,
Just what is the alternative to government funded schools? While you might be lucky enough to be able to afford private school fees there are plenty of families in the UK and Australia who can’t and in fact rely on free school meals to feed their children. And these are people who are working since the minimum wage is not sufficient to live on. Just how many people from working class backgrounds do you think would have been able to rise up the class ladder without the benefit of a government funded education system?
Bullying unfortunately is commonplace in schools. It does not only happen in public schools. I know people who took their kids out of private schools because of bullying there and they were much happier in a state school. It is the fault of the individual school principal not the system.
One alternative: Vouchers that can be spent at any school of the parent’s choosing. The problem with government-run anything is that it’s a monopoly with all of the negative connotations that the word implies.
John,
Such vouchers still ensure that education is government funded and so is not an alternative. And just how much of your taxes would you like to see going to pay for the profits of the private school sector or do you imagine that schools are run at cost in the private sector?
One usually gets what they pay for. Paying taxes to have children ‘baby sat’ and indoctrinated is a waste of money. Perhaps paying more for a decent education would be worthwhile. Spending fewer years in school, and learning as much or more than in state-run schools, would be appreciated by both tax payers and students. But, then there is the consideration that maybe there is an ulterior motive to keep minors in school as long as possible.
Clyde,
How exactly do you think parents in most countries would be able to afford to pay for a decent education? In the UK for example the average salary for someone working full-time is 31000 pounds while the average price for a private education is over 15000 pounds. And then there is the fact that in the last few decades the price of private education has increased 4 fold. Do you really think a private education is 4 times better than it used to be?
Quote “Do you really think a private education is 4 times better than it used to be?”
You asked the wrong question there as it should have been about if that cost was better than sending your kid to a public school which in 90% of cases it would be.
Right now, I’m paying 5-figures per kid for little more than glorified day care. (and mediocre day care at that) So I’d be more than happy to see the sizable portion of my property tax money spent in any way where market forces impose discipline.
Vouchers work Izaak. Australian public health is superior to the UK, because people have complete freedom to shop around and choose between fully or partly funded GPs, with no UK style GP registration lockin. Bad Aussie doctors go broke, when patients vote with their feet.
Eric,
How do you know it is due to choice and not due to a larger budget. Australia spends about $500 USD more per person on healthcare than the UK and in return Australians live about one year longer. Which given the advantages of climate and lifestyle that the Australians have suggests that the Australian healthcare system is not actually significantly better than the NHS. And even in the NHS you are allowed to choose your GP and you don’t have to stick with a single practice.
Home schooling.
Teach kids high competency in the 3 Rs.
Then point them to reliable pathways for access to history & knowledge that has not been ‘re-imagined’ (i.e. NOT Google!)
Just who do you think is going to do the home schooling when both parents have to work to pay the bills?
Grandparents.
Like we do.
seeing as between the school fees for indoctrination of the kids as well as childcare /after school care etc costs damned near as much if not the entire womans yrly income IF shes got a reasonable mid level job…
staying home n schooling em better really is an option
Three “Rs” is outdated and misspelled
The last time I checked the old Merriam Webster
Writing started with a “W”
And Arithmetic started with an “A”
Correct Bryan.
You’re obviously home-schooled.
Izaak, my experiences in the UK with GPs and healthcare were almost all bad.
Australia has no onerous registration, and no GP catchment areas, and you can walk into a hospital without a referral if you are not getting the service you want from local GPs.
The best GPs get to charge a topup fee, above and beyond the government funding, so there is a strong incentive to maintain a good reputation.
Even though Aussie healthcare is government funded, there is genuine competition between GPs, and bad GP surgeries are allowed to fail.
Interestingly enough in Masterton NZ (population in the early 20,000’s) we have the largest medical centre in the southern hemisphere and I hate the place. There are so many doctors who all tend to specialize in different things that I would have thought that if you had a certain problem you would be sent to the doctor who specialized in that problem but it doesn’t work that way. They are set up in groups of four, so if your doctor isn’t available you get one of the other three. One of the three that was in my group had a tendency to jump to conclusions and I never want to see him again because I have no faith in that sort of doctor or person.
The only thing I like about it is it is tied up with this online portal ManageMyHealth where you can view all test results and doctors notes etc. online. So you can see a test result as soon as your doctor does. That is brilliant.
You have to be your own doctor. Doctors are fallible just like everyone else, so you are your last line of defense.
Not only fallible but total idiots like the one that I struck that jumped to conclusions. It was two minutes into the consultation that I decide that.
and so can everyone else with access SEE your info
and if its an OS corp owning the programs then your supposedly de identified info is sold to big pharma etc as well
you can ASK and get a fax or hardcopy of all your tests etc anyway
I do so I have my own in my hand for using to make sure the docs HAVE read it properly
out of pockets “specialist” a few weeks ago told me my left side …was an issue
well no it was NOT
its the right side
shows how little attention shed paid
so seeing a second specialist tomorrow armed with all the data n printouts
It used to be that working class children in the UK could rise up the “class ladder” by securing a place at a free and academically selective grammar school by passing the 11+ academic entrance exam. This exam was open to all school children, no matter what social class they came from. Grammar schools provided a free high-quality education that was comparable to the education a child could expect to receive in a private school. Many Labour politicians attended grammar schools, including that daft old marxist hypocrite Jeremy Corbyn.
Then left-wing “academics”, who had spent little time in a classroom and who had a bitter hatred of the concept of intellectual merit, pushed for the abolition of grammar schools. Grammar schools were gradually phased out. “Comprehensive” schools were then introduced, which every child was expected to attend whatever their intellectual ability.
The bitter lefties hailed the comprehensive schools as some sort of level playing field for all children. They conveniently ignored the hard fact that humans are not all intellectually equal – it was far easier for the lefties to believe in some sort of la la land where there was no intellectual bell curve. Predictably, the majority of these comprehensive schools provided a much poorer standard of education than grammar schools: they struggled to provide an education that could encompass children with such a wide level of academic ability.
Over the past quarter century I’ve taught in comprehensive, grammar, and private schools and can testify to the fact that comprehensive schools have been a complete failure. A few grammar schools still remain today, and they are universally excellent, thus proving the left-wing “educational experts” completely wrong.
NB Thatcher was involved in the closing of grammar schools, which she later bitterly regretted – those of us on the right are brave enough to admit our mistakes.
We spend about 14k per student per year in the US. That would cover the expense in a non government school.
vouchers to allow people to send their children to private schools is rapidly gaining in popularity according to a poll on tv today where even a majority of Democrats favor giving parents the choice of what school their children attend.
No doubt, the Teacher’s Unions keeping kids out of school for much longer than necessary over the Wuhan virus scare, is influencing people to realize they need more education choices than Teacher’s Unions give them.
So the Teacher’s Unions are shooting themselves in the foot by continuing to keep teachers from going back to class. Parents are looking for alternatives.
Just read that one state (don’t remember which) is saying that even September 2021 is uncertain.
Izzak,
as a (likely) product of public education, you do not make a positive example to your point. Government education is not in any way consistently better AND cheaper than it was in the past.
Ridiculous exaggeration is not an effective debate tool (unless/until your audience is already on your side).
Give the guy a break – he seems like he’s a product of it …..
…or a beneficiary of the government monopoly.
…or paid to post disinformation.
Please, please, please, don’t go there!
The whole “paid troll” meme is tedious.
That’s what ‘they’ do with “Russian interference” and ‘fact checking’.
I appreciate, for example, Nick Stokes, who comes here with a willingness to engage and argue his side. I disagree fairly consistently with his take on things, but I deplore the ad hominem vitriol that always greets his posts.
….and the one day that Izaak actually talk sense, everybody jumps on him…
But also, there are a number of paid trolls on this site. Trolling for money is a growth industry, it “guides the narrative”. On TwatFaceGram they are called ‘fact checkers’, but in the wild, they are called “tryingtoplaynice’ or ‘griff’ or even ‘anti-griff’.
Then you get the ones working for free… because, consensus science!
Who pays all these trolls? Is this a serious charge? Is there an organized effort to spread alarmist disinformation here and throughout the rest of the internet?
I’m not dismissing the notion. I wouldn’t put it past some unscrupulous, leftwing rich person to pay people to voice a certain opinion onllne, but I have never seen any hard evidence that this takes place.
So I’m asking.
Serious charge? No, it is just a tap-down for people who irritate one on a bad day. As for “paid”, yes, a number of people have come out to tell us about their experiences in centralised troll farms, where each employee is assigned a batch of sites to troll, or given parameters to judge and earmark sites for trolling by others. This site is a prime example, some user names even have multiple posters, as seen by the writing style and pet sound bites.
Proof? Search for any of the documents published by various health departments and think tanks on “steering the narrative” on, for example, covidiocy, mass vaccinations, carbon taxes… Of course, they are not as blatant as to use terms like ‘trolling’, no, they say they “insert realism into the conversation” or “counter misinformation” or just “fact checking”.
Then you get the professionals, like Snopes, who trawl the net for ‘misinformation’ that gets too many hits, and then they publish a hit-piece, where they deliver the real Truth unto their believers. Google is sure to put that one at the top!
Who pays them? Baal Gates openly sponsors a number of these organisations, so do various monopoly industries, like Monsanto, Syngenta, Moderna, Pfizer, Raytheon, basically anyone that makes a living from death and destruction.
Then there are the governmentals, who are ever ready to make sure we “follow the science” of whatever brain fart their economists came up with this time.
The biggest group, of course, and this is my pet peeve, the hordes, hordes I say, of Montessori-educated, libtard, wokist, climastrologist, eugenicist scum commonly known as Bolsheviks. You recognise them by how they love everything and everyone, which they then poetically expound upon, seeding each post with just one little kernel of “Truth” as understood by those who believe the world to be dangerously overpopulated by dissidents and patriots.
Examples? I dunno, just look at all the people on this thread praising the wonders of privatised education and dissing publically educated plebs, each with a little private tale of suffering and redemption by corporate indoctrination, sorry, private schooling. Many actually do it with the best of intentions, just like Ma’m Montessori taught them.
Here’s an example! Take note how many posts on covidiocy try to shame vaccine dissenters by telling us about their friends who succumbed to the horrible covid1984 plague, always with the heart strings, eh? That is actually an official technique amply described in the departmental manuals I mentioned earlier.
Consider this: The operations manual by the NHS for convincing the public to stand behind universal vaccination has four head writers; an oncologist, and three, count them, three psychologists. To tell us about virology? That’s serious professional trolling, brother! I quote:
I underlined the trolling bit, from the intro, the document gets specific later on. I have it on PDF, cannot find the link.
Also, you may be aware They actually did a “clinical study” on something like seven different approaches to shame and accuse people they call “anti-vaxxers” otherwise known as people with working memories and lack of followsomeness. “You are killing granny by not vaccinating” is a popular one.
P.S. I also see myself as a (unpaid) troll; I jump on every Bolshie I can sniff, sometimes getting it wrong, but I need the practice. As we used to say: “Why should the devil have all the good music?”
There is no way to know with any certainty if any individual is or is not paid to post, of course, and such a person would never admit to being one. Yet the way some tow the party line so perfectly while refusing to consider that the party line might be wrong does lead one to consider the possibility.
Tossing the idea out and observing the reactions can be interesting…
This just in…
https://www.naturalnews.com/2021-04-09-bill-gates-george-soros-organization-policing-disinformation.html
Are you from Mars?
More likely from Venus.
Two fine examples of the over-educated who stayed too long in academia …. the real world works a bit different.
Fact: In this decade the cost of education rose 8 times faster than wages
over-educated dropkick translation: Governments have consistently made education better and cheaper
Yes, the government made it easy for anyone to go to college by providing loans to go to school, and the colleges saw that the students had plenty of money, so the colleges decided they could raise the price of eductation and the government would pay for it.
And that’s what has happened.
Then the college students graduate with a huge debt hanging over their head. Self-inflicted, or course. They volunteered for the debt.
Meanwhile, the colleges make out like bandits.
Izaak, I dispute strongly your first statement.In the US, cost per child ranges from $8000 to $27000. There is no correlation to outcomes and learning. And in most school systems the grad rates and learning proficiency are abysmal.
For your question, look up Hillsdale College. They take no government money and provide an excellent liberal arts education. They even teach the Constitution.
When you wake up your dreaming again, I’ll get you a cup of coffee and then I’ll let you pay off my kids kid’s college loans. Oh while your at it spend a couple million to buy them a shack in California.
Quote “Governments have consistently made education better”.
What universe do you live on.
In NZ back in the early 1900’s these twelve year olds were asked these algebra questions and in about the 1980’s these trainee teachers were asked the same questions. Guess which group did better. I will give you a clue. It puts a lie to your first sentence above.
The “mass sell off” you refer to gave people the chance to own their property and get off the government teat. This allowed them to sell the property if they wished and move up the economic ladder. Thatcher quite rightly saw that private enterprise is the way to grow an economy and raise living standards. The 1970s was run by Labour and it resulted in eternal strikes and rubbish piling up in the streets.
BTW Arthur Scargill, the arch socialist and professional Thatcher-hater tried to use Thatcher’s right to buy policy to buy his (very expensive) flat. Why are lefties always the biggest hypocrites?
Oh, really? Having spent several decades in education, all I saw as government took over from local control were unfunded mandates to capitulate to the demands of special interest groups that took away from basic education. That’s why we have so many utterly ignorant, uneducated twits running around who can’t spell, speak or write coherently, tell you who fought the war between the states, find Alaska on a map, nor name the three branches of government.
Sorry, that reply should have been to Izaak Walton
“…the entrepreneurial spirit of government employees…” ????
Now there’s an oxymoron.
Regards,
Bob
That was my immediate thought. She needs to lay off the magic mushrooms.
To be fair, they are quite inventive when it comes to thinking up new taxes.
I just finished re reading Dicken’s Little Dorrit. His description of the Circumlocution Office was prescient.
That was my second reaction, Bob. My first reaction was a laughing fit.
But then I thought about all those government employees that spend their day running their online businesses and e-bay sales – using government (taxpayer supplied) computers – and I realized that the spark of entrepreneurship still lives in some of our public servants.
“the entrepreneurial spirit of government employees”
Something similar to the piety of prostitutes?
Rich, when you compare Climate Cyan Tits to prostitutes, just remember that the prostitutes are at least actually providing something (sex). Have we received anything of value from all the money thrown at ‘Climate Science’?
Wait up… I shouldn’t be so hard on the Climate Cyan Tits. After all, they have provided us with many, many hours of laughter.
Obvious that this lady became an economist because she could not cut it as a real world engineer.
In the US we have had the National Renewable Energy Lab (NREL) for decades. Every technology spin out of the Lab so far has failed. All they mostly do is produce erroneous reports like on how wind will get cheaper or solar cells more efficient. I used one of their bogus wind studies in Climate Etc post ‘True Cost of Wind’ to show how both NREL and EIA deliberately mislead the public on renewables by misstating or cherry picking facts.
NREL began as the Solar Energy Research Institute in 1974.
I worked for a spin out company for a few years and a lot of money was successfully transferred from taxpayers and investors through Wall Street to bankers, executives and employees as well. We didn’t net any energy gain, but we had fun doing it.
That’s not erroneous! They are getting cheaper and more efficient.
Just not enough.
With all the tax exemptions, rebates and what not thrown at renewables, whether they are really cheaper and better is probably completely up to debate. Once you’ve obscured reality sufficiently, all bets are off.
There are a couple exceptions: First Solar began at the Univ. of Toledo as a subcontractor to SERI/NREL developing CdS/CdTe solar cells (a long time ago) as part of the Thin-Film PV Program. Another is the GaP/GaAs/Ge triple cell that came out of the internal High Efficiency III-V semiconductor research and was spun out to Spectrolab (now Boeing). These were only useful for space applications because of the high cost; the first Mars Rovers successfully used them for their power supplies, for example.
Today the PV program has been transformed by DoE toward The Search for The Magic Battery (of interest here at WUWT of course), and making low efficiency cheap perovskite solar cells that degrade quickly, with lots of bureaucratic overhead and paper studies.
Yep, having been peripherally associated with those folks, total failure in cellulosic ethanol production, and the grants they supposedly give out to companies are actually grants that they give to themselves. If a company wants to play the game, they have to pay to play (20%).
My recollection is that the folks managing the early space program aggressively hewed to off-the-shelf technology. In other words, they avoided using technology that wasn’t already well understood. Am I correct in remembering it that way?
If you do not need technological breakthroughs, something like a moonshot can work.
If you need technological breakthroughs, better management and more resources will likely guarantee failure. Greatness cannot be planned.
…the entrepreneurial spirit of government employees…
OMG – how dumb is this lady. People become government employees because they DON’T HAVE. entrepreneurial spirit.
dumb enough to trouser likely $200k / year of our taxes….
That’s actually a form of graft, not an indication of intelligence.
Yes, but if you take it to the level of “you only have one life”, this imposter parasite can safely say that she was highly successful in stealing money from her fellow humans, and that’s all.
Bet she lives in a nice house though.
Governments and diapers need to be changed frequently.
And for the same reasons.
How many govt employees does it take to change a light bulb?
Answer: 5…..one to stand on a chair and hold the bulb and four to stand on the floor and turn the chair.
But, it the light bulb really wants to change, it can do it on its own — if the government doesn’t get in the way!
No. No way am I going to do the how many blondes does it take to change a lightbulb joke …….
.
No way
.
It’s two actually
Now is that righty tighty/lefty loosey?
I fully agree with economist Mariana Mazzucato that a huge investment should be made to fix climate change, poverty and ocean plastics. She and her supporters must show by their investment that this will work.
The rest of us will, until we are convinced, rather spend our moneys wisely.
Just picking on one specific; is “ocean plastics” a real problem?
I’m asking people who make a living at sea; not PBS watchers.
I have read that a high percentage of ocean debris is generated by those that make their living at sea.
Google searches for ‘Pacific garbage patch’ reliably return pictures of Manila harbor or some beach somewhere. Even NOAA has a page that acknowledges that the plastic is not actually visible.
I live a five-minute walk from the Pacific; the garbage I see is mostly from the fishing industry.
As this study points out there are physical limits to the energy that can be got from wind and solar as currently employed.
Also even if they could reach optimum efficiency the ratio of energy return on energy invested including storage for both cannot sustain a modern economy, for instance PV panels in locations of moderate insolation like UK are net energy sinks.
Thanks for posting that, that is one of my favourite analysis but I lost the link a few months ago.
That study definitely goes into my collection.
There is a section titled “Moore’s Law Misapplied”. The starry eyed idiots who think Moore’s Law applies to all technology are ignorant of Eroom’s Law. Moore’s Law is an anomaly. It’s opposite, Eroom’s Law, is more prevalent in developing technology. When I was a pup, everyone knew about the Law of Diminishing Returns. I don’t recall hearing anyone talk about that for a while. Anyway, Eroom’s Law is something like that.
The people advocating renewable energy have no understanding of how technology develops. They just have faith that it will do so. Why then do they lack faith that we will learn to adapt to whatever the climate throws at us. Adaptation is demonstrably more likely and cheaper than practical renewable energy.
Yet another economist providing pseudo-intellectual cover for government central planning using inflation this time applying the label “sustainable growth”. Magic money theory is en-vogue at the moment as governments across the world are creating lots of new spending plans through debt with no intention of ever paying it off, as if they need any excuse to tax, borrow and spend . . .
Modern Monetary Theory. Venezuela just didn’t do it right! [/sarc]
I was just having a discussion with a colleague earlier today, and we got on to 1930s Germany and remembered that before real communications, the libtardian reptiles had everyone convinced that the National Socialist Party wasn’t a socialist party.
I really miss the spazz icon.
It’s easy to argue that Venezuela didn’t do it right. The correct way to view Venezuela is as the continuation of arguably the most malign experiment in human history.
How many times has Marxism been tried? How many times has it succeeded?
The ratio of Marxist successes to Marxist attempts is zero.
link
This woman is ignorant. She thinks the government invented the internet and GPS. No, the gov simply didn’t excessively prohibit multiple independent inventors from continuing, although it did try.
Here’s a lovely example of Government At Wurk..
The Western Link
At the rate that that joke is helping Climate, Neil Armstrong would never have got closer to the Moon than the top of my stairs.
Not doing bill-payers any favours either
What went wrong when folks get paid for actively doing nothing? ##
beyond crazy
## Is that actually an admission that windmills are= Bad For Climate?
I also think the photo of this woman is just actor Liam Neeson in drag.
Only another woman could get away with that! White female privilege. 🙂
“entrepreneurial spirit of government employees should be harnessed”
and what would that sinecured eejit know about “entrepreneurial spirit” ? – if the subject to hand were conceited entitlement laced with arrogance one might have to acknowledge some self evident subject expertise.
I could lob ad-homs but I’d be just re-inventing the wheel
pfff … I wonder how much she trousers every year essentially from our taxes for spouting so much tosh?
Professor Mazzucato has been seen elsewhere
WOW, that’s an interesting read.
yup… the lady has previous
In the case of the moonshot, there has to be a passenger: Mariana Mazzucato
I had a senior GFC job in government for a couple of years and met some very committed individuals, not many though, the rest had made an artform of dodging work and were extremely unreliable in a portfolio that required reliability and a problem solving ability … guess that’s why they dodged work.
Don’t make me laugh, “the entrepreneurial spirit of government employees should be harnessed, to solve big problems … “
The structure of government makes it virtually impossible to get anything done. There is a ton of red tape for even small decisions. Politics and power drive the decision making process.
About the best thing government could do would be to cut all the regulations to make it easier for businesses to innovate.
“The structure of government makes it virtually impossible to get anything done. There is a ton of red tape for even small decisions. Politics and power drive the decision making process.”
That sums it up pretty good.
The best innovators are those who have skin in the game. Private enterprise has skin in the game, government employees usually don’t have skin in the game, so they don’t push nearly as hard to get something accomplished.
Because they knew both rocket technology developed through many trials and Newton’s Laws worked.
Yep…
Lots of money made NASA confident.
The reason they did so well is because their boss, President Kennedy, had a personal interest in it, and the nation had a personal interest in it after President Kennedy was assasinated. That guaranteed that the mission to the Moon would be attempted, in honor of President Kennedy.
Renewable as in drivers? As in intermittent? The rocket can take brakes to remain viable. Now, how does it escape the Earth’s gravity well? Carbon credits?
Oh, renewable as in rocket fuel, pumped to replenish (“renewable”) its reservoirs.
All a person has to do is spend a week working for a startup company, then spend a week working for the government. Report back on the differences between the two work environments.
Like night and day.
“… the entrepreneurial spirit of government employees” … now that is an oxymoron!
Here, a few years back, a county dept manager told a couple of maintenance guys to dispose of a large piece of equipment (maybe heating/AC). They saw it, took their private assessment, loaded it up, and sold it and kept the money.
That’s the extent of the entrepreneurial spirit that you will find in govt employees.
Mariana Mazzucato’s website says, “History tells us that innovation is an outcome of a massive collective effort…”
Dead wrong. Probably also perversely wrong.
History tells us that innovation comes form curiosity-based research, and from nowhere else. Curiosity-based research is the invariable province of the individual.
Massive collective effort is the holy grail of the progressive tyrant and of the bureaucrat in search of a sinecure.
Given Prof. Mariana Mazzucato’s obsession with reforming Capitalism, I’d surmise she is of the former persuasion. The attack on Capitalism is merely a stalking horse for the attack on individualism. Collectivists cannot live in peace with individualists. Social slavers cannot live in peace with personal freedom.
Isn’t it fatuous that those who call for reform of independent corporatism wish to do so by turning all of society into a corporation. Of course, it’s the corporation they, the progressives, control. And that, of course, can only be to the good.
‘Massive collective effort’. Tell that to Einstein, Tesla, Edison, Ford…
Exactly. And Galileo and Volta, and Rutherford and Gilbert, and even all the way back to Thales of Miletus.
Even in the corporate world, I can tell you that true innovation is normally* the product of an individual’s creativity. Certainly the corporation can bring resources to bear in order to optimize the innovation, but the heart of it is invariably from an individual.
rip
*I am not precluding the possibility of a group of people collectively coming up with an innovation…I’ve just never really seen a collective innovation comparing with an individual one.
Carbon taxes!!! Gender diaspora (Tavistock). The Beatles (Tavistock).
There you have three innovations by committee. Gods I hate the Beatles!
P.S. Turns out the girlies throwing panties onto the stage, were paid beforehand.
Gave you a plus, but get Edison off your list, he was a “collective genius”, in that he admitted to never inventing nothing, instead employing inventors and patenting their work for himself. Einstein as well, unless you give credit to his wife for doing the actual heavy carrying.
“never inventing nothing” is a double negative, meaning Edison was always inventing everything. Grammer is so important, wouldn’t you agree?
Some of Edison’s greatest inventions.
That Mileva Einstein-Maric did the work on Relativistic Mechanics is a large theory based on thin evidence. Also here.
Albert Einstein’s Nobel was for showing that QM explains the photoelectric effect. Not for Relativity Theory.
Know what I dig even more? Grammar! You know what’s even betterer? A sense of humour…
As for ole Albertus? Never a fan, I prefer Tesla, his universe makes better sense, the little we know. Not that it is relevant to this …er … anyway, Edison is on record, as far as we can trust records, for owning patents, not inventing the stuff his paid staff came up with, or bought from other inventors, and more than one whisper of outright… copyright disrespect, shall we say?
But I forgive you, as I see below you posted one of my most bestest favourite diagrammes; the Corporate Selfgratification, albeit with millennial captions.
Good catch. I posted a typo.
Preferring Tesla over Einstein is no reason for slander.
As for Edison’s inventions:
The Edison effect and its modern applications
Abstract: We are so accustomed to thinking of Thomas A. Edison as the father of the incandescent lamp and of the electric lighting industry that we sometimes forget that his first achievements were in the field of the electrical communication of intelligence, and that in this field he is no less distinguished. To say nothing of his inventions in multiplex and automatic telegraphy, it is well to recall that the field of telephony owes no less to the fundamental inventions of Mr. Edison than to those of Alexander Graham Bell. Bell, it is true, invented the telephone receiver of today, but Edison invented the transmitter, and afterwards invented a highly efficient receiver on a principle entirely different from that of Dr. Bell’s.
Published in: Journal of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers ( Volume: 41, Issue: 1, Jan. 1922)
1922: well before the revisionist disparagerie turned their sights on accomplished men.
American Journal 1922? That’s like quoting the New York Times 2021. Or any liberal rag on St. Obama. Or Google on Hillary Clinton. Or Baal Gates on vaccines. Or Michael Mann on carbon dioxide. Or yourself on slander?
And your fact-and-reason-free rejection is based upon mere personal disparagement.
The Journal of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers still has standing at IEEE.
The journal has a continuous publication record since 1905, and after some name changes is now IEEE Spectrum.
You accused Einstein, without evidence, of taking credit for his wife’s work. That’s slander.
Social slavers?
The perfect description.
Thank you
And then there is the image of the animal designed by a committee: a camel!
And then there’s the swing designed by a committee. 🙂
Pat,
Ms. Mazzucato, like all Keynesian Klowns, suffers from the Fatal Conceit that an economy can be centrally planned. We have a century of experience that such efforts always end in death and misery.
Frank, it’s a sign of their pathology that such people never see the tragically obvious.
The irony is that they don’t even apply Keynes they way he intended.
They heard the “spend during deficits” part, but misinterpreted the “save during plenty” as “spend even more”.
That too, Jim. Besides the cover they provide to government central planning, the other issue is aggregation, or how they treat capital, which they have to assume so they can “math up” their analyses. From their viewpoint an equal dollar amount of CCGTs, wind turbines or ex-nihlo bank deposits are all equivalent amounts of capital.
She needs to be told that part of the Apollo team decided, out of curiosity, to tackel the climate emergency and has already succeeded. Hal Doiron and The Right Climate Stuff team clearly demonstrated there is no climate crisis caused by burning fossil fuels. Now that is news worth noting.
“If humans can land on the Moon, why can’t they also solve some of the huge challenges here on Earth” Possibly because they didn’t.
The reason is because government gets in the way. People, and bureaucrats, are often their own worst enemy.
My favourite response to the moon landing conspiracy was when someone accused Buzz Aldrin to his face of being a liar. Judge fined Buzz Aldrin a dollar.
The moon landing was watched in real time by thousands of amateur astronomers world-wide, nicholas.