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.
Which country and group of taxpayers is she directing this to? If it’s the US, it will need to get in line at spending surge bill number 32 at least.
The analogy to “fixing climate change” IS NOT the Apollo Moonshot endevour.
The correct analogy is to “fixing climate change” is ‘parking Rastafarian medley soup’.
The term “Fixing climate change” non-nonsensical.
“Renewable Energy Moonshot”
I am in complete agreement. Everyone who supports intermittent wind and solar energy in place of stable reliable energy should be herded into a rocket ship and sent to the Moon to live.
I vote for the “B Ark.”
Pro Big Government Economist Calls For blah blah blah
Big Pro Government Economist should spend more time catching up with the empirical findings and that the thing she calls climate change doesn’t actually exist.
Yes, establishing that the Earth’s climate is a problem and that humans can do something to fix it, ought to be the first thing done before mounting an “all hands on deck” effort to fix something that may not need fixing.
Obviously, this woman has bought into the Human-caused Climate Change narrative without any real understanding of the issues. She is not alone, unfortunately.
“the entrepreneurial spirit of government employees”. A classic oxymoron.
Off topic. I think that this is in need for a post.
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/04/05/asia/japan-cherry-blossoms-climate-change-intl-hnk-scn/index.html
In this case the claim in the title is completly contradicted by the graphic of the publication itself, which I find hilarious. There are at least 4 or five points below the present one in the graphic.
Do journalists know how to read graphs?
Why not post it in the recent article about cherry
pickingblossoms?Exactly! kkkkk
“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.”
Memo to Mariana:
They don’t have any entrepreneurial spirit. If they did, they would be — wait for it — entrepreneurs, not bureaucrat drones.
When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. Leave it to an economist to perceive that a solution can be achieved by adding enough money.
A solution presumes that there is a problem. The only place a problem is identified is in bogus monstrous computer models. The solution to that is simple: Stop fiddling with the bogus models.
For starters, use the measured water vapor (TPW) instead of calculating it assuming constant relative humidity (which is about 2/3 measured. RH is a dopy way of doing it but that is another story).
“entrepreneurial spirit of government employees”
That is what you call an oxymoron.
“entrepreneurial spirit of government employees”
That looks like a candidate for a list of oxymorons.
“..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.
Mariana is also not the first to articulate non sequiturs.
One simple question for economist Mariana Mazzucato: What, specifically, is the big problem of “climate change”?
I’ll give her a suggested answer:
“The big problem of climate change for me, is how much longer can I keep lying about it and still have positive cash flow into my bank account”
Latch on to NASA’s Apollo program give the impression of prestige in selling the unknown. NASA was confident because they were skilled and competent.
This is off-the-charts hilarious.
The ENTREPRENEURIAL spirit of government employees?
It took a Bill Gates to create Microsoft, a Steve Jobs to create Apple, a Jeff Bezos to create Amazon.
There are no such people in government
Government employees are functionaries.
They do things by the book
They are afraid of their own shadow
Give them power, and they will spend way out of proportion to reality.
Give them one or two $TRILLION for infrastructure to play with, and guaranteed, they will waste 50% of it.
If GW is to tackled, only private enterprise can do it, by means of ingenuity.
Government command/control, a la Communism, Socialism, etc., will never do it.
The “entrepreneurial spirit of government employees”….Comedy GOLD!
In 1961, after JFK became US President, there was widespread belief among Americans that the US was losing the space race to the Soviets. President Kennedy asked NASA with all its Mercury Program engineers working on manned space flight if it was possible to go to the Moon within a decade.
They came back after study and said,”Yes, Mr President it was.”
JFK gave his famous “We choose to go the Moon…” speech at Rice Stadium in Houston, Texas, on September 12, 1962.
And so the “Moon shot” program began that saw Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin step foot on the Moon in July 1969.
This economist idiot, College of London Economist Mariana Mazzucato, not even an engineer or understanding the engineering impossibility of going 100% Wind and Solar, is advocating for that nonsense. It is impossible for any industrial-technical nation without significant hydro-electric resources or willingness to build lots of nuclear power to become so reliant on Wind and Solar and have anything remotely resembling a reliable electricity grid service.
My only conclusion is Ms Mazzucto must be feeling like the Climate Fanatics are losing the Climate Scam game, like Americans felt they were losing the Space Race in 1962. The difference being then in 1962 we wanted to beat the Communists, not become like them.
“My only conclusion is Ms Mazzucto must be feeling like the Climate Fanatics are losing the Climate Scam game”
I think that is correct. All these years and the alarmists still can’t get traction with the public about Human-caused Climate Change.
The alarmists are losing because they can’t prove what they claim and this is becoming more obvious every day.
The Climategate Charlatans made a good run of it, but now the scam is about to run up against reality. CO2 is increasing, yet the temperatures are not. Nothing unprecedented to see here.
“government employees” and “entrepreneurial spirit” are mutually exclusive.
A renewable Energy Moonshot, eh!
Well, who would have thought?
I wrote two articles about just that thing at my home site, titled A Moonshot Too Far, Parts one and two.
I detailed roughly what it might take to replace coal fired power in the U.S. with renewable power.
If any of you wish to read those articles here are the links to them.
A Moonshot Too Far – Part One
A Moonshot Too Far – Part Two
Just out of interest go and have a look. And after you read a few lines, the whole article, whatever, then go right back to the top, and look at the date I wrote them, in July of 2008, thirteen years ago. (and all the data and maths involved in those two Posts are based on 2008 data from the EIA)
The first article has a link to a story on the ABC website (the Australian ABC media network that is) that prompted me to write them, and it details Al Gore calling for the U.S. to move completely to renewable within ten years. (hence by 2018) Good to see that worked out so well, eh!
Sometimes, history repeats.
Same call, same no result.
Tony.
So the author should have known what she proposes is completely unrealistic, if she had bothered to do a little research.
The author is a typical clueless alarmist. They don’t question the basic assumption that humans are causing the Earth’s climate to change in some observable way, and that is their first mistake. There is no evidence for this, yet they assume there is. They start out believing a false premise, and get farther from the truth as they go down this path.
Of course, the author has a lot of special interests feeding her these climate change lies. The Earth’s climate is a complicated subject very easily distorted by promoters of the Human-caused Climate Change narrative. They have managed to fool this author into believing something for which there is no evidence.
The author needs to start reading WUWT ASAP.
Thanks for that. Whenever this moonshot comparison comes up, like to point out that the cost of the Apollo programme was trivial compared to what the global warming lunatics hav planned.
“Is solving the alleged climate crisis a project which fires people’s imagination like the moon landing?”
Not a snowball’s chance in Hell with the public circus-
ROSS CLARK: How absurd you may be banned from selling your own home (msn.com)
“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.”
That is so dumb.
And, why is there no expression of “governmental spirit”?
What would that convey?
A permanent detachment from reality?
The moinshot was self interest- it is space agenvy- without doing big achievements they have no jobs. The American public wasnt enthused by sending people to the moon even after it landed on the moon.The greater good would have been shut yourselves down as many thought it was a waste of money. There was no real space race.
It is not the government’s job to indulge in entrepreneurial activity. Government’s job is to provide the soft and hard infrastructure scaffolding upon which entrepreneurs can thrive.
Quote “the entrepreneurial spirit of government employees”
I can’t believe anyone could be stupid enough to say something like that as if they had an entrepreneurial spirit they wouldn’t be working for Govt.
1st Fire all the Lawyers in Government.
2nd step have the EPA count off 1 through 10, fire all but the 10’s since the 1’s probably tried to fix it.
Then hire some engineers who know what it takes to make a power system run. Fire all those that oppose them.
Follow their directions to repair the grid and restore a sensible power generation system.
How’s that for an entrepreneurial spirit!
Misunderstood the title for a minute. I thought she was calling for a rocket with a wind turbine to power it.