Uploaded July 2020 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
This is a continuation of an interview with Brian Czech, the president of CASSE (Centre for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy). He served in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from 1999-2017, and as a visiting professor of natural resource economics in Virginia Tech’s National Capitol Region. He is the author of Supply Shock, Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train, and The Endangered Species Act: History, Conservation Biology, and Public Policy, as well as over 50 academic journal articles. . Part one of the interview is here - youtube.com/watch?v=2w0Rbz9w73A&t=158s
Here’s an introduction to steady-state economics: lowimpact.org/lowimpact-topic/steady-state-economics
Here's a transcript of the interview, with links to organisations mentioned in the video: lowimpact.org/brian-czech-casse-green-growth-oxymoron
We’re interviewing key players in the new economy, to:
a) bring their work to a wider audience
b) try to find ways to co-ordinate their efforts
c) stimulate debate
d) help to build the new economy.
Here’s what we mean by new economy - lowimpact.org/lowimpact-topic/new-economy
Lowimpact.org: lowimpact.org
CASSE: steadystate.org
Highlights
1. What Jevons said about coal applies macroeconomically as well. He said that efficiency in the use of a resource never actually reduces the use of that resource – it always does the opposite, because it becomes cheaper to use.
2. It takes heavy investment just to raise the bar a little more, because all the easily-available natural capital has been liquidated a long time ago. To provide the funds for that investment, more activity is required at the base of the economy, which causes ecological damage.
3. Wall St. is a barrier, and neoclassical economics is still pumping out academics who still believe in the landless production function, and who believe that the economy can be dematerialised, and that we can have ‘green growth’. But we can see that barrier crumbling rapidly now.
This is a continuation of an interview with Brian Czech, the president of CASSE (Centre for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy). He served in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service from 1999-2017, and as a visiting professor of natural resource economics in Virginia Tech’s National Capitol Region. He is the author of Supply Shock, Shoveling Fuel for a Runaway Train, and The Endangered Species Act: History, Conservation Biology, and Public Policy, as well as over 50 academic journal articles. . Part one of the interview is here - youtube.com/watch?v=2w0Rbz9w73A&t=158s
Here’s an introduction to steady-state economics: lowimpact.org/lowimpact-topic/steady-state-economics
Here's a transcript of the interview, with links to organisations mentioned in the video: lowimpact.org/brian-czech-casse-green-growth-oxymoron
We’re interviewing key players in the new economy, to:
a) bring their work to a wider audience
b) try to find ways to co-ordinate their efforts
c) stimulate debate
d) help to build the new economy.
Here’s what we mean by new economy - lowimpact.org/lowimpact-topic/new-economy
Lowimpact.org: lowimpact.org
CASSE: steadystate.org
Highlights
1. What Jevons said about coal applies macroeconomically as well. He said that efficiency in the use of a resource never actually reduces the use of that resource – it always does the opposite, because it becomes cheaper to use.
2. It takes heavy investment just to raise the bar a little more, because all the easily-available natural capital has been liquidated a long time ago. To provide the funds for that investment, more activity is required at the base of the economy, which causes ecological damage.
3. Wall St. is a barrier, and neoclassical economics is still pumping out academics who still believe in the landless production function, and who believe that the economy can be dematerialised, and that we can have ‘green growth’. But we can see that barrier crumbling rapidly now.
