New study: Less work and longer holidays could reduce global warming by half

The Washington D.C. based think tank Center for Economic and Policy Research has published a report by David Rosnick, called "Reduced Work Hours as a Means of Slowing Climate Change". Rosnick is of the opinion that holding back consumption by way of reduced working hours " would eliminate about one-quarter to one-half of the global warming": 

"This choice between fewer work hours versus increased consumption has significant implications for the rate of climate change.  A number of studies (e.g. Knight et al. 2012, Rosnick and Weisbrot2006) have found that shorter work hours are associated with lower greenhouse gas emissions and therefore less global climate change. The relationship between these two variables is complex and not clearly understood, but it is understandable that lowering levels of consumption, holding everything else constant, would reduce greenhouse gas emissions.This paper estimates the impact on climate change of reducing work hours over the rest of the century by an annual average of 0.5 percent. It finds that such a change in work hours would eliminate about one-quarter to one-half of the global warming that is not already locked in (i.e. warming that would be caused by 1990 levels of greenhouse gas concentrations already in the atmosphere)."

Rosnick recommends a "European response to productivity gains" as a solution:


"a significant reduction in climate change is possible by choosing a  more European response to productivity gains rather than following a model more like that of the United States.  By itself, a combination of shorter workweeks and additional vacation which reduces average annual hours by just  0.5 percent per year would very likely mitigate one-quarter to one-half, if not more, of  any warming which is not yet locked-in."

What Rosnick does not tell us is that choosing "a more European response" also would mean this:

After five years of economic crisis and the return of a recession in 2012, unemployment is hitting new peaks not seen for almost 20 years in the EU. That's according to the 2012 edition of the Employment and Social Developments in Europe review.

Household incomes have also declined and and the risk of poverty or exclusion is on the rise, especially in member states in southern and eastern Europe.

I would not be surprised if Rosnick in a follow up study will come to the conclusion that a return to the stone age would eliminate the other half of human caused global warming. 

The EU is shamefully failing young people: Eurozone youth unemployment close to 25%

While EU commission president José Manuel Barroso is bragging ( and lying) about the end of the euro crisis, he - and all the other European leaders - do not have anything to say about this: 

The eurozone unemployment rate hit a new record high of 11.8% (November 2012) with  18.820 million people out of work 

Youth unemployment rate in the eurozone is now 24.4%.

The youth unemployment "leaderboard":

Greece (57.6%) 

Spain (56.5%)

Italy (37,1%)

SHAME ON YOU, BARROSO AND THE REST, FOR FAILING THE YOUNG PEOPLE OF EUROPE!

PS

Ambrose Evans-Pritchard, who is refering to the dismal employment statistics cited above, comments in his Telegraph column:

Mr Barroso may be right that the euro will not implode in 2013. But what matters henceforth is whether the victim nations wish to stay in a project that is causing so much damage, or indeed whether is any moral purpose in holding the euro together at this stage.

The march towards fiscal union (overtly, or by ECB stealth) strips elected parliaments of the final control over tax and spending. It thus eviscerates democracy. The Project breaks the back of historic nation states that are the only real defence of liberal representative government.

So one has to ask, what is the euro for? Why is it self-evidently a positive public good for the peoples of Europe?

Why sacrifice the lifeblood of parliaments for an economic experiment that is not even offering a `Chinese' trade-off of prosperity in exchange for abridged liberties. Why sacrifice democracy for a Barroso Model that has generated a youth jobless rate of 56.5pc in Spain?

These are the questions that Mr Barroso and his successor will have to answer over the next three years as the Club Med slump grinds on. We are no longer in the frothy – dare I say trivial – phase of financial crisis. We are by now in the deadly serious phase of economic and political crisis.

Quote of the week: The International Trade Union Confederation's employment forecast

The International Trade Union Confederation is worried about employment opportunities in the post Doha world. ITUC General Secretary Sharan Burrow has just presented their new forecast:

“There will be no jobs in a dead planet"
Sharan Burrow,  General Secretary, International Trade Union Confederation (ITUC)

PS
One kind of wonders, for how long various national trade unions are prepared to pay, probably a very considerable salary to a representative, who has thrown in his lot with WWF, Greenpeace, Oxfam and the other warmist greenies. 

Bob Lutz on the "green jobs" scam

Bob Lutz, the legendary automotive industry top executive, explains why "green jobs" are - and will remain - a failure: 

But as result of the belief that fossil fuels are bringing on global warming, governments, federal and state, have created a new job category called “green.” This category flies in the face of all accepted economic theory, in that the goal of this employment is not to increase economic efficiency (thereby providing lower costs, higher profitability, an increase in capital which, in turn, permits more investment and still more jobs) but, instead, to DISPLACE energy sources that are cheaper and more readily available.

“Green” job creation, almost always supported by massive government subsidies, does not further economic activity — it is actually harmful. Assigning massive amounts of capital, private or government, to a business or industry with a negative payback is a misallocation of resources, much like a car company spending hundreds of millions on a vehicle that either fails to sell, or sells at less than it costs to produce.

The wind turbine industry, as well as the current generation of solar cells, are prime examples of “new” industries created in the name of “sustainability.” With massive infusions of taxpayer capital, accompanied by mandates that energy companies have to use a certain percentage of the output “or else,” new “green” workers are hired. Their product costs more than the market price of traditional energy sources, so the economic effect is negative. Energy costs are the very core of a nation’s industrial competitiveness. High energy costs have what economists call a “multiplier effect”: they raise the downstream cost of every process in the system until the end product reaches the consumer. They suck wealth out of the system through lower sales, lower margins, reduced returns on investment and slower capital formation, which, in turn, reduces new investment and legitimate job creation. This is not how the private enterprise system is supposed to work. Centrally-directed investment and job creation into activities that produce negative economic value is the stuff of Socialism. As history has proven time and time again, it only works until all the money is gone. That doesn’t sound like “sustainability” to this writer.

Read the entire article here