David Rosnick (CEPR, fellow GW alum), a reader of the blog but who usually sticks to emailing me comments, has a new paper in the Real World Economics Review on work hours and climate change.
I imagine this is something Keynes would have really gotten on board with if he knew anything about climate change.
Even aside from working hours, this is a good argument for telecommuting too.
"I imagine this is something Keynes would have really gotten on board with if he knew anything about climate change."
ReplyDeleteAnd I'm sure that J.M. Keynes would have given credit to his fellow economist and good friend A.C. Pigou for conceiving the idea of taxation on externalities. As for the notion of climate change being accelerated/caused by human activity...I read a source somewhere (can't remember what it was, when it was published, or where it was...I think it might have been in National Geographic, I wish I could remember exactly) that stated the idea actually goes back to a point in the late Middle Ages.
However, since the beginning of recorded history, there have been many passages describing human activity as having an impact on the natural environment. It was only during the 19th century when the idea of human-caused/accelerated climate change that the notion finally started taking the form that we now know today, and started to get onto the path of being formally accepted by the scientific community. Public awareness and concern on the matter would only come later in the mid-20th century.