Written By: Rebecca Gu
Harmless Economics
Economics has rightfully earned a reputation for being abstract to the point of obscurity. Theoretical physics and mathematics also practice this same level of abstraction, but unlike economics, those fields also do not arrogantly claim that their usefulness lies in their applicability to real life. It is this combination of both asserting relevance and simultaneously reducing complexity of real applications that leads to some dangerous assumptions about how the world should work. For example, my research thus far;
The Many Facets of Carbon Emissions
Global climate change is an economic puzzle in that it involves a lot of different elements, that relate back to concepts of fairness and unfairness.
1) Historical Grudges
Given the amount of man-made emissions that have collectively been produced to date, it is arguably the currently rich countries that have benefited the most from this. Carbon emissions are a by-product of industrialisation, and industrialisation is associated with the economic development of most of the West. Thus, climate change treaties are saddled with the burden of how to distribute future obligations based on historical responsibility.
Off the Spectrum 