Benedict Mcaleenan

Benedict McAleenan is Senior Adviser to Policy Exchange's Energy and Environment Unit

Saturday

Benedict Mcaleenan

Ted Halstead, a man with a plan to change the world

After Ted Halstead delivered his speech at the famously liberal TED conference, its founder Chris Anderson remarked, ‘I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a conservative get a standing ovation before that.’ That is because Halstead was not a normal conservative. In a time of American polarisation, he had a genius for mobilising both sides behind a practical and achievable plan, a genius which he applied to solving climate change. Halstead, an American campaigner who died in a hiking accident last week, is not a household name either in the US or around the world. But his legacy may be one of the more consequential of modern times, saving both capitalism and the planet.

Friday

Benedict Mcaleenan

The coronavirus crisis reveals the misery of ‘degrowth’

This is an economic horror show. According to YouGov, UK unemployment may have jumped five per cent in a matter of weeks. The consultancy CEBR estimates that global GDP may shrink by twice the rate seen in the Great Recession. This may be the worst hit to British people’s livelihoods since the Great Depression of the 1930s. Except one thing is different: this is a deliberate economic shutdown, made necessary to avoid a deeper, more human one. It isn’t that the economy is failing to work because the credit system has seized up as in 2008. We are actively contracting productive work in order to limit a tragedy. A recession it will be, but it is our choice in a time of acute crisis, demanding Herculean lifting and leadership by the state.

Monday

Benedict Mcaleenan

It’s capitalism, not socialism, that will beat climate change

When John Glenn was asked what went through his mind as he became the first American in space, he said it was the nerve-wracking thought that 'every part of this rocket was supplied by the lowest bidder.' It’s a revealing insight. Perhaps even more so than the ‘Blue Marble’ photograph of Earth taken by Apollo 17 astronauts, which inspired early environmentalists. Glenn was acknowledging that market economics made it possible for a government to achieve Herculean feats. True, the Soviets were in the race too, but then their system collapsed completely. Capitalism has staying power – and that’s what we need now in the fight against climate change.