By Kavneet D, Year 12

On the 17th of January, I attended an economics lecture with other sixth form students at the London School of Economics to learn more about ‘Reshaping Capitalism to Save Humanity from Climate Catastrophe’. This was explored through the speaker Dr Alessio Terzi’s book called ‘Growth for Good’ which discusses sustainable development. Alessio Terzi is a lecturer at HEC Paris and an Economist at the European Commission. Some of the topics that were analysed in the lecture included whether economic growth needed to be limited in order to have a chance at tackling climate change and if this would have a positive impact on society due to the changes in consumption. It is evident that to deliver sustainability it would need to be driven by consumers demanding this instead of aiming to maximise their own private utility. One of the arguments that was raised was how green goods differ from sustainable goods, for example although electric cars are a greener alternative, their batteries rely on the extraction of large amounts of metals like lithium and cobalt which pollute the environment and are non-renewable.

The lecture was a fantastic learning opportunity that allowed me to get an insight into what studying economics at a university level would look like. Also, it was interesting to learn about Economics outside of the A-level curriculum and extend my knowledge of topics, such as the free-rider problem and market failure, into bigger concepts. I was keen to learn more about this complex topic and was met with new ideas that I had not previously thought about. I particularly enjoyed how the lecture started to draw on not just economics, but also ethical and historical ideas.

We were delighted to secure a signed copy of Alessio Terzi’s book ‘Growth for Good’ which will be available in the library.