Chancellor's Research Fellow at @UTSFass | political economy, environmental history, energy | PhD, University of Sydney | views are my own
Joined July 2020
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Matt Ryan retweeted
Incisive and really quite moving essay from @nikhil_palsingh on the main lessons and broader significance of Zohran’s inspiring victory in @DissentMag dissentmagazine.org/online_a……
Australia relies almost entirely on its land sector to meet net zero goals.
That land sector has been found to be absorbing less carbon than we thought.
This should be a scandal - but it won't be :(
“The largest change was over the Amazon, where much less CO₂ is being absorbed. Similar slowdowns also appeared over southern Africa and southeast Asia, parts of Australia, the eastern US, Alaska and western Russia.” - from “Record-breaking CO₂ rise shows the Amazon is faltering — yet the satellite that spotted this may soon be shut down”
Matt Ryan retweeted
Once again the Econ Nobel is announced just in time for the week in @devikadutt & my module where we study the dev of capitalism. And once again it confirms to students that prevailing understandings of growth in Econ are thoroughly Eurocentric (esp Mokyr in most blatant way)!
Matt Ryan retweeted
Way Australia conceptualises & measures poverty is outdated & harmful. Family and household economic wellbeing is similarly incongruent with contemporary society. Housing schemes, first homebuyer supports are based on measures that fail to reflect reality. abc.net.au/news/2025-10-14/c…
Cant recommend this, or Melinda's book, highly enough!
New @thedigradio ep: first of two-parts w/ Melinda Cooper on fascinating book Counterrevolution: Extravagance and Austerity in Public Finance. We explore how neoliberalism remade US capitalism into engine for endless asset appreciation and attendant reactionary politics. Link 👇
Matt Ryan retweeted
[I’m in doomer mode tonight, so apologies in advance for this one, but…]
Speaking of climate con jobs…
- Carbon Offsets are a con job
- Sustainable Aviation Fuels are a con job
- Net Zero by 2050 is a con job
- Meaningful global-scale Carbon Capture and Storage anytime in your lifetime is a con job
- AI as a climate solution is a con job
- Green consumption is a con job
- Getting the international community to agree on geoengineering governance is a con job
- Limiting global warming to 1.5°C is a con job
All we really have, for now, is some successful examples of decarbonization in some sectors and some places, undergirded by accelerating warming. We’re on the freight train to a pretty nasty place, and we’re only lightly tapping the brakes, not even decelerating yet…
Matt Ryan retweeted
One in three Australian universities has a consultant or ex-consultant on its governing body. Advisers are the governors. Why does the ALP still let consultancies rule-and milk-our universities? Journalists, please, start asking harder questions. Read: tinyurl.com/yw63farh
This is significant.
This is wild. The amount of oil and gas investment just to keep production levels from plummeting is getting steeper by the year…
“global ‘decline rates’ for both oil and gas getting steeper – and the trend set to accelerate – as shown in the figure below, for gas only.”
“The consequence of these accelerating rates of decline is that the oil-and-gas industry is already needing to “run fast to stand still”, the IEA report explains.”
“The industry needs to invest around $500bn per year, just to maintain current output, it says.”
“With investment set to reach $570bn in 2025, the IEA notes that this is enough to sustain “modest” production growth, but only a “small drop” away from flat or declining output.”
Matt Ryan retweeted
“I can’t stress enough the number of variables that just aren’t included. This is a minimum cost,” – Richard Denniss at estimates re National Climate Risk Assessment.
“What you see in that report is the best-case scenario.”
via @TheMandarinAU
More: australiainstitute.org.au/po…
What could green industry policy look like in Australia? Surely we can do better than FMIA?
This moment of reshuffling international political economy, fossil-fueled ethnonationalism, and climate and ecological crises demands an alternative order.
Our new report envisions green industrial policy driven by and for the global public good: climateandcommunity.org/rese…
Matt Ryan retweeted
Prime Minister gets doggy toy from INPEX.
INPEX gets Australian gas for free, sold for $50 billion.
Cool and normal.
@TheAusInstitute @MarkOgge @punterspolitix
Matt Ryan retweeted
We really need to spend more time on this $734,000,000 figure. That amount of money could hire an additional 145 lecturers at EACH of Australia's 42 universities. That's more than 6,000 additional teaching staff in lecture halls and classrooms. And then there's the $50M+ on VCs!
A National Tertiary Education Union investigation revealed that Australian PUBLIC universities spent a laughable $734m on external consultants in 2023. Instead of sourcing expertise internally. Dear minister @JasonClareMP , how is this possible?
Matt Ryan retweeted
The term 'red tape' is being used a lot at the moment to make building regulations sound pointless and inconvenient.
But when it comes to making housing people actually want to live in, regulation is pretty important.
@JackLThrower #auspol
Matt Ryan retweeted
an excerpt from FREE GIFTS in @nplusonemag on social cost as the underbelly of the free gift, and the peculiarity of pollution as "matter out of place" in a system where matter is ordered by price: nplusonemag.com/online-only/…
Matt Ryan retweeted
My first book, Socializing Land: Plantations, Dispossession, and Resistance in Laos (University of Hawai'i Press, 2025) exists in this world! Check it out at: uhpress.hawaii.edu/title/soc…...
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Some important lessons here. Looking at you @JEChalmers
In the @FinancialTimes today on green planning and decommodification of life's essentials or bust post-IRA and Bidenomics. ft.com/content/dda58e88-6c36…
Matt Ryan retweeted
In the @FinancialTimes today on green planning and decommodification of life's essentials or bust post-IRA and Bidenomics. ft.com/content/dda58e88-6c36…
Matt Ryan retweeted
Excellent article by @MichelleArrow1 @fbongiornoanu and @annahopeclark on the crisis within the Australian higher education sector, and how to resolve it. theconversation.com/universi…
Matt Ryan retweeted
"With social relations stripped away, the framing of the empirical findings end up reproducing the idea in economics that markets, if properly managed and in the absence of colonial coercion, can produce balanced trade." @ingridharvold ⬇️ineteconomics.org/perspectiv…
