This podcast discusses Dr. Peebles’s forthcoming book, The First and Last Bank: Climate Change, Currency, and a New Carbon Commons, co-authored with the artist and illustrator Benjamin Luzzatto. The conversation centers around the book’s groundbreaking proposal: a bank that would enable us to seize carbon from the atmosphere and offer a profound method for addressing climate change. Gustav draws on the anthropological archive to point out how currencies have been based on all manner of objects, from tobacco leaves and salt to gold and collateralized debt obligations. Building on Annette Weiner’s famous argument about the “inalienable possessions,” Gustav points out that the key thing that this assortment of goods shares is a communal belief that such objects can harness and organize economic growth. Gustav describes how atmospheric carbon could be sequestered in the earth by millions of currency users and the communally owned banks they rely on. Dr. Peebles explains how developments in digital currencies and the biosequestration of carbon have, together, made a new and radical intervention in the climate battle possible: a nonproprietary currency backed by sequestered carbon. This new currency could be managed via Wikipedia-style open-source policies that privilege sustainability and equity over endless growth and pollution. Because it is backed by sequestered carbon, the use of the currency would draw atmospheric carbon out of the atmosphere and deposit it back into the ground, following a mirror trajectory of gold during the era of the international gold standard. More information about the book can be found here: https://mitpress.mit.edu/9780262049641/the-first-and-last-bank/
Gustav Peebles is an Associate Professor in the Department of Social Anthropology at Stockholm University. Before that, he taught at The New School in New York City. His publications, including a book entitled, The Euro and Its Rivals, as well as a range of academic and popular articles, track credit, debt, money, and the diverse struggles to regulate and manage these vital economic phenomena throughout human history. Most recently, he has been exploring digital currencies, including work on the Swedish Central Bank’s e-currency proposal, as well as a wilder idea that leverages digital currency as a potential tool for fighting climate change.
Timestamps
Peebles’ Bio – 2:28
The Core Argument of the Book – 7:08
Why Carbon is the First and the Last Bank? – 11:29
Treasure & Trash Continuum – 14:25
Inalienable Possessions, Banks and Currencies – 16:19
Peebles’ Previous Works – 22:35
Community Currencies – 27:04
In Conversation with “Economics” – 30:37
Local Activism – 34:23
Carbon Banking vs. Crypto Currencies – 38:59
Series Co-Hosts
Ferda Nur Demirci, co-host of Currency Experiments & Value Conversions, is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology, working in the Department of Economic Experimentation. Her research explores the intersections of financial inclusion policies, kinship obligations, resource extraction economies, and authoritarian governance, with a particular focus on the cycles of indebtedness affecting working-class families in Turkey. Her work has been published in both English and Turkish in outlets such as Antipode Online, Dialectical Anthropology, and 1+1. She is also a research associate in the Counter Currency Laboratory at the University of Victoria.
Daromir Rudnyckyj, co-host of Currency Experiments & Value Conversions is Professor of Anthropology at the University of Victoria, where he serves as Director of the Counter Currency Laboratory. His research addresses money, religion, development, capitalism, finance, and the state. Dr. Rudnyckyj’s current project examines the techno-politics of money, with a focus on experiments in producing complementary
References
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