GEP is measuring nature’s ‘gifts’ to Shenzhen. Current debates about inflation aren’t taking into account the importance of China. The potential for new opportunities offered by the pandemic should not be underestimated, nor should burgeoning, politicized antiscience propaganda. Not scientific in itself, but increasingly supported by science, movement can be a miracle cure.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Inactivity is currently the world’s fourth leading cause of death. It’s a problem often confused and conflated with laziness and personal choice, but in reality the issue is geographic, systemic, and woven into the structure of modern living” (Peter Walker in “The Miracle Pill: Why a sedentary world is getting it all wrong”)
ARTICLE OF THE WEEK
He Huifeng, China’s tech hub Shenzhen moves ahead with GDP alternative that measures value of ecosystem goods and services
(South China Morning Post, 24 March 2021)
This is a practical example of going “beyond GDP” and applying nature-based solutions. The megacity of Shenzhen has introduced a Gross Ecosystem Product (GEP) – corresponding to the total value of natural ecosystem’s goods and services (such as forests, grasslands, wetlands, deserts, fresh water and oceans, and artificial systems based on natural processes like farmland, pastures, aquaculture farms and urban green land) supplied to human wellbeing in a region annually. GEP is being captured through an automated accounting platform with 19 indicators ranging from agriculture to air purity. If the utility of this model proves effective, it will become a role model across China and possibly for cities and regions around the world (reads in 5-6 min).
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James Galbraith, China Is Missing from the Great Inflation Debate
(Project Syndicate, 31 March 2021)
This is an interesting contribution to the current debate about inflation (whether they’ll be a resurgence or not). In the author’s opinion, fears of inflation provoked by US fiscal ‘profligacy’ are based on an old model obliterated by new economic realities – not least the rise of China, which has fundamentally reshaped the US and global economies (reads in 6-7 min).
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Anna North, What the History of Pandemics Can Teach Us About Resilience
(The New York Times, 1 April 2021)
The novelist uses history to explain how pandemics can shock societies into new ways of living. In the past, they often re-entrenched old prejudices and forms of marginalization, but they could also give rise to something new, especially in arts, culture and entertainment. Throughout history, in the wake of even the most devastating public health disasters, human social life and creativity emerged in new and unexpected ways, and so did new forms of social organization (like the Black Death that led to the end of serfdom and the rise of the middle class in England). To sum up: “Pandemics are both catastrophes and opportunities” (reads in 5-6 min).
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Peter Hotez, The Antiscience Movement Is Escalating, Going Global and Killing Thousands
(Scientific American, 29 March 2021)
Antiscience is “the rejection of mainstream scientific views and methods or their replacement with unproven or deliberately misleading theories, often for nefarious and political gains”. It has become a key feature of the political right in the US and now spreading around the world. This phenomenon has been particularly obvious in the current pandemic, propagated by populist governments in many countries – ranging from the US and Brazil to Tanzania and the Philippines – and causing mass deaths in the process (reads in 6-7 min).
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Marthe De Ferrer, Inactivity Kills Millions, But Movement Is The ‘Miracle Pill’ That Could Save People And Planet
(Euronews, 30 March 2021)
This is about a new book: “The Miracle Pill” (i.e. physical activity). The argument may seem a bit far-fetched, but it is nonetheless true and explains why cities are currently being redesigned. All over the world, cities are being greened because of environmental concerns, but also – as this article explains – because of public health concerns. More and more, cities are redesigned to allow for “incidental movement”: the activity that happens naturally throughout our day; not purposeful exercise, but rather things like walking to the shops or cycling to work.
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