Thanks to technology and scale, winners are increasingly ‘taking all’. Despite the tragic loss of life it has (is) caused(ing) the pandemic might yet be life-saving in the long term. Heat domes are not a result of climate change, but their current ferocity almost certainly is. A different perspective on recent events in terms of press freedom in Hong Kong. The science on why walking is so vital to our overall health and wellbeing just got even more convincing.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Rapid technological change and the emergence of huge economies of scale have created a winner-take-all contest in more and more industries” (Jan Eeckhoot in the article of the week).
ARTICLE OF THE WEEK
Jan Eeckhoot, Market Power Is Eating the Economy
(Project Syndicate, 20 June 2021)
This is a seminal article to understand why market power has become so pervasive across so many industries. Increasingly powerful cost-saving technologies enable considerable economies of scale and network effects that help incumbents keep competitors out. In so doing, they give exorbitant market power to dominant players across all sectors to the detriment of the vast majority of people (free access – reads in about 6 min).
Click here to read the full article
Ian Goldin, How the pandemic could save us
(VOXeu, 20 June 2021)
The professor of globalization and development at Oxford argues that the pandemic could go down in history as the event that rescued humanity (despite all the suffering it has caused). The reason is this: COVID has created a hinge moment of change, in which governments and citizens have demonstrated their ability to undertake reforms which would have been impossible before the pandemic. Sustaining and building on this momentum for reform is therefore vital (free access – reads in about 7 min).
Click here to read the full article
Michael Mann and Susan Joy Hassol, That Heat Dome? Yeah, It’s Climate Change
(The New York Times, 29 July 2021)
The two climate specialists explain in plain words why the “heat dome” affecting the Western coast of northern America is most likely (if not almost certainly) a consequence of climate change. They write: “Might a heat dome have developed out West this past week without climate change? Sure. Might it have been as extreme as what we’re witnessing without climate change? Almost surely not”. This is a once-in-a-millennium that risks re-occurring soon because the planet is warming at an accelerated pace (metered paywall – reads in about 7 min).
Click here to read the full article
Nury Vittachi, The untold story of Apple Daily
(Friday Every Day, 29 June 2021)
This article was sent to us by one of our loyal friends in Hong-Kong. It is a powerful counter-narrative to many stories we’ve read in the Western media about the closure of Apple Daily. Make up your own mind after having read it. In our case, it brought a great deal of nuance to our initial judgement (free access – reads in about 6 min).
Click here to read the full article
William Mayle, New Study Reveals a Major Side Effect of Walking More
(ETNT Mind+Body, 30 June 2021)
It is almost received wisdom now that walking is good for us for a multitude of reasons (we’ve been convinced for a while and even wrote a book about it: Ten Good Reasons to Go for a Walk). New research goes further! Brisk walking for a certain number of minutes every week may in fact offset the deleterious effects of poor sleep, which is itself linked to a myriad of health issues. The link to the article peer-reviewed in the British Journal of Sports Medicine is appended. The article also contains useful sources about the relationship between walking (or mild physical exercise), sleep and our lifespan (free access – reads in about 5 min).
Click here to read the full article
