There is an evolving osmosis between worktime and vacation. Is current inflation transient or not – the debate goes on. Glasgow didn’t achieve enough, activists and shifting attitudes could do more in the near future. Human innovation continues to flourish. Yet we undervalue imagination at our peril.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“Expect more action on the financing of fossil fuel projects, as activists try to cut emissions by starving the industry of capital” Simon Lewis & Mark Maslin in the third article of the week.

ARTICLE OF THE WEEK

Derek Thompson, The Home Is the Future of Travel
(The Atlantic, 17 November 2021)
In this interview, Brian Chesky (Airbnb’s CEO) explains why the lines separating life, work, and vacations will keep getting blurrier. He thinks that work and life are undergoing a “Great Convergence” and that the once-solid boundaries between our jobs and our leisure are becoming leakier. Airbnb is seeing a new kind of travel habit moving mainstream, in which work time is seeping into vacation weekends and vacation weekends are doing likewise into the workweek. This can be identified as the rise of the work-vacation: the workcation. Another prediction:  travel will become a little less seasonal, a little more spread out throughout the year. (metered paywall – reads in 7-9 min)
Click here to read the full article

Bradford Delong, Why All the Inflation Worries?
(Project Syndicate, 8 November 2021)
Yet another contribution on inflation! The debate as to whether it is transient or not goes on and Delong belongs to the transient camp. He sees no sign that inflation expectations have become de-anchored and argues that the labour market is still weak enough that workers are unable to demand substantial increases in real wages. He adds that financial markets are blasé about the possibility of rising inflation and that a substantial fiscal contraction is already underway. For him, the current uptick in US inflation is highly likely to be simply rubber on the road, resulting from the post-pandemic recovery (metered paywall – reads in 6-7 min).
Click here to read the full article

Simon Lewis and Mark Maslin, Five things you need to know about the Glasgow Climate Pact
(The Conversation, 13 November 2021)
COP26 was a disappointment with some glimmers of hope. This article sums it up: (1) Progress was achieved on cutting emissions, but nowhere near enough; (2) The door is ajar for further cuts in the near future; (3) Rich countries continued to ignore their historical responsibility; (4) Loopholes in carbon market rules could undermine progress; (5) Thank climate activists for the progress – their next moves will be decisive. But the article doesn’t mention that the zeitgeist is shifting and the pressure mounting for a snowballing system change. (free access – reads in 6-7 min)
Click here to read the full article

The Best Inventions of 2021
(Time, November 2021)
The magazine has chosen 100 innovations which are changing how we live. They emanate from different categories: AI, Augmented and Virtual Reality, Beauty, Wellness, Design, Education, Entertainment, Finance, Food & Drinks, Social Good and so on. You can pick those that interest you the most at your leisure. The list confirms that humans’ capacity to innovate is inextinguishable. (metered paywall – can read in 5 min or 3 hours!)
Click here to read the full article

David Brooks, The Awesome Importance of Imagination
(The New York Times, 11 November 2021)
The columnist argues that “our society isn’t good at cultivating the faculty that we may need the most.” Imagination – the capacity to make associations among many different bits of information and to synthesize them into patterns and concepts – helps us perceive reality, try on other realities, predict possible futures, and experience other viewpoints. We can improve it by creating complex and varied lenses through which to see the world. “What happens to a society that lets so much of its imaginative capacity lie fallow? Perhaps you wind up in a society in which people are strangers to one another and themselves”. (metered paywall that may require registration – reads in 6-7 min)
Click here to read the full article