The global transition to clean energy will be geopolitically messy – at best. Perhaps a one-Earth balance sheet could go some way towards tidying things up. How much has social media eroded our social fabric and what does this mean for society in the post pandemic era? Climate relocation is impacting US domestic politics and it doesn’t stop there.
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
ARTICLE OF THE WEEK
Jason Bordoff and Meghan O’Sullivan, Green Upheaval
(Foreign Affairs, January – February 2022)
In a very convincing manner, the authors argue that the indispensable move away from oil and gas will dramatically reconfigure the world. They assert that clean energy will transform geopolitics, but not in the ways many of its champions expect: hopefully it will mitigate climate change, but it will not make tensions over energy resources a thing of the past. Quite the opposite: the process will be messy at best. And far from fostering comity and cooperation, it will likely produce new forms of competition and confrontation long before a new, more copacetic geopolitics takes shape (metered paywall that may require registration- reads in 8-10 min).
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Andrew Sheng and Xiao Geng, Building a One-Earth Balance Sheet
(Project Syndicate, 30 November 2021)
An ambitious, intriguing, and timely idea! Economists focus on flows (like GDP, savings, and trade) more than on the stocks of assets and liabilities contained within balance sheets. Yet, a one-Earth balance sheet that takes into consideration human and natural capital would enable the world to improve overall resource allocation, deliver public goods, and ensure more inclusive development. While all politics is local, it is shaped by a fast-changing global landscape. Only a one-Earth balance sheet – a bottom-up reset of how we measure global wealth – can ensure that countries work towards a better future for all (metered paywall – reads in 7-9 min).
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Jill Lepore, Is society coming apart?
(The Guardian, 25 November 2021)
This is a long, erudite and great article on the meaning of society and how thinkers and policymakers have looked at it since the 20th century (in the Anglo-Saxon world). Lepore argues that despite Thatcher and Reagan’s best efforts, there is and always has been such a thing as society. The question is not whether it exists, but what shape it must take in a post-pandemic world. An interesting quote among many: “Critics lately argue that the social network is destroying the social fabric, but the people who built the social network thought it would repair the social fabric” (free access, reads in 15-20 min).
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Ben Lefebvre, How ‘Climate Migrants’ Are Roiling American Politics
(Politico, 27 November 2021)
In the US, climate migrants fleeing weather-related disasters are changing the political equation in states like Florida, Virginia, California, Idaho and beyond. But what is true for the US is or will be true for other countries as well: climate migration is already driving population change, and increasingly, “climate relocation” will become a force shifting the currents of politics (metered paywall – reads in 8-10 min).
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Tom Whitwell, 52 things I learned in 2021
(Medium, 1 December 2021)
A classic which is always an enjoyable and fun read in which you can find some hidden gems. Like: the daughter effect (n. 20), privacy connected to productivity (n. 43), nature imagery in pitch documents increasing the likelihood of investment (n. 45) (metered paywall – reads in 5-6 min).
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