Adapting to climate change doesn’t make it go away. Reduced fossil fuel extraction will entail negative economic impact, particularly for low-income countries. New China-US communication and co-operation, albeit very limited, is better than nothing. Google’s coming regenerative AI search tool will turn our searches into a ‘doom loop’. A brief video on the huge existential question: are we alone?
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
“Global warming is accelerating, with temperatures not just rising but rising faster than ever.” (David Wallace-Wells in the article of the week)
ARTICLE OF THE WEEK
David Wallace-Wells, Floods, Heat, Smoke: The Weather Will Never Be Normal Again
(The New York Times, 12 July 2023)
The first sentence says it all: “Global warming is accelerating, with temperatures not just rising but rising faster than ever.” Progressively, once-in-a-thousand-years climate events are becoming the norm, but as human beings we are incredibly adaptable, and recent research suggests we may come to accept weather extremes as normal within two years – “a grim prophecy of accommodation to disaster as a form of adaptation.” Maybe, but for investors and other decision-makers, the consequences will be momentous (gifted article – reads in 7-9 min).
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Rudolfs Bems, Lukas Boehnert, Andrea Pescatori and Martin Stuermer, Reducing fossil fuel extraction may imply persistent negative effects for fossil fuel-producing economies
(CEPR, 11 July 2023)
As the climate emergency gains in intensity, fossil fuel producers may face much greater problems than anticipated until recently. Reaching net zero emissions by 2050 would require an 80% reduction in global fossil fuel extraction compared with 2021 levels. New data sets show that sharp declines in extraction would lead to persistent negative effects on real GDP, trade balances, and domestic sectors of the commodity producers. The real exchange rate would depreciate, but not enough to offset the decline in net exports. Impacts on low-income countries would be significantly larger than for high-income countries (free access – reads in 6-8 min).
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Minxin Pei, Can the US and China Go Back to Being Frenemies?
(Bloomberg, 12 July 2023)
Janet Yellen’s recent visit to China disappointed: This should have been expected: mutual distrust and antagonism between China and the US are too deeply embedded for either side to make even modest concessions. A new fragile equilibrium may be found, but it will be limited because each superpower seems to believe that time is on its side. Tensions and crises are thus likely to continue, as is mutual distrust and hostility. Pei finds nonetheless reasons for limited optimism: “the new situation is obviously preferable to one where the two superpowers are not on speaking terms. By making limited cooperation possible, it also raises hopes that common sense, not mindless bellicosity, will prevail on issues beneficial to both countries. However symbolic, that counts as progress” (gifted article – reads in 7-9 min).
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Justin Pot, Google’s new search tool could eat the internet alive
(The Atlantic, 11 July 2023)
We all google for answers, but now that Google is turning to generative AI, our searches may soon turn into a doom loop. As this piece argues, instead of sending us off to other corners of the web, more search results will appear within Google. It will pull information from various websites, reword it, and will put that text on top of our search results, pushing down any links we see. By so doing, it will stifle traffic to the rest of the internet, lessening the very incentive to post online (gifted article – reads in 6-7 min).
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Max Tobin, Fermi Paradox: Are we alone in the Universe?
(BBC, 4 July 2023)
A 10 min video to ponder one of the biggest questions of all: are we the only life in the Universe? From strange radio signals in outer space to the declassification of UFO files, the idea of extra-terrestrial life never fails to fascinate and excite us. But what are the chances we will ever contact alien lifeforms, and if we never do, what does that say about life on Earth? Grasp in one go what the Fermi Paradox tells us about the chances of finding intelligent life out there (free access – 10 min).
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