The now-ended conflict in Nagorno Karabakh could shift to Armenia itself. Why the negative impact on potential output of climate change will always exceed that of transitioning to net-zero. A global windfall levy on petrostates could relatively painlessly raise the trillions needed for mitigation and adaptation in the fight against a climate disaster. The ‘price’ of potentially living forever. What really matters to achieve happiness at work?
QUOTE OF THE WEEK
ARTICLE OF THE WEEK
Thomas de Waal, The End of Nagorno-Karabakh
(Foreign Affairs, 26 September 2023)
A humanitarian disaster is currently under way in Nagorno Karabakh, a separatist ethnic-Armenian enclave within Azerbaijan. The Azeri invasion lasted less than a day, ending a 30-year hostile stand-off, and prompted an exodus of tens of thousands of Karabakh Armenians. It has also placed Azerbaijan’s backer, Turkey, in a stronger position in the Caucasus as Russia’s influence wanes. The long-term failure is that of successive Western governments who never succeeded in preventing the violence in the first place or in getting the Armenians and Azerbaijanis to agree on an equitable resolution to this bitterly contested conflict. The end-result: Armenia is potentially the new frontier in the conflict (metered paywall that may require prior registration; reads in 7-9 min).
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Miles Parker, How climate change affects potential output
(ECB Economic Bulletin, Issue 6, 2023)
A clear, digestible, explanation drawing on the existing literature of how climate change affects ‘potential output’ – the highest level of output that an economy can sustain over the medium term). It’s worth looking at table 1 that summarises the main channels of impact.
The general conclusion is that “unmitigated climate change is substantially worse for potential output over the long run than the impact of the transition to net-zero carbon” (free access, can be read in bits and pieces, when including the different boxes, around 20 min).
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Gordon Brown, How do we raise trillions of dollars to fight the climate crisis? The answer is staring us in the face
(The Guardian, 25 September 2023)
Summits after summits have failed to deliver the long-promised global plan to finance climate mitigation and adaptation in the ‘global south’, but a solution is staring the world in the face. Petrostates like Saudi Arabia and Norway have made staggering oil and gas profits ($4tr last year – representing one of the biggest redistributions of wealth from the world’s poor to some of its richest). A simple levy could funnel money to the countries that need it. To illustrate the point, a $25bn global windfall levy on oil and gas profits, paid by the richest petrostates, would amount to less than 1% of global oil and gas revenues and only 3% of the export earnings of these major producers. Read-on for some details (free access; 5-7 min).
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Charlotte Alter, The Man Who Thinks He Can Live Forever
(Time, 20 September 2023)
Quite incredible and totally joyless! Slowing or reversing diseases associated with aging is now a big investment theme among tech entrepreneurs, but here it is taken to a new extreme. This is the daily story of a rich tech entrepreneur who now spends his entire life in pursuit of a single goal: never dying. Over the past few years, he’s spent more than $4 million developing a life-extension system called Blueprint, in which he outsources every decision involving his body to a team of doctors, who use data to develop a strict health regimen to reduce what Johnson calls his “biological age” (metered paywall, reads in 7-9 min).
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Jenna Abdou, The creator of Yale’s viral happiness class offers tips for boosting employee satisfaction
(Fast Company, 23 September 2023)
An interview with Laurie Santos, a professor at Yale who’s a world star in the science of wellbeing. She argues we have “a real opportunity to maximize our happiness at work” if we focus on the right things. What are they? Not the main drivers that business executives think of, like compensation and flexibility (they matter, but they are in the middle of what employees expect). ‘The main driver of happiness at work is a sense of belonging (it’s your answer to the questions: Do you feel like you matter here? Do you have a sense of community?). Time affluence1 is also essential, the subjective sense that you/we have free time. More tips! Rich and rewarding (metered paywall, reads in 5-6 min).
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