QUOTE OF THE WEEK
ARTICLE OF THE WEEK
10 New Insights in Climate Science 2023/2024
(Future Earth, The Earth League and WCRP, December 2023)
This is a clear, didactic, and very useful goldmine. Every year, a group of scientists distils into a form palatable to laypeople, the most pressing and relevant issues pertaining to the science of climate and its impacts. They do so in just 10 insights which can be explored at length on their interactive website. Issues range from the 1.5ºC overshoot, carbon dioxide removal and over-reliance on natural carbon sinks to fossil fuel phase-out, the interlinkages between climate and biodiversity, and the acceleration of mountain glacier loss (free access, read time dependent on each reader).
Click here to read the full article
James Stavridis, Congress Stiffed Zelenskiy — and the US Is the Big Loser
(Bloomberg, 14 December 2023)
NATO’s former commander explains why Ukraine’s fate in the war with Russia “is murky at best.” In his opinion, if the US and Europeans continue to step up military assistance in the range of $100 billion between them, Ukraine will at a minimum be able to hold off further significant Russian land gains. But there is a far darker scenario: if the US and Europe reduce military assistance, Putin’s armies might gain the ability to return to the offensive. With support for Ukraine waning in the US and many parts of Europe, an outcome that resembles the end of the Korean War looks more and more plausible (gifted article, 6-8 min).
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Erin Griffith, From Unicorns to Zombies: Tech Start-Ups Run Out of Time and Money
(The New York Times, 7 December 2023)
2023 has been “the most difficult year for start-ups in at least a decade,” and they are now at a turning point. This year in the US, 3,200 start-ups that had raised $27.2 bn in venture funding went out of business (the ‘true’ total is probably much higher because many do so quietly). Investors are no longer interested in their promises, with venture capital firms deciding which young companies are worth saving while urging others to shut down or sell.
Some start-ups are choosing to shut down before they run out of cash, returning what remains to investors. Others are stuck in “zombie” mode – surviving but unable either to grow or to raise more money (gifted article, reads in 6-8 min).
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Timothy Garton-Ash, War or peace? Dictatorship or democracy? Europe’s future is on the line
(The Guardian, 13 December 2023)
The great historian of Europe discusses what he calls the “duality in European politics.” Many EU countries still have governments on the spectrum between centre-left and centre-right committed to making both liberal democracy and the EU work. But populist nationalist parties of the hard right have also scored notable successes (from Italy to the Netherlands), working against both the interests and the values of the EU, while exploiting all the advantages of membership of it. At the European Council that started in Brussels yesterday, liberalism and populism will lock horns. Which side will prevail? To some extent, the outcome will determine whether we move towards a Europe of war or of peace, of dictatorship or democracy, of disintegration or integration (free access, reads in 7-9 min).
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Mark Bowden, The Most Consequential Act of Sabotage in Modern Times
(The Atlantic, 13 December 2023)
This long piece reads like a spy story because it is. In September 2022, the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipeline (the biggest natural-gas delivery system from Russia to Western Europe ever built) was an unprecedented attack on a major element of global infrastructure. It managed to achieve total surprise and leave few traces behind. To this day, nobody knows for certain who was responsible, although accumulating evidence has begun to point in a specific direction. But there are ample reasons why no one is eager to assign blame (metered paywall that requires prior registration, 15-20 min).
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