by Omega | Jul 15, 2025 | Environment
Last week, hundreds of scientists, policymakers and journalists flocked to the University of Exeter to attend an international conference on “tipping points”. The conference saw experts discussing the dangers of a range of Earth system tipping points, including...
by Omega | Jul 14, 2025 | Polycrisis
A global technological revolution is under way, with China at the helm. China’s leaders call it the mobilization of “new quality productive forces,” referring to “great changes unseen in a century.” In the increasingly hamstrung West, each headline-grabbing advance is...
by Omega | Jul 11, 2025 | Economy
The pandemic bonds — a financial device made up by one of the world’s most powerful institutions, the World Bank — can seem like a great idea for raising money to fight pandemics. Money is pooled ahead of time, rather than waiting for governments to pony up monies to...
by Omega | Jul 10, 2025 | Environment
Fueled by climate change and relentless pressure on land and water resources, some of the most widespread and damaging drought events in recorded history have taken place since 2023, according to a UN-backed report launched today. Prepared by the U.S. National...
by Omega | Jul 9, 2025 | Environment
Drought is pushing tens of millions of people to the edge of starvation around the world, in a foretaste of a global crisis that is rapidly deepening with climate breakdown. More than 90 million people in eastern and southern Africa are facing extreme hunger after...
by Omega | Jul 8, 2025 | Environment
Imagining long-term futures is hard, but it is more necessary than ever, as we wrestle with decisions about how best to adapt to the long-term effects of climate change. It is hard because significant change tends to happen on generational timescales, and long term...
by Omega | Jul 7, 2025 | Worldviews
Before ChatGPT distorted Eugene Torres’s sense of reality and almost killed him, he said, the artificial intelligence chatbot had been a helpful, timesaving tool. In recent months, tech journalists at The New York Times have received quite a few such messages, sent by...
by Omega | Jul 3, 2025 | Polycrisis
The threat of nuclear war, genocide in Gaza, ChatGPT reducing human cognitive ability, another summer of record heat. Every day brings a torrent of unimaginable horror. It used to be weeks between disasters, now we’re lucky to get hours. For many, the only sane...
by Omega | Jul 2, 2025 | Economy
The pandemic bonds — a financial device made up by one of the world’s most powerful institutions, the World Bank — can seem like a great idea for raising money to fight pandemics. Money is pooled ahead of time, rather than waiting for governments to pony up monies to...
by Omega | Jul 1, 2025 | Worldviews
I couldn’t imagine such blasé faith in public safety back when I last lived in China, in 2013, but on this visit it was true: Cameras gawked from poles, flashed as we drove through intersections, lingered on faces as we passed through stations or shops. And that was...
