by Adam Tooze in Chartbook….As the World Migration Report for 2024 confirms, the Mexico-US border is by some margin the largest single corridor of country-to-country migration in the world.
Long Covid Research Roundup: What have we learned in the first half of 2024?
by Katelyn Jetelina in Your Local Epidemiologist…What we knew: The number of people who get LC after infection has ranged dramatically from 2% to 75%. Reasons for this include differing definitions—for example, some define LC as persistent symptoms 4 weeks after infection, while some use 3 months, and others 6 months.
Positive Pathways report
by Michael Lawrence and Megan Shipman …..The Cascade Institute’s analysis on positive pathways through polycrisis
NEOM is a city of the future. The land is the cost.
by K.O. in Atmos….NEOM has been hailed as the future of the climate-resilient, smart city. But, for local communities, its construction threatens displacement and exploitation.
Denmark unveils ‘groundbreaking’ roadmap towards plant-based food
by Daniel Clark in Plant Based News…Plant-based foods are “the future,” according to the country’s Minister for Food
Insufficient pollinator visitation often limits yield in crop systems worldwide
by Katherine J. Turo in Nature….Declining pollinator populations could threaten global food production, especially if current crop yields are limited by insufficient pollinator visitation to flowers, in a phenomenon referred to as ‘pollinator limitation’.
The status of U.S. oil production: 2024 update everything shines by dimming
by Roger Blanchard in Resilience.org…To maximize profitability of deep water fields, the industry cranks up production rapidly to a high production level, say 100,000 b/d or more, but peak production is reached within a year or two and generally followed by rapid decline.
Ray Kurzweil still says he will merge with A.I.
by Cade Metz in The New York Times….The big leap, of course, is imagining how human consciousness would merge with a machine, and people like Mr. Kurzweil struggle to explain how exactly this would happen.
The view from Nairobi-Washington
by Tim Sahay and Kate Mackenzie in Phenomenal World…It is good for Southern elites to win such technology investments. But while the New Washington Consensus delivers full employment and trillions in deficit-financed welfarism and public investments in the North, the Nairobi-Washington vision for which Ruto is a stand-in is insufficient for fostering prosperity across the South—where debt-stressed countries with soaring joblessness are imposing class war austerity and privatization, amid Western intransigence in delivering touted financial architecture reforms.
Canada’s 2023 wildfires outsmoked global aviation, yet emissions go uncounted
by Liz Kimbrough in Mongabay….The climate crisis appears to be driving this trend toward more extreme fire seasons. Higher temperatures caused by climate change dry out the landscape and make forests more susceptible to fire. The researchers point out that Canada and other northern regions are warming up about twice as fast as the rest of the world.
More in this tag
Jul
06
2023
Global polycrisis: The causal mechanisms of crisis entanglement
by Dr. Michael Lawrence at The Cascade Institute….. In this framework, a global crisis arises when one or more fast-moving trigger events combines with...
Jul
18
2025
What this climate scientist wants you to know about human nature
by Kate Marvel in Atmos…I don’t know which of these worlds is more likely. Science says that as long as human beings emit greenhouse gases by cutting down trees...
Jul
17
2025
The world economy is on the brink of epochal change
by Mark Blythe in The Atlantic…Capitalism’s operating system is due for a major upgrade. How that turns out depends on enormously consequential political...
Jul
16
2025
Counter-hegemony and polycrisis I: how to eat and how to think
by Raj Patel in The Journal of Peasant Studies…Through examining twentieth-century counter-hegemonic movements, particularly the Italian mondine and the Black...
Jul
15
2025
Experts: Which climate tipping point is the most concerning?
from Carbon Brief…I am particularly worried about tipping points that involve the biosphere and humans due to breaching thresholds for heat or drought that then...
Jul
14
2025
BRICS in 2025
by Tim Sahay and Kate Mackenzie in Phenomenal World…There are now two competing global models of energy and influence: one based on fossil fuels, one on green...
Jul
11
2025
The business of betting on catastrophe
by Susan Erikson in MIT Press… World Bank pandemic bonds paid out only after death tolls passed a threshold. They’re part of a booming market where investors turn...
Jul
10
2025
Global drought hotspots report catalogs severe suffering, economic damage
by United Nations press release…Food, water, energy crises, human tragedies in 2023-2025 detailed in sweeping analysis by U.S. National Drought Mitigation Center...
Jul
09
2025
Droughts worldwide pushing tens of millions towards starvation, says report
by Fiona Harvey in The Guardian…Water shortages hitting crops, energy and health as crisis gathers pace amid climate breakdown
Jul
08
2025
Thinking long-term about infrastructure
by School of International Futures…75 years is a long enough period of time for the world to change in ways that are unanticipated. For this reason, scenarios...
Jul
07
2025
They asked an A.I. chatbot questions. The answers sent them spiraling.
by Kashmir Hill in The New York Times…Generative A.I. chatbots are going down conspiratorial rabbit holes and endorsing wild, mystical belief systems. For some...