The Daily Shaarli
June 24, 2021
Crushing climate impacts to hit sooner than feared: draft UN report
https://phys.org/news/2021-06-climate-impacts-sooner.html
Global Trends from the US intelligence community:
https://www.dni.gov/files/ODNI/documents/assessments/GlobalTrends_2040.pdf
Cities are outlined as vitally important in the intelligence report, but the UN report says that current cities will all be underwater and need relocating. Urban-level investment is going to have to be a focus for maintaining some semblance of democracy and where the large-scale adaptation-type investments are needed. However, most cities are dependent on their nation states for leverage, taxes (or money) to do
this investment.
We also talk about investment in energy generation close to use and grid upgrades to reduce wasted electrons. All of this requires investment levels in excess of current municipal maintenance budgets.
You can write some pretty believable dystopias out of these two reports, unfortunately the policy response seems to be completely lacking. The intelligence community -- even though they are sophisticated arms of the state -- think that the state will not be able to respond to the needs of the people never mind avoid some of the problems. The government's of the G7 continue to talk like they are only "catalysts" of private sector markets for investment.
Transformation of the way things are currently working is not easily imaginable right now. Society barely admitted that the pandemic should have been a wake-up call for investment in workplace safety and indoor air quality -- never mind that it is a result of the current modes of production and trade.
Anyway, happy Thursday reading.
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