The threat of political climate change

In the Americas, the Trump tsunami has swept across both continents and the “pink tide” of progressivism has all but disappeared from the southern half of the hemisphere. In Europe, with the recent exception of Spain, the left has been banished to the political margins. In Africa and Asia, socialism has devolved into nationalism, authoritarianism, or just plain corruption. And forget about the Middle East.

In this planet-wide rising tide of right-wing populism, the liberal left commands only a few disconnected islands – Iceland, Mexico, New Zealand, South Korea, Spain, Uruguay. In so many other places, increasingly illiberal leaders are in charge. Add up the numbers and significantly more than half the world’s population currently lives under some form of right-wing populist or authoritarian rule, courtesy of Donald Trump in the United States, Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil, Narendra Modi in India, Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Turkey, Vladimir Putin in Russia, and Xi Jinping in China, among others.

Optimists cling to the pendulum theory of politics: conservatives are now basking in the limelight, but the day will come when the right inevitably falls on its face and the left swings back into action; witness the results of the 2018 mid-term elections in the United States.

Read the Nation of Change story by John Feffer - “The threat of political climate change.”

Cities don’t cause global warming but must adapt to it

Humans have been urbanizing in earnest since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Worldwide, 55% of humans live in urban areas, and the ratio is much higher in the Americas. This trend is only accelerating, with automation of agriculture and resource extraction reducing rural labor needs, while the information and service economies of cities continue to increase labor needs.

Degree of urbanization (percentage of urban
 population in total population) by continent in 2018 Statista

As an example, the Appalachias of 1910 had close to 800,000 people employed in the coal industry, and that number is around 60,000 today. By comparison, New York City had under 5 million residents in 1910 vs 8.6 million today.

Global warming caused by humans since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution has a correlation with urbanization. Automation allowed and required the work force to leave rural areas and congregate in much more efficient cities which produced much more value. Urbanization is one of the factors which allowed more humans to survive and hence the population to grow. Cities were integral to the success of the Industrial Revolution, and without them humanity wouldn’t have changed the climate as much. But there are dozens of other factors, so it can’t be stated that cities are the cause of global warming, just a factor in the system which led to global warming.

Read the Medium story by Michael Blanchard - “Cities don’t cause global warming but must adapt to it.”