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Several recent works on China and Sino–US relations have made substantial contributions to the current understanding of how and under what circumstances a combination of nuclear deterrence and economic interdependence may reduce the risk of war between major powers. At least four conclusions can be drawn from the review above: first, those who say that interdependence may both inhibit and drive conflict are right. Interdependence raises the cost of conflict for all sides but asymmetrical or unbalanced dependencies and negative trade expectations may generate tensions leading to trade wars among inter-dependent states that in turn increase the risk of military conflict (Copeland, 2015: 1, 14, 437; Roach, 2014). The risk may increase if one of the interdependent countries is governed by an inward-looking socio-economic coalition (Solingen, 2015); second, the risk of war between China and the US should not just be analysed bilaterally but include their allies and partners. Third party countries could drag China or the US into confrontation; third, in this context it is of some comfort that the three main economic powers in Northeast Asia (China, Japan and South Korea) are all deeply integrated economically through production networks within a global system of trade and finance (Ravenhill, 2014; Yoshimatsu, 2014: 576); and fourth, decisions for war and peace are taken by very few people, who act on the basis of their future expectations. International relations theory must be supplemented by foreign policy analysis in order to assess the value attributed by national decision-makers to economic development and their assessments of risks and opportunities. If leaders on either side of the Atlantic begin to seriously fear or anticipate their own nation’s decline then they may blame this on external dependence, appeal to anti-foreign sentiments, contemplate the use of force to gain respect or credibility, adopt protectionist policies, and ultimately refuse to be deterred by either nuclear arms or prospects of socioeconomic calamities. Such a dangerous shift could happen abruptly, i.e. under the instigation of actions by a third party – or against a third party. Yet as long as there is both nuclear deterrence and interdependence, the tensions in East Asia are unlikely to escalate to war. As Chan (2013) says, all states in the region are aware that they cannot count on support from either China or the US if they make provocative moves. The greatest risk is not that a territorial dispute leads to war under present circumstances but that changes in the world economy alter those circumstances in ways that render inter-state peace more precarious. If China and the US fail to rebalance their financial and trading relations (Roach, 2014) then a trade war could result, interrupting transnational production networks, provoking social distress, and exacerbating nationalist emotions. This could have unforeseen consequences in the field of security, with nuclear deterrence remaining the only factor to protect the world from Armageddon, and unreliably so. Deterrence could lose its credibility: one of the two great powers might gamble that the other yield in a cyber-war or conventional limited war, or third party countries might engage in conflict with each other, with a view to obliging Washington or Beijing to intervene.

Economic renewal and fiscal reform have become the preeminent issues, not only for domestic and economic policy but for foreign policy as well. As the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael G. Mullen, was fond of saying, national debt has become perhaps our top national security threat. And neither major presidential candidate is doing enough about it. This issue needs to be framed as crucial not just for our future prosperity but for international stability as well.

The United States has been running trillion-dollar deficits, resulting in a huge explosion in the country’s indebtedness. Publicly held debt now equals 70% of gross domestic product, a threshold many economists consider significant and highly worrisome. Making matters worse, half of our current deficit financing is being provided by foreigners. We are getting by with low interest rates and tolerable levels of domestic investment only because they find U.S. debt attractive, which may not last.

Higher market interest rates can have a negative impact on the stock market. When Fed rate hikes make borrowing money more expensive, the cost of doing business rises for public (and private) companies. Over time, higher costs and less business could mean lower revenues and earnings for public firms, potentially impacting their growth rate and their stock values.

“If the cost of borrowing money from a bank increases, the opportunity to expand investment in capital goods by a corporation stalls,” says Dan Chan, a Silicon Valley investor and a former pre-IPO employee of PayPal. “The interest rate may be so high that many companies will not be able to afford to grow.”

SPACING¶ Modern wind and solar farms require huge swaths of land. Giant¶ windmills, for instance, get spaced a half-mile apart or more. Since¶ “density is green,” this lowers their “green credentials,”¶ while making compact modern natural gas plants, for instance, more¶ environmentally sound. The 550 MW Topaz Solar Farm in California¶ occupies 4,600 football fields worth of land. In contrast, the¶ state’s 850 MW gas-powered Delta Energy Center takes up about 15¶ football fields (20 acres). These unintended consequences of¶ renewables can’t be ignored. Harvard study: “Wide-scale US wind¶ power could cause significant warming.”¶ This spacing issue for wind and solar coincides with their¶ underreported “sweet spot problem.” Not all locations have the¶ same prospects for renewables, justifying why wind-deprived¶ southeastern states haven't installed Renewable Portfolio Standards.¶ The Midwest, for instance, is great for wind but building the hundreds¶ of miles of high-voltage power lines to connect distant consuming¶ areas has proven as difficult and costly as it sounds.¶ Ultimately, the number of places to put a big wind and solar farm is¶ finite, which is why the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) actually¶ projects that gas will add nearly 10 times more generation capacity¶ than wind and 34% more than solar additions in the decades ahead.¶ With prospects based on geography, it’s as obvious as you think:¶ wind and solar builds will be forced to flatten out at some point.¶ INTERMITTENCY¶ The reality is that wind and solar power are usually only available¶ some 30% of the time, as DOE shows. California’s giant Alta Wind¶ Energy Center, for instance, has an average capacity factor of just¶ 24%, meaning that 76% of the time it is not producing the electricity¶ that it could be. It is typically a peaking natural gas plant that¶ compensates for the intermittency of Mother Nature. In fact, this gas¶ backup is an added practical cost (from both a money and environmental¶ perspective) for wind and solar that usually doesn’t get factored¶ into their cost analysis, making them appear cheaper in studies than¶ reality ultimately proves out.¶ Now we know that storage batteries are advancing to help this¶ intermittency problem for wind and solar, but large-scale batteries¶ have been promised to us for decades. MIT Technology Review puts it¶ bluntly: batteries are “far too expensive to play a major role.”¶ And remember that wind and solar are strictly sources of electricity,¶ meaning that they only compete in ~40% of our total energy demand¶ market.¶ DEVELOPING NATIONS¶ Howard Schultz is right, the Green New Deal is “immoral,” but for¶ more than he offered The most telling part of “the value of fossil¶ fuels” is that they supply over 80% of the energy used in the¶ richest nations on Earth with the healthiest people. It’s¶ statistically proven: those nations using the most fossil fuels are¶ more educated, make more money, and live much longer than those using¶ the least. This can’t be stressed enough: it's the countries that¶ DON’T use many fossil fuels that are the poorest and the least¶ healthy.¶ It never gets mentioned that 6 in every 7 humans alive today live in¶ undeveloped nations, lacking proper access to the reliable and¶ affordable energy needed to growth their economies. The sad unintended¶ consequence of the focus only on climate is that it has made¶ life-shortening “energy poverty” a forgotten calamity. Half of the¶ world or more doesn’t have proper access to electricity, the¶ foundation of a modern society. Nearly 17,300 children die each day¶ from preventable causes, enabled by a lack of energy. Tragically, all¶ of this has now become an afterthought.¶ As opposed to some grand “Koch conspiracy,” there are both cost¶ and physical explanations for why wind and solar account for only 3%¶ of global energy supply. The World Bank, International Energy Agency,¶ and other leaders have stood opposed to the unfairness of blocking¶ fossil fuels from poor nations, which is why they strongly support¶ major investments in carbon capture.¶ SINKING OTHER INVESTMENTS ¶ Oil and gas supply 60% of the world’s energy, and their ongoing¶ importance is obvious: hundreds of billions of dollars each year are¶ being invested in producing and transporting them. These are some of¶ the leading companies in the world, surely not foolish enough to be¶ investing so heavily in energy development that won’t be needed.¶ Case in point came this past week when Occidental Petroleum’s $57¶ billion counteroffer to Chevron’s $52 billion bid to buy Anadarko¶ Petroleum. Mutual funds are full of oil and gas companies because they¶ are good investments: “Public pension funds must not divest from¶ reality.”¶ Oil and gas are not stranded but required assets. Our own DOE has them¶ still supplying over half of U.S. energy through at least 2050. Thus,¶ trying to sink investment in domestic supply will only serve the rest¶ of the nation like it has California (reliance on OPEC oil) and New¶ England (reliance on Russian gas). Not to mention the jobs and huge¶ tax revenues provided for states. The U.S. oil and gas business, for¶ instance, supports 10.3 million jobs: “Support Your Local Oil and¶ Natural Gas Company.”¶ FOSSIL FUEL INPUTS¶ It’s truly the ultimate irony of the anti-fossil fuel push. Oil,¶ gas, and coal are so entrenched in our immense energy complex that¶ when you are doing pretty much anything, you are relying on them. To¶ illustrate, petro-chemicals are the building blocks of our clothing,¶ plastics, and thousands of other products that we use every day,¶ ensuring that we will need oil for as far as the eye can see. Even¶ electric cars, which are only selling a few hundred thousand a year¶ (as compared to a U.S. oil-based fleet of 250 million), require lots¶ more gas and coal.¶ Indeed, coal to make steel for windmills, oil to transport solar¶ panels, and gas generating the electricity to manufacture all of them¶ are intrinsic energy system components. The quiet reality: more¶ renewables inevitably mean more fossil fuels: “10 'Reality Check'¶ Problems That Must Be Addressed By Opponents Of Coal, Oil And Natural¶ Gas.”

We're not hearing much about the "Green New Deal" these days, but it's still a priority for some candidates, as anyone who's attended a recent Bernie Sanders rally can attest.¶ Criticism of the GND tends to center on cost and rightly so. It would be extremely expensive. Researchers estimate it would take more than $5 trillion just to switch from coal, nuclear and natural gas to 100% renewables.¶ But even if you set economic concerns aside, an ironic fact remains: In the United States and around the world, the central-planning policies at the heart of the GND have a horrible track record for the environment.¶ Governments in countries such as Venezuela and China (or in the past like the Soviet Union and Cuba) either routinely mismanage and waste resources, or ramp up production with little to no accountability for environmental damage that comes with it. The absence of price signals reduces the incentive to be more efficient and do more with less.¶ In addition, the absence of property rights reduces the incentive to conserve and gives government-controlled industries a free pass to pollute without compensating or protecting its citizens.¶ The Green New Deal would massively expand the size and scope of the federal government's control over activities best left to the private sector. It would empower the feds to change and control how people produce and consume energy, harvest crops, raise livestock, build homes, drive cars and manufacture goods.¶ Secondly, the Green New Deal would result in a number of unintended consequences. For instance, policies that limit coal, oil and natural gas production in the United States will not stop the global consumption of these natural resources. Production will merely shift to places where the environmental standards are not as rigorous, making the planet worse off.¶ Moreover, it's not as if wind, solar and battery technologies magically appear. Companies still have to mine the resources, manufacture the product and deal with the waste streams. There are challenges to disposing potentially toxic lithium-ion batteries and solar panels, or even wind turbine blades that are difficult and expensive to transport and crush at landfills. While these are solvable problems, they're seldom discussed by GND proponents.¶ There would also be massive land use changes required to expand renewable power. Ben Zycher at the American Enterprise Institute estimates that land use necessary to meet a 100% renewable target would require 115 million acres, which is 15% larger than the land area of California.¶ Two recent National Bureau of Economic Research papers underscore the unintended consequences of energy policy on human well-being. One found that cheaper home heating because of America's fracking revolution is averting more than 10,000 winter deaths per year. The Green New Deal would wipe all of that away, and reverse course by mandating pricier energy on families.¶ Another paper found that the Japanese government's decision to close safely operating nuclear power plants after Fukashima increased energy prices and reduced consumption, which consequently, increased mortalities from colder temperatures. In fact, the authors estimate that "the decision to cease nuclear production has contributed to more deaths than the accident itself." Unintended consequences.¶ Another hallmark of bad environmental policy is focusing on outputs, not outcomes. According to the frequently asked questions sheet released along with the Green New Deal, it is "a massive investment in renewable energy production and would not include creating new nuclear plants."

For our first example, what might happen if the United States does not continue its missions to defeat ISIL, al Qaeda, the Taliban, and other violent extremist groups around the world? One potential regret is enduring terror movements that continue to destabilize vulnerable nations and whole regions; harm captured peoples; exploit captured territory to train terrorists, raise funds, and attract new recruits; and export violence to the United States and its allies and friends.

It remains unknown whether currently deployed forces are sufficient to achieve U.S. objectives. In fact, the United States has steadily increased troop deployments to Iraq and Syria and extended the mission in Afghanistan. However, this analysis assumes that U.S. ground forces will remain engaged at their current levels against extremist groups in order to continue to degrade them. Therefore, we assume here that these troops could not be pulled away for other operations without ending this mission. It is also possible that countering violent extremists will require more troops if the mission changes—for example, if additional ground troops are committed to combat operations, such as those in Syria and Iraq. Total troop requirements would remain those shown earlier as the worldwide commitments.

The Military is the Only Major Federal Jobs Program in the U.S.

Understanding that climate disruption is an outcome of our broken economic system, climate threats cannot be separated from other forms of insecurity that people experience in their daily lives. Vast economic insecurity and inequality are outcomes of the financially extractive, fossil-fueled economy.

Most people, and certainly most politicians, don’t spend much time or emotional energy thinking about whether human life on this planet will still exist in one hundred years’ time, or what efforts might need to be made right now if we and our descendants are to avoid extinction.

More Covid-scale pandemics, and the increasingly obvious reality of global warming, are both now being seen – though still not universally – as serious risks demanding serious policy response. They may prove to be game changers. But, here as with other potentially huge man-made risks, complacency generally prevails. Since the end of the Cold War, it has been hard to energise policymakers and publics anywhere in the world about the risk of annihilation by nuclear weapons – and even harder to alarm anyone but a handful of afficionados about developments in artificial intelligence amounting to a measurable threat to our very existence.

Building on Meier and Vieluf’s accounting of the dangers of populism

I have argued that nuclear-armed establishments are more dangerous than Meier and Vieluf suggest. Now I will also argue that nuclear-armed populists are dangerous for even more reasons than Meier and Vieluf enumerate.

In the language of textbook macroeconomics, these are policies where the government shifts simultaneously, and significantly, the IS and the LM curves. In every Latin American experience with populist policies the government granted wage increases — both public‐​sector and minimum wages — that exceeded significantly what was justified by improvements in productivity. Just as MMTers, populist politicians present heterodoxy as the solution to the nation’s ills, and in particular to the suffering of the middle and lower classes.∂ For populists, one of the features of capitalist economies is the existence of substantial idle capacity. Thus, in their view, large and persistent fiscal deficits financed through money creation do not result in serious imbalances, high inflation, and, eventually, crises. For populists the contrary is true: large fiscal deficits expand demand and encourage output, allowing firms to exploit economies of scale and to use resources fully. For them the combination of large deficits with redistributive policies results in a decline in inflation. Populists tend to dismiss possible collapses in the demand for domestic money, and increases in the velocity of circulation; in this, their perspective is, again, very similar to that of MMT supporters.∂ These views are clearly captured by the following quote from Daniel Carbonetto (: 82), the economist behind Alan García’s populist policies in Peru in the second half of the 1980s: “If it were necessary to summarize the strategy adopted by the government since August 1985 with two words, they are control (meaning control of prices and costs) and spend, transferring resources to the poor so that they increase consumption.” Carbonetto (: 83) then added that budget constraints had to be ignored: “It is necessary to spend, even at the cost of a large fiscal deficit, because, when this deficit transfers public resources to increase consumption of the poorest, they demand more goods and this will bring about a reduction in unit costs. Thus the deficit is not inflationary.”

In Algan et al. (2017) we track the change in unemployment and the vote for populist parties before and after the Great Recession in 240 subnational regions in 26 European countries in 2000–2017. Unlike other studies (Inglehart and Norris 2016; Guiso, Herrera, and Morelli 2017; and Dustmann et al. 2017) that study self-reported voting from the individual-level survey data, we look at the actual region-level voting outcomes. We find that controlling for regional fixed effects, an increase in unemployment is associated with the rise in populist vote. The effect’s magnitude is large: a 1 percentage point change in unemployment implies 1 percentage point change in the populist vote. In order to identify the causal effects, we instrument the increase in unemployment by the precrisis composition of the regional economy. We find that instrumental variable results imply even a larger magnitude of the effect: 1 percentage point increase in unemployment leads to 2 percentage points increase in populist vote. The effects that we find are larger than those found in other studies. This is likely to be driven by the fact that the other studies measure the relationship between individual-level employment status and his/her vote. We study the region-level relationships and thus can better identify the impact of economic insecurity. Indeed, an increase in regional unemployment raises economic insecurity and undermines the confidence in the system even for those voters who are currently employed. Indeed, even those who have a job are concerned with higher unemployment—as they face higher risks of losing their jobs and are less likely to see significant wage increases. To identify the mechanism, we study the relationship between the change in unemployment and change in political trust. We find that the increase in unemployment causes the decline in trust in European and national political institutions and alienation from existing parties. At the same time there is no, or almost no, impact on the generalized social trust, on the trust in police, or on the trust in church—or on the trust in the United Nations. In order to understand the role of identity politics, we also study the change in attitudes to immigration. We find that an increase in unemployment results in a more negative attitude to immigrants for economic reasons—but there is no impact on the attitude to migrants for cultural reasons. It may well be that the survey respondents are ashamed to admit their adherence to identity politics and ascribe cultural aversion to immigration to an economic one. However, Barrera et al. (2017) show that even if this bias exists, it is very small.

∂ Two separate studies published online Monday in the journal Nature Climate Change found Earth will be warmer by at least 2 degrees by the year 2100. The main difference between the two analyses of climate change was that one used Fahrenheit and the other Celsius to predict the rise in global temperatures.∂ ∂ One study, led by researchers from University of Washington (UW), used statistical tools and concluded there was “only a 5 percent chance that Earth will warm 2 degrees [Celsius] or less by the end of this century. It shows a mere 1 percent chance that warming could be at or below 1.5 degrees [Celsius], the target set by the 2016 Paris Agreement.”∂ ∂ UW’s Adrian Raftery, who led the research for the , said in a statement Monday the 2 degree Celsius rise was a best-case scenario which was achievable only if there was a concerted and massive effort across all fronts to achieve that goal for the next 80 years. The researchers’ analysis shows an overwhelming 90 percent chance of temperatures going up by anywhere between 2 and 4.9 degrees Celsius by 2100.∂ “Our analysis is compatible with previous estimates, but it finds that the most optimistic projections are unlikely to happen. We’re closer to the margin than we think,” Raftery said in .∂ For their projections, the researchers used three factors that affect future emissions: the total human population of the planet, gross domestic product per person, and carbon intensity, which is a measure of carbon emission for each dollar of economic activity. Statistical projections were made on the basis of data for the last 50 years.∂ Earth’s population is expected to reach 11 billion by the year 2100, according to the projections, an almost 50 percent increase from the current world population. But since most of this growth is expected to come from Africa, where fossil fuel consumption is low, the researchers found this factor to be only a minor one in their projections.∂ The biggest factor was found to be carbon intensity, which has been dropping in recent years due to increased energy efficiency across industries. But the study found “a wide range of possible values of carbon intensity over future decades, depending on technological progress and countries’ commitments to implementing changes.”∂ Based on various projections, the study, titled “Less than 2 °C warming by 2100 unlikely,” found a median value of 3.2 degrees Celsius for global temperature rise by 2100.

∂ ∂ Extreme heat in the world’s oceans passed the “point of no return” in 2014 and has become the new normal, according to research.∂ Scientists analysed sea surface temperatures over the last 150 years, which have risen because of global heating. They found that extreme temperatures occurring just 2% of the time a century ago have occurred at least 50% of the time across the global ocean since 2014.∂ In some hotspots, extreme temperatures occur 90% of the time, severely affecting wildlife. More than 90% of the heat trapped by greenhouse gases is absorbed by the ocean, which plays a critical role in maintaining a stable climate.∂ “By using this measure of extremes, we’ve shown that climate change is not something that is uncertain and may happen in the distant future – it’s something that is a historical fact and has occurred already,” said Kyle Van Houtan, at the Monterey Bay Aquarium, US, and one of the research team. “Extreme climate change is here, it’s in the ocean, and the ocean underpins all life on Earth.”∂ Van Houtan and his colleague Kisei Tanaka are ecologists and began the study because they wanted to assess how heat extremes were related to the loss of kelp forests off the coast of California.∂ “Ecology teaches us that extremes have an outsized impact on ecosystems,” Van Houtan said. “We are trying to understand the dramatic changes that we’ve seen along our coasts and in the ocean, on coral reefs, kelp, white sharks, sea otters, fish, and more.”∂ Other scientists reported in 2019 that the , killing swathes of sea life like “wildfires that take out huge areas of forest”.∂ Van Houtan and Tanaka found no measure of extreme heat existed and so extended their work globally. The study, journal, examined the monthly temperature in each one-degree-by-one-degree part of the ocean and set the highest temperature in the 50-year period as the benchmark for extreme heat.∂ The scientists then examined temperature records from 1920 to 2019, the most recent year available. They found that by 2014, more than 50% of the monthly records across the entire ocean had surpassed the once-in-50–years extreme heat benchmark. The researchers called the year when the percentage passed 50% and did not fall back below it in subsequent years the “point of no return”.∂ By 2019, the proportion of the global ocean suffering extreme heat was 57%. “We expect this to keep on going up,” said Van Houtan. But the extreme heat was particularly severe in some parts of the ocean, with the South Atlantic having passed the point of no return in 1998. “That was 24 years ago – that is astounding,” he said.∂ The proportion of the ocean experiencing extreme heat in some large ecosystems is now 80%-90%, with the five worst affected including areas off the north-east coasts of the US and Canada, off Somalia and Indonesia, and in the Norwegian Sea.∂ “You should care about turtles, seabirds and whales, but even if you don’t, the two most lucrative fisheries in the US, lobster and scallops, are in those exact spots,” said Van Houtan, while 14 fisheries in Alaska have recently been .∂ ∂ The heat content of the top 2,000 metres of the , the sixth in a row. Prof John Abraham at the University of St Thomas in Minnesota, one of the team behind the assessment, said ocean heat content was the most relevant to global climate, while surface temperatures were most relevant to weather patterns, as well as many ecosystems.∂ “Oceans are critical to understanding climate change. They cover about 70% of the planet’s surface and absorb more than 90% of global warming heat,” Abraham said. “The new study is helpful because the researchers look at the surface temperatures. It finds there has been a big increase in extreme heat at the ocean’s surface and that the extremes are increasing over time.”

While the goal of the Green New Deal to significantly cut global carbon emissions is vital, its approach of huge deficit financed and politically engineered spending programs may be the worst imaginable. Consider three significant consequences of this policy plan. First, the Green New Deal could unintentionally inhibit clean technology and energy efficiency innovation because the federal grants will inevitably be earmarked for investments that can be defined using only tools and technologies already at hand. Blunt spending programs will force contractors to sell what they know to meet government deadlines rather than encouraging research and development into the next generation of low carbon technologies.∂ {mosads}Second, an increase in federal spending on green infrastructure projects such as wind farms or solar fields could significantly suppress private sector spending in this key energy category. If a community, for example, is considering installing solar panels at a local school and the federal government offers grants for this type of investment, the obvious choice would be to finance them with federal dollars instead of local dollars. In this case, total renewable investment would not increase, but it adds a layer of bureaucratic complexity to the administrative burden.∂ A recent report by the Congressional Budget Office reviews evidence of this investment dynamic with respect to federal transportation spending. One recent estimate found that each dollar increase in federal highway spending from the 2009 stimulus bill reduced state spending on highway projects by 81 cents. While the offset may be smaller for new federal spending on green projects, there will surely be some, with the net increase in green energy investment less than the federal spending.∂ Third, the Green New Deal will influence lawmakers on decision making because funding allocations will undoubtedly be determined by political forces rather than market forces. Some lawmakers will insist on a certain level of investment in solar projects, while others will demand more money for wind turbines or geothermal power. The final allocation will depend on the relative clout of the lawmakers and will inefficiently differ from the allocations that consumers and producers would demand.∂ In short, the Green New Deal would be a deficit financed expansion of federal bureaucratic power to dictate investment decisions in one of the most dynamic sectors of the economy. Responding to the threat of climate change by growing the government and further centralizing energy market decisions puts at risk the free market economy that our nation has relied on for economic growth for more than two centuries.

(Alexander Dunlap is a postdoctoral research fellow at the Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo, Norway. His work has critically examined police-military transformations, market-based conservation, wind energy development and extractive projects more generally in both Latin America and Europe. Jostein Jakobsen is a doctoral research fellow at the Centre for Development and the Environment, University of Oslo, Norway. His research focuses on agrarian change in India, food regime analysis, meatification, and the Naxalite movement in India, set within broad interests in political ecology and critical agrarian studies. “The Violent Technologies of Extraction Political ecology, critical agrarian studies and the capitalist worldeater” 105-110) DAH

Ecological crisis, climate change and increasing energy usage are leading to various environmental programs. Despite the proliferation of ecological concerns, high-level negotiations surrounding biodiversity loss and climate change, which includes the resulting (market-based) mitigation practices, appear to be failing at redressing these issues in any meaningful way (Dunlap and Fairhead 2014; Hunsberger et al. 2017). Capitalist growth and the financial economy remain the highest priority, which becomes increasingly apparent in the way extractivism and environmental policy interact. We are witnessing the simultaneous deployment of industrial- scale extractivism and conservation initiatives that appear to be collaborating and complementing each other in methods of land control, commodifying natural resources and extracting value, meanwhile suppressing local opposition and resistance. Highlighting this phenomenon, Büscher and Davidov (2013) reveal the ‘ecotourism-extraction nexus’ that demonstrates how resource extraction and eco-tourism are actually co- constructed, share similar logics and retain multiple forms of collaboration. With this angle, eco-tourism can become complementary to hydrocarbon and mineral extraction, meanwhile extractivism can pave the way to eco-tourism demarcation and revenue extraction (Duffy 2015), leaving communities to negotiate conventional and green extractive industries (Büscher and Davidov 2013; Sullivan 2013b; Hill et al. 2016). Furthermore, the discursive fabrication of ‘bad’ and ‘good’ extraction remains instrumental, as mining engaged in environmental programs and ‘responsible’ mining can become ‘sustainable mining’ or support (market- based) environmental initiatives. Mining fabricated as ‘sustainable’ is based on CSR and the notion of ‘offsetting’. The undeniably ecologically destructive nature of large-scale mines requires them to use the logic of offsetting that is constructed in various ways (see Dunlap and Sullivan 2019). The idea, however, is the same: if you cause damage in one place you will restore and improve nature in another place (See Sullivan 2009; Huff and Brock 2017). As mentioned above, environmental initiatives are further legitimizing and/ or rebranding the images of companies, opening new green economic markets and undermining environmentalists opposing development projects. Offsetting has tried to brand Ilmenite (Seagle 2012), Uranium (Sullivan 2013b) and lignite coal mining (Kirsch 2014; Brock and Dunlap 2018) as ‘green’ and ecologically sustainable. Meanwhile, company offsetting sites, aside from rebranding operations, are then seeking to commodify and make these ‘restored’ or ‘improved’ environments legible to the green economy where biodiversity and carbon storage are then integrated into financial markets (see Sullivan 2010, 2013a; Fletcher et al. 2018; Dunlap and Sullivan 2019). Thus, as Seagle (2012) pointed out, the more companies extract and degrade environments, the more their carbon and biodiversity investments will increase in value. Offsetting can extend to ‘clean’ energy projects such as solar and wind energy development. While solar and wind energy were present in the environmental initiatives of the Hambach coal mine (Brock and Dunlap 2018), we also see wind and solar projects powering the infrastructure and public imagine of mining industries, notable among them is Grupo Mexico (Dunlap 2017a, 2019a). Solar and wind energy projects are themselves paraded as ecologically sustainable, environmentally friendly and an answer to climate change mitigation and energy transition. There is little, however, to suggest that industrial-scale renewable energy can lead to solving, let alone mitigating ecological crises. In fact, it spreads electrical infrastructure across the world (see Fig. 2 of Chap. 2), energizing mass consumption and life into the Worldeater. The socio-ecological costs of solar and wind energy are under-acknowledged, if not willfully ignored, to blindly expand extractive activities and economic or (delusional) ‘green’ growth (see Hickel and Kallis 2019). It may be argued that, while so- called renewables (or fossil fuel+) do not exhaust the resources that they use, the plantation economy does. We disagree. First, as will be discussed below, renewables require extractivism for securing raw materials and thereby risk the possibility of exhaustion via mining, negligent recycling protocols, misleading ecological ‘solution’ marketing and capitalist growth imperatives. Second, and like most technological interventions, people do not know the long-term impact that wind parks have on ‘the atmospheric boundary layer by (a) reducing wind speeds, (b) generating blade scale turbulence in the wake of the turbines, and (c) generating shear driven turbulence due to the reduced wind speeds in the turbine wake’ (Tabassum- Abbasi et al. 2014: 281). Moreover, absorbing the sun into solar panels— the skin of the Worldeater—and not the land risks unknown site-specific ecological alterations. Theoretical modeling and now ‘concrete evidence’, according to Tabassum-Abbasi et al. (2014: 273), ‘is emerging that large wind farms can influence local weather but are also likely to influence the climate and can bring in significant changes’. Renewable interventions might be less abrasive than mineral and hydrocarbon extraction, yet they remain co-constructed and are producing an infrastructure intervening into wind and solar patterns on a global-scale to harness and absorb vital energy. This deserves greater consideration and research to say the least. Below we will briefly discuss five criteria—raw material extraction, land control, socio-ecological impact, energy use and decommissioning—to assess the viability of solar and wind energy projects in their respective locations. Where do those fields of solar panels and large-metal wind towers come from? Photovoltaic (PV) solar and wind energy projects require a vast amount of extraction and processes. You will find fossil fuels at every part of the supply chain in mining, manufacturing, transportation and processing of raw materials. This also includes the increasing mechanization of large-scale mining, but consider that according to some sources, ‘PV solar power systems contain approximately 5.5 tons per MW of copper, while grid energy storage installations rely on between 3 tons and 4 tons per MW’ (Strong 2016). Meanwhile, according to Wind Power Monthly, 3.6 tons of copper are used per megawatt in wind energy development (Smith 2014). This includes unknown amounts of various steels (depending on the solar project) for panel frames, while wind turbines use roughly 150 metric tons of steel for reinforced concrete foundations, 250 metric tons for the rotor hubs and nacelles and 500 metric tons for the tower (Smil 2016). The production of steel, as it stands, is impossible without burning metallurgical coal—or coking coal—which is a vital raw material in the processing of renewable energy infrastructure (Dıez et al. 2002). The manufacturing of PV requires hazardous materials such as hydrochloric acid, sulfuric acid, nitric acid, hydrogen fluoride, 1,1,1- tricholoroethane, and acetone (UCS 2013; Yang et al. 2017). Thin-film PV cells also contain toxic material such as gallium arsenide, copper-indium-gallium- diselenide, cadmium-telluride and coolant liquids (Yang et al. 2017). Wind turbines also use a variety of plastics, minerals and rare earth minerals in their permanent magnets, such as dysprosium, praseodymium neodymium, and terbium (Dunlap 2018e). There are numerous variations 5 between type of wind turbines—geared turbines that do not use permanent magnets or direct-drive turbines—and solar panels utilizing different technologies. The list of minerals and processing necessary for use are exhaustive, yet it is important to recognize the extent of the complex fossil fuel and mineral supply chains, and likely accompanying human right abuses that lurk behind so-called renewable technologies (Finley-Brook and Thomas 2011; Kiezebrink et al. 2018), which require further research, public acknowledgment and discussion—to say the least. This collaboration between extractive industries, extracting minerals for renewable energy or using renewable energy for extractive operations, has led Dunlap and Brock (2019, Dunlap 2018e) to calling this ‘the renewable energy- extraction nexus’. This nexus, we would add, aids the Worldeater’s colonizing drive, expanding its grid while remarkably successfully enrolling people into its entrails as it builds public opinion in accordance with selective rational interest. Once raw materials are secured, processed and assembled, or ready for onsite assembly, the next step is to acquire land with abundant solar and wind resources. Solar and wind parks require large tracts of land (Rignall 2016; Yenneti et al. 2016; Siamanta 2017; Avila 2018; Dunlap 2017a), which opens these projects to the same issues associated with land grabbing and control: dispossession carried out by public and private security forces; land contracts dependent on deception/manipulation; acquiring contracts through coercion and, overall, multipronged counterinsurgency style interventions (Dunlap 2018a, forthcoming). Different forms of ‘energy dispossession’ (Baka 2017) offer various and adverse royalties, and socio-economic and ecological benefits. Land deals, and the methods used to acquire land, will depend on the companies and the politico-historical context where conventional and green extractivist projects arrive. The Union of Concerned Scientists notes that there is ‘less opportunity for solar projects to share land with agricultural uses’ than wind turbines, which in theory is true, yet depends entirely on the company in question (Siamanta and Dunlap, forthcoming). Meanwhile, mixing wind turbines with agriculture reportedly has severe negative impacts on agriculture and livestock (see Dunlap 2019b). When land is acquired, the project construction begins, requiring various environmental transformations and/or degradations. Solar and wind projects require the clearing of land, which necessitates, depending on this land, different levels of deforestation, habitat loss and soil

In reality, the fiscal costs are likely to be much, much higher, and the economic welfare losses even more significant, because in the labor market and broader economy, a public jobs guarantee program would significantly crowd out productive private sector activity. This type of policy will radically alter behavior of both workers and businesses, and so the supply and demand for labor. The Census shows that, among those who worked in 2016, 70+ million Americans earned under $32,500 (the full‐​time job guarantee salary would be $31,200). Yes, not all of these would seek out positions on the jobs guarantee program. But a large proportion would, especially those employed in uncertain roles with low levels of job security. In fact, some even paid more than $31,200 might consider leaving their jobs to pursue guaranteed roles if they perceive better working conditions or an easier worklife (asked under what conditions someone would be fired from such a role, the Levy Institute paper suggests that you would be sacked for failing to go to work, but that your performance would not be judged by “private sector ‘efficiency criteria’”, for example.) It’s not inconceivable then that over 25 percent of the labor force could find itself part of the scheme. This crowd‐​out is likely to be particularly acute in low productivity regions, and (ironically) after economic downturns. A nationwide jobs guarantee program paying $15 an hour will be particularly attractive to workers in low wage regions, and by setting a de facto wage floor the program will prevent private investment in regions on the basis of cheap labor. Though no doubt there would be some demand spillovers from well‐​paid jobs, the net consequence is highly likely to be weaker private sector job creation in poor regions, which has been the experience of countries such as Britain with a nationwide minimum wages and public sector national pay bargaining. Proponents of the scheme see “higher labor standards” as a good thing, but absent productivity improvements, policies which raise labor costs significantly will reduce the quantity of workers demanded. There’s good reason to expect the policy will reduce the efficiency and productive potential of the economy too. Taxes will eventually need to be raised to cover the net cost of the program. In infrastructure and care giving provision, costs will rise – because nobody would now work in these directly substitutable sectors for less than the wage and conditions offered in the job guarantee program. This will waste resources, and there’s highly likely to be overinvestment in lots of relatively low value ventures and programs to ensure workers are employed, especially given the explicit aim is to provide employment rather than deliver projects at low cost. Throwing resources at regions with higher levels of unemployment and after recessions too will work directly against market signals and deter the mobility of labor (in geographic and industrial terms) and capital to its most productive uses given prevailing market conditions. This is important: yes, employment is highly likely to have some positive externalities; but the real driver of better living standards over time are productivity improvements, discovered by market‐​based activity. Proponents of this policy seem to put an enormous weight on the idea that time out of the labor market has huge scarring consequences which could be ameliorated by any type of temporary employment. But the literature on this shows that temporary jobs do not provide the workers with skills to improve longer‐​term labor market outcomes.

POWER CHALLENGED AND DIFFUSED Public goods are benefits that apply to everyone and are denied to no one. At the national level, governments provide many of these to their citizens: safety for people and property, economic infrastructure, a clean environment. In the absence of international government, global public goods--a clean climate or financial stability or freedom of the seas--have sometimes been provided by coalitions led by the largest power, which benefits the most from these goods and can afford to pay for them. When the strongest powers fail to appreciate this dynamic, global public goods are under-produced and everybody suffers. Some observers see the main threat to the current liberal order coming from the rapid rise of a China that does not always appear to appreciate that great power carries with it great responsibilities. They worry that China is about to pass the United States in power and that when it does, it will not uphold the current order because it views it as an external imposition reflecting others' interests more than its own. This concern is misguided, however, for two reasons: because China is unlikely to surpass the United States in power anytime soon and because it understands and appreciates the order more than is commonly realized. Contrary to the current conventional wisdom, China is not about to replace the United States as the world's dominant country. Power involves the ability to get what you want from others, and it can involve payment, coercion, or attraction. China's economy has grown dramatically in recent decades, but it is still only 61 percent of the size of the U.S. economy, and its rate of growth is slowing. And even if China does surpass the United States in total economic size some decades from now, economic might is just part of the geopolitical equation. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the United States spends four times as much on its military as does China, and although Chinese capabilities have been increasing in recent years, serious observers think that China will not be able to exclude the United States from the western Pacific, much less exercise global military hegemony. And as for soft power, the ability to attract others, a recent index published by Portland, a London consultancy, ranks the United States first and China 28th. And as China tries to catch up, the United States will not be standing still. It has favorable demographics, increasingly cheap energy, and the world's leading universities and technology companies. Moreover, China benefits from and appreciates the existing international order more than it sometimes acknowledges. It is one of only five countries with a veto in the UN Security Council and has gained from liberal economic institutions, such as the World Trade Organization (where it accepts dispute-settlement judgments that go against it) and the International Monetary Fund (where its voting rights have increased and it fills an important deputy director position). China is now the second-largest funder of UN peacekeeping forces and has participated in UN programs related to Ebola and climate change. In 2015, Beijing joined with Washington in developing new norms for dealing with climate change and conflicts in cyberspace. On balance, China has tried not to overthrow the current order but rather to increase its influence within it. The order will inevitably look somewhat different as the twenty-first century progresses. China, India, and other economies will continue to grow, and the U.S. share of the world economy will drop. But no other country, including China, is poised to displace the United States from its dominant position. Even so, the order may still be threatened by a general diffusion of power away from governments toward nonstate actors. The information revolution is putting a number of transnational issues, such as financial stability, climate change, terrorism, pandemics, and cybersecurity, on the global agenda at the same time as it is weakening the ability of all governments to respond. Complexity is growing, and world politics will soon not be the sole province of governments. Individuals and private organizations--from corporations and nongovernmental organizations to terrorists and social movements--are being empowered, and informal networks will undercut the monopoly on power of traditional bureaucracies. Governments will continue to possess power and resources, but the stage on which they play will become ever more crowded, and they will have less ability to direct the action. Even if the United States remains the largest power, accordingly, it will not be able to achieve many of its international goals acting alone. For example, international financial stability is vital to the prosperity of Americans, but the United States needs the cooperation of others to ensure it. Global climate change and rising sea levels will affect the quality of life, but Americans cannot manage these problems by themselves. And in a world where borders are becoming more porous, letting in everything from drugs to infectious diseases to terrorism, nations must use soft power to develop networks and build institutions to address shared threats and challenges. Washington can provide some important global public goods largely by itself. The U.S. Navy is crucial when it comes to policing the law of the seas and defending freedom of navigation, and the U.S. Federal Reserve undergirds international financial stability by serving as a lender of last resort. On the new transnational issues, however, success will require the cooperation of others--and thus empowering others can help the United States accomplish its own goals. In this sense, power becomes a positive-sum game: one needs to think of not just the United States' power over others but also the power to solve problems that the United States can acquire by working with others. In such a world, the ability to connect with others becomes a major source of power, and here, too, the United States leads the pack. The United States comes first in the Lowy Institute's ranking of nations by number of embassies, consulates, and missions. It has some 60 treaty allies, and The Economist estimates that nearly 100 of the 150 largest countries lean toward it, while only 21 lean against it. Increasingly, however, the openness that enables the United States to build networks, maintain institutions, and sustain alliances is itself under siege. This is why the most important challenge to the provision of world order in the twenty-first century comes not from without but from within. POPULISM VS. GLOBALIZATION Even if the United States continues to possess more military, economic, and soft-power resources than any other country, it may choose not to use those resources to provide public goods for the international system at large. It did so during the interwar years, after all, and in the wake of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq, a 2013 poll found that 52 percent of Americans believed that "the U.S. should mind its own business internationally and let other countries get along the best they can on their own."

2. Education as an Effective Soft Power Instrument Culture and education come to be one of the most effective soft power instruments. In line with this, soft power is contrasted with 'hard power', which implies using of military force and coercion. In this aspect, it is important not only to use military force or economic sanctions to force change in other countries, but also it is crucial to shape the agenda of world politics and attract them (Nye, 2005, p. 14). Nowadays, the leadership in the world politics is increasingly determined by the ability of the state to help develop its neighbors or competitors (Bogaturov, 2006, p. 12). Moreover, in the transition period of the world political system states have to fight for the right to determine the values and the regulatory component of the modern world order. Competition between different values and models of national and socio-economic development is one of the key trends of the new millennium. Today, this kind of leadership is impossible without advancing human development - the basis of the formation of the new knowledge-based economy. That is why many ambitiously developing states (such as Brazil, Russia, India and China) which are eager to adopt innovative economic model, pay special attention to the modernization and internationalization of their national education systems (Nye, 2008, p. 94). Only a developed education system that meets the requirements of innovative high-tech economy, and is integrated into the international educational and scientific space, can become one of the major competitive advantages of the modern state in the "global competition for minds" and attract the most talented foreign students. The provision of educational opportunities for foreign students is one of the most important instruments of soft power of the state (Cowan & Arsenault, 2008, s.10). Successful foreign students who along with the learning the language will gradually become acquainted with the achievements of science and culture of the host country. These students can gain valuable social capital after having being studied abroad. Consequently, after coming back with acquired knowledge and personal relations, they are expected to become effective transmitters of the language and culture of the country where they had studied (Nye, 2005, p. 12). As a result, the effectiveness of exposure to the outside world with the help of national education as an instrument of soft power is much higher than by military force or others. 3. International Education and Geopolitics It must also be emphasized that the education system has always been the main engine of prosperity of a particular state. After all, it is known that, any state is able to show considerable achievements in the level of prosperity by the help of the viable mechanism of educational system. Singapore, Indonesia, Malaysia and other East Asian countries might serve as a striking example of this (Nye, 2005, p. 12). At the same time, the education system can be used as an instrument of soft power in the sphere of politics and geopolitics. Currently, the number of countries that regard that education is the best way to promote their national interests on the world stage is increasing. Thus, the countries such as China, Germany, Russia, the US, Turkey and a number of developed European countries have implemented a variety of high education programs for competent and promising young people from around the world. Especially big powers for the first time in history started to pay special attention and importance to the educational system of their universities (Nye, 2004, p. 16). For instance Mohamed Morsi ex-president of Egypt, who studied at the University of Southern California, Mikheil Saakashvili, who studied Masters at Columbia University, Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto of Pakistan studied at Harvard University and the Japanese Crown Princess Masako, who studied at Harvard University (Nye, 2004, p. 24). Further, it should be emphasized that the educational system today is closely intertwined with the concept of politics and/or geopolitics (Nye, 2005, p. 4). Graduates studied in the foreign countries become not only highly qualified personnel in their countries, but they also may become a so-called “Trojan horse” (Tremblay, 2010, p.117). Shortly, unfolding political events have demonstrated that political leaders may show sympathy and favor to the countries where they studied. In particular during the Afghan war the Soviet officials used to get Afghan political and intellectual elites to accept Soviet ideology with the aim to establish Soviet-friendly regime. For instance one of them was Nur Mohammad Taraki. It should be noted that Taraki was Secretary-General of the PDPA and the leader of the faction "Hulk" (People). Also, it is known that the Soviet Union sought to introduce the Afghan people with their ideology through the pro-Soviet Afghan officials who were studied in the USSR. However, excessive rigidity of the Soviet Union and the forced introduction of their views and ideology affected negatively, and subsequently Afghan people felt alienation and distrust to the Soviet Union and its views (Filimonov, 2010, p. 12). However, currently the U.S. implements this project (educational project) much more delicately. But, the most important triumph in the fact that many young people aim to study in the United States. Thanks to, high quality education the U.S. government can successfully implements its strategy in the framework of politics and geopolitics, not only regionally, but also globally (Cooper, 2004, p. 168). Nowadays, more countries are trying to form world quality and accessible system of education to students from all over the world. Such countries as the United States are perfectly informed about the fact that the education system is one of the most essential instruments in terms of dominance in the global political arena. Everyone knows that the educational system allows the improvement of economic and political situation of the country (Nye, 2009, p. 17). Thus, if one country is dominating in some part of the world both politically and economically, it means that it is also dominant in the geopolitical aspect in the given part of the world.

In choosing between school enrollment and employment, and in choosing among different employment options, individuals must take into account the different career paths that would result from the various options. Choosing to enroll in school reflects a judgment that the future wage gains generated by increased human capital (and any nonwage benefits of schooling) exceed the opportunity cost of tuition and forgone earnings. Similarly, some jobs confer experience and training (or prospects for internal advancement) that is especially valuable, and that may compensate for lower wages (Postel Vinay and Robin 2002). A job guarantee could have different types of effects on workers’ long-term career outcomes. On the one hand, a guaranteed job might attract individuals who would otherwise have obtained more schooling: by making it easier to immediately obtain employment, a job guarantee lowers the appeal of school enrollment. An empirical literature has examined this effect in the context of minimum wage laws, which may reduce school enrollment to an extent (Neumark and Wascher 2007). In a very different context, the recent surge in oil and gas extraction and associated increase in labor demand for low-skilled workers raised the male high school dropout rate by 0.3 percentage points in the average labor market with shale reserves (Cascio and Narayan 2015). The extent to which a job guarantee would reduce the incentives for human capital accumulation depends on the attractiveness of the program and whether there are any advantages (e.g., pay, working conditions, etc.) in the program for those with more skills.

A new report from the shows that the percentage of working age adults who’ve earned a college degree or other postsecondary credential reached 53.7% in 2021.¶ According to Lumina’s updated , the foundation’s online, interactive tool tracking postsecondary educational attainment, that figure represents a nearly 2 percentage point gain over 2019’s level of 51.9%, and it’s the highest number since the organization began keeping tabs on educational attainment levels more than a decade ago.¶ “This is exciting because this gain represents the largest two-year increase we have seen,” said Courtney Brown, Lumina’s vice president of strategic impact and planning and director of the Stronger Nation project, in the . “This is also the first time every state, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico have experienced increases in the proportion of residents holding associate or bachelor’s degrees or higher.”¶ In 2008, Lumina issued its much-publicized call for the “Big Goal” - where 60% of working-age adults would have earned a college degree, or other high-quality postsecondary credentials, by 2025. A total of 48 states have now set attainment goals, most in direct response to Lumina’s challenge.¶ Across the past 15 years, solid progress in attainment beyond high school has been achieved, bringing the goal within reach. The percentage of adults in the U. S. between the ages of 25 to 64 with college degrees, certificates, or industry-recognized certifications, has increased from 37.9% in 2009 to 53.7% in 2021, a gain of nearly 16 percentage points.¶ That progress has come despite several obstacles, including the Covid-19 pandemic and major economic downturns.¶ Here are several highlights from the new 2021 data, which Lumina collects from the U.S. Census Bureau’s American Community Survey (ACS) and Georgetown University’s Center on Education and the Workforce:¶ The nation’s 53.7 % attainment rate reflects the sum of college degree completion (45.7%) and the earning of high-value, short-term credentials (8%). The some-college-but-no-credential group, a category that’s receiving a lot of attention in recent attempts to boost college attainment, stood at 11.2 % in 2021.¶ The top five states/locales for postsecondary attainment among adults age 25-64 were: the District of Columbia (72.4%), Massachusetts (62.1%), Utah (61.1%), Colorado (60.5%) and Minnesota (60.2%).¶ The bottom five states were: Nevada (43.9%), West Virginia (44.2%), Alabama (44.8%), Kentucky (46.6%) and Arkansas (46.8%).¶ Since 2019, every state—as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico— saw gains in the percentage of people who had associate degrees or higher.¶ The states with the largest two-year gains in overall postsecondary attainment were Vermont (6.4 percentage points), Indiana (5.6 percentage points), and Idaho (5.4 percentage points).¶ The percentage of people earning college degrees increased since 2019 across all races and ethnicities but rose the most among Hispanics and Latinos, an almost 2.5-percentage-point gain, followed by an almost 2-point increase among Black adults. (A breakdown by race/ethnicity is only available for college degrees, not short-term credentials.)¶ Nonetheless, racial and socioeconomic gaps in college attainment persist. Degree rates among Black, Hispanic/Latino, Native American, Alaska Native, and poor, rural adults are still substantially lower than the national average of 45.7%.¶ Among younger adults - those age 25 to 34 - degree and short-term credential attainment stood at 55.9%, representing an increase of 2 percentage points since 2019.¶ The states with the highest overall attainment rates among younger adults were Massachusetts (68.7 %), New Jersey (64.5%), Minnesota (63.3%), and New York (62.8 %). The District of Columbia had the highest rate, at 80.7%.