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State and local governments can capitalize on the benefits provided by Green New Deal-style legislation. There has been a great deal of attention following the November 2018 elections, and the announcement of the “Green New Deal.” At the federal level, a Green New Deal was introduced in February 2019 (House Resolution 109 and Senate Resolution 59). The resolution has spurred conversation and action from states and local governments to address economic inequality and climate risks. Absent federal action, state and local governments can move forward with solutions. Not only can they more nimbly address the challenges, they are also spending significant amounts of taxpayer money on the consequences of lack of action—increased rates of asthma, vector-borne diseases, heart disease and cancer; impacts of extreme weather events; and diminished air and water quality. Several states and cities have already moved forward with solving these challenges by introducing their own versions of a “Green New Deal,” and many others passed complementary policies that well aligned with the tenets of the Green New Deal. Those packages that specifically use Green New Deal terminology include: California: AB 1276, introduced in February Los Angeles, California: Green New Deal / pLAn 2019 Connecticut: HB 6452, introduced in January Maine: LD 1282, introduced in March; passed and signed in June Minnesota: HF 2836, introduced in April New York, New York: The Climate Mobilization Act, passed and signed in April; see also OneNYC 2050 North Carolina: H737, introduced in April New York: A08429 / S06599, introduced in June; passed and signed in July Rhode Island: H 5665, introduced in February, and RI S 0659, introduced in March Virginia: HJ 724, introduced in January These bills would put a significant portion of the country on the path toward net carbon neutrality and an improved economy. However, the majority are introduced bills and resolutions—they are not yet passed, actionable legislation. Moving forward in the meantime An alternate path forward for state and local governments to take realistic action without a jurisdiction-wide Green New Deal is to remedy their own impacts and lead by example. A Green New Deal policy package that is customizable to emphasize local concerns can lead by example, focusing on government-owned buildings, infrastructure and assets, as well as incentives to guide the private sector in following suit. Such a package should be ambitious, cover transportation and buildings, and have an aggressive time frame. While the exact policy package would vary based on the goals of each jurisdiction, a typical package could include: All existing government buildings meeting high-performance standards All new government buildings achieving net zero Electrification of fleets Clean energy mandates Incentives for green industrial practices Residential weatherization grants and training Increased minimum wage for projects receiving public funds State and local governments are well positioned to capitalize on the many economic and quality of life benefits provided by Green New Deal-style legislation. In the absence of federal action, USGBC believes it is imperative that local leaders take this opportunity to create better communities while addressing economic inequality and climate change.

Every person deserves to live with dignity and have their basic needs met. After decades of rollbacks and disinvestment, our current social safety net is insufficient given the economic situation we face. In the United States there is unconscionable and accelerating wealth inequality, wages have been stagnant for 40 years and, both before and throughout the coronavirus pandemic, many Americans struggle to meet their basic needs. In the richest country on Earth, elimination of deep poverty is attainable and long overdue. Historically, states have played a critical role in testing concepts to improve the lives of low-income residents and created a blueprint for anti-poverty measures that can be implemented nationwide. It is time to boldly reimagine and revitalize an eroded social safety net, and states have an opportunity to lead by example. The devastation of the COVID-19 pandemic prompted mitigation strategies intended to get cash to people who were impacted. Federal policies such as increased unemployment insurance, an expanded and fully refundable Child Tax Credit (CTC), and stimulus checks have led to burgeoning support for permanent cash transfer programs like a guaranteed income. Additionally, state and local governments added to relief efforts by using federal dollars provided by both the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act and the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) to fund cash transfer programs of their own. At the same time, an increasing number of municipalities and other units of local government across the country are exploring guaranteed income demonstrations in their community, and states should seize this opportunity to build upon this work. Local guaranteed income programs, though limited in scope, produce incredibly valuable data to prove the efficacy of unconditional cash programs, which are critical for states to obtain buy-in from the necessary stakeholders. One limitation of local programs, however, is that they often aren’t scaled to study the potential for community-level change or other broader economic impacts. At the federal level, the expanded CTC being debated as part of President Biden’s American Families Plan represents a form of guaranteed income for 39 million households. Unfortunately, federal conversations around nationwide cash transfer programs – like an expanded CTC – have been underwhelming. As of December 2021, the Build Back Better Act does maintain the fully refundable nature of the expanded-CTC, allowing low- and no-income families excluded pre-pandemic to continue to receive a credit, but only a temporary extension is being considered for the increased amounts families received during the pandemic. While the Build Back Better Act has not yet passed, the stimulus checks and expanded CTC have moved the needle, breaking down barriers to moving cash policies at any level of government. We now have a much better sense of what is possible when it comes to distributing monthly cash payments, and we have data and stories of the impact these policies have in the lives of low- and middle-income earning families. In light of the current limits at the local and federal level, there is an opportunity for state governments to explore ambitious, publicly-funded cash transfer policies that: promote dignity and greatly improve the lives of their low-income residents; add to a growing body of research with assessments of larger scale positive impacts across geographically and racially diverse areas; utilize the revenue raising powers of state government; and could be a model for a permanent federal program. We need a permanent federal guaranteed income, but political gridlock and polarization threaten to frustrate attempts at a federal program in the immediate term. States have an opportunity to push closer to that ideal with large scale, publicly funded, permanent programs of their own that will provide essential data and experience toward the realization of a federal program. This guide seeks to arm state-level advocates and policymakers with information regarding the choice points in program design, the positive impacts shown by existing research, and special considerations for states including options for guaranteed income implementation, interactions with existing public benefits programs, opportunities for public funding, and promoting racial equity.

( Adam Ozimek.  an economist at Moody's Analytics “Sorry Nerds, But Colonizing Other Planets Is Not A Good Plan.” Forbes. May 16th 2017. )//PWD

. Subscribe to newsletters In November, Stephen Hawking warned that humans needed to colonize another planet within 1,000 years. Now, , he’s saying we have to do it within 100 years in order to avoid extinction. There’s a problem with this plan: under almost no circumstances is colonizing another planet the best way to adapt to a problem on earth. Shutterstock Let’s start with Mars, which is a favorite planet for colonization scenarios, including for Elon Musk who we should colonize Mars because earth will eventually face a “doomsday scenario”. The problem with this is that there is almost nothing that could happen to earth that would make it less hospitable than Mars. Whether it’s nuclear war or massive global warming, post disaster earth would be way more habitable than Mars. For example, we worry that the oceans on earth will get too polluted, or too acidified, or rise up too high. It’s true that could make life on earth very hard. But on Mars the only surface water is frozen in the polar ice caps. We would be hard pressed to ruin the water on earth so badly that it’s worse than what’s available on Mars. PROMOTED We also worry about the level of carbon dioxide we humans are creating. But there’s nothing we could do to earth’s atmosphere to make it as bad as Mars, which is both extremely thin and also . Not to mention a significantly lower level of gravity. Whatever we’d have to do on Mars to make the atmosphere habitable would be more easily done on a very very ruined earth. Even if an asteroid were to strike earth it would very likely remain more habitable than mars. For example, consider the asteroid that struck the earth 66 million years ago creating the and wiping out 75% of plant and animal species on earth, including the dinosaurs. Well that disaster still left 25% of species that survived, all of whom would die instantly on the surface of Mars. If an asteroid like this was heading for the earth here’s what we would do instead of abandoning the planet. First, we’d try to deflect it. If we didn't know how to do that, everyone who lived on the part of the planet where it was going to land would move to safer parts of the planet. If need be we'd create biodomes and move into them, maybe even at the bottom of the ocean. “Impossible!” you say? “Technology and human behavior would never allow this!” you insist? It’s true it would be extremely hard and today's technology wouldn’t allow it. And yet it would still be way, way easier than colonizing another planet. If you think getting humans to abandon a continent peacefully is hard, try getting them to abandon the planet. Forbes Daily: Get our best stories, exclusive reporting and essential analysis of the day’s news in your inbox every weekday. Sign Up By signing up, you accept and agree to our (including the class action waiver and arbitration provisions), and . Perhaps we could focus on colonizing another planet then. One with an atmosphere closer to ours than Mars. This may be possible, but the technology required to do this is a far bigger lift than the technology required to build habitable ecosystems on the bottom of the ocean, deflect asteroids, reverse global warming, or cure pandemics. The closest star system to us is Alpha Centauri, which is 4.3 light years away. At a of around 17,000 mph would take existing space shuttles 165,000 years to reach this. Even the faster New Horizon probe, the first to visit Pluto, would take 78,000 years. The technology required to travel fast enough to get to other planets makes geoengineering to reverse climate change seem quaint. It is hard to come up with a scenario where evacuating the earth makes the most sense. So why do so many smart people obsess about it? I think the issue is that nerds find space travel and colonizing other planets extremely appealing because they love science fiction and find space exploration exciting. That’s fine, and if some nerd billionaires want to colonize Mars for fun I say go for it. But unfortunately, their nerd desires are biasing their assessment of how humanity should prepare for doomsday threats. Sorry nerds, we won’t be evacuating earth. If we are underestimating the risks of doomsday threats, lets instead invest in the technologies that will help protect earth from them or recover from them. Even though I am not an expert on space, physical sciences, or basically any relevant field, I can tell that this is obviously true. Maybe just it takes an economist to see through the nerd fantasies. ADDENDUM: The goal of colonizing to preserve the human species rather than evacuate all humans doesn't make sense either. If there are habitable planets within reach, then there must be many, many habitable planets that aren't within reach. In this case the implies humans are not alone in the universe, and therefore our existence is far less special, lowering the benefit of preserving humanity. In a world of other habitable planets, saving the actual life on earth grows in importance compared to preserving the species somewhere in the universe.

Earth is the home we know and love not because it is Earth-sized and temperate. No, we call this planet our home thanks to its billion-year-old  with life. Just as people are shaped not only by their genetics, but by their culture and relationships with others, planets are shaped by the living organisms that emerge and thrive on them. Over time, Earth has been dramatically transformed by life into a world where we, humans, can prosper. The relationship works both ways: while life shapes its planet, the planet shapes its life. Present-day Earth is our life-support system, and we cannot live without it.

While Earth is currently our only example of a living planet, it is now within our technological reach to potentially find  on other worlds. In the coming decades, we will likely answer the age-old question: are we alone in the Universe? Finding evidence for alien life promises to shake the foundations of our understanding of our own place in the cosmos. But finding alien life does not mean finding another planet that we can move to. Just as life on Earth has evolved with our planet over billions of years, forming a deep, unique relationship that makes the world we see today, any alien life on a distant planet will have a similarly deep and unique bond with its own planet. We  to be able to crash the party and find a warm welcome.

(Emile Torres is the director of the Project for Human Flourishing and the author of Morality, Foresight, and Human Flourishing: An Introduction to Existential Risks. “Why We Should Think Twice About Colonizing Space.” Nautlus. July 18th 2018. PWD

There are lots of reasons why colonizing space seems compelling. The popular astronomer Neil deGrasse Tyson that it would stimulate the economy and inspire the next generation of scientists. Elon Musk, who founded SpaceX, argues that “there is a strong humanitarian argument for making life multiplanetary…to safeguard the existence of humanity in the event that something catastrophic were to happen.” The former administrator of NASA, Michael Griffin, frames it as a matter of the “survival of the species.” And the late astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has that if humanity fails to colonize space within 100 years, we could face extinction. To be sure, humanity will eventually need to escape Earth to survive, since the sun will make the planet uninhabitable in about 1 billion years. But for many “space expansionists,” escaping Earth is about much more than dodging the bullet of extinction: it’s about realizing amounts of value by exploiting the universe’s vast resources to create something utopia. For example, the astrobiologist Milan Cirkovic some 1046 people per century could come into existence if we were to colonize our Local Supercluster, Virgo. This leads Nick Bostrom to failing to colonize space would be tragic because it would mean that these potential “worthwhile lives” would never exist, and this would be morally bad. But would these trillions of lives actually be worthwhile? Or would colonization of space lead to a dystopia? In a in Futures, which was inspired by political scientist Daniel Deudney’s forthcoming book Dark Skies, I decided to take a closer look at this question. My conclusion is that in a colonized universe the probability of the annihilation of the human race could actually rise rather than fall. The argument is based on ideas from evolutionary biology and international relations theory, and it assumes that there aren’t any other technologically advanced lifeforms capable of colonizing the universe (as a suggests is the case). Consider what is likely to happen as humanity hops from Earth to Mars, and from Mars to relatively nearby, potentially habitable exoplanets like , , and . Each of these planets has its own unique environments that will drive Darwinian evolution, resulting in the emergence of novel species over time, just as species that migrate to a new island will evolve different traits than their parent species. The same applies to the artificial environments of spacecraft like “,” which are large cylindrical structures that rotate to produce artificial gravity. Insofar as future beings satisfy the basic by natural selection—such as differential reproduction, heritability, and variation of traits across the population—then evolutionary pressures will yield new forms of life. But the process of “cyborgization”—that is, of using technology to modify and enhance our bodies and brains—is much more likely to influence the evolutionary trajectories of future populations living on exoplanets or in spacecraft. The result could be beings with completely novel cognitive architectures (or mental abilities), emotional repertoires, physical capabilities, lifespans, and so on. ADVERTISEMENT Nautilus Members enjoy the site ad-free. or In other words, natural selection and cyborgization as humanity spreads throughout the cosmos will result in species diversification. At the same time, expanding across space will also result in ideological diversification. Space-hopping populations will create their own cultures, languages, governments, political institutions, religions, technologies, rituals, norms, worldviews, and so on. As a result, different species will find it increasingly difficult over time to understand each other’s motivations, intentions, behaviors, decisions, and so on. It could even make between species with alien languages almost impossible. Furthermore, some species might begin to wonder whether the proverbial “” is . This matters because if a species Y cannot consciously experience pain, then another species X might not feel morally obligated to care about Y. After all, we don’t worry about kicking stones down the street because we don’t believe that rocks can feel pain. Thus, as I write in the , phylogenetic and ideological diversification will engender a situation in which many species will be “not merely aliens to each other but, more significantly, alienated from each other.” But this yields some problems. First, extreme differences like those just listed will undercut trust between species. If you don’t trust that your neighbor isn’t going to steal from, harm, or kill you, then you’re going to be suspicious of your neighbor. And if you’re suspicious of your neighbor, you might want an effective defense strategy to stop an attack—just in case one were to happen. But your neighbor might reason the same way: she’s not entirely sure that you won’t kill her, so she establishes a defense as well. The problem is that, since you don’t fully trust her, you wonder whether her defense is actually part of an attack plan. So you start carrying a knife around with you, which she interprets as a threat to her, thus leading her to buy a gun, and so on. Within the field of international relations, this is called the “,” and it results in a spiral of militarization that can significantly increase the probability of conflict, even in cases where all actors have genuinely peaceful intentions. so, how can actors extricate themselves from the security dilemma if they can’t fully trust each other? On the level of individuals, one solution has involved what Thomas Hobbes’ calls the “.” The key idea is that people get together and say, “Look, since we can’t fully trust each other, let’s establish an independent governing system—a referee of sorts—that has a monopoly on the legitimate use of force. By replacing anarchy with hierarchy, we can also replace the constant threat of harm with law and order.” Hobbes didn’t believe that this happened historically, only that this predicament is what justifies the existence of the state. to Steven Pinker, the Leviathan is a major reason that violence has declined in recent centuries. The point is that if individuals—you and I—can overcome the constant threat of harm posed by our neighbors by establishing a governing system, then maybe future species could get together and create some sort of cosmic governing system that could similarly guarantee peace by replacing anarchy with hierarchy. Unfortunately, this looks unpromising within the “cosmopolitical” realm. One reason is that for states to maintain law and order among their citizens, their various appendages—e.g., law enforcement, courts—need to be properly coordinated. If you call the police about a robbery and they don’t show up for three weeks, then what’s the point of living in that society? You’d be just as well off on your own! The question is, then, whether the appendages of a cosmic governing system could be sufficiently well-coordinated to respond to conflicts and make top-down decisions about how to respond to particular situations. To put it differently: If conflict were to break out in some region of the universe, could the relevant governing authorities respond soon enough for it to matter, for it to make a difference? Probably not, because of the immense vastness of space. For example, consider again Epsilon Eridani b, Gliese 674 b, and Gliese 581 d. These are, respectively, 10.5, 14.8, and 20.4 light-years from Earth. This means that a signal sent as of this writing, in 2018, wouldn’t reach Gliese 581 d until 2038. A spaceship traveling at one-quarter the cosmic speed limit wouldn’t arrive until 2098, and a message to simply affirm that it had arrived safely wouldn’t return to Earth until 2118. And Gliese 581 is relatively close as far as exoplanets go. Just consider that he Andromeda Galaxy is some 2.5 million light-years from Earth and the Triangulum Galaxy about 3 million light-years away. What’s more, there are some 54 galaxies in our Local Group, which is about 10 million light-years wide, within a universe that stretches some 93 billion light-years across. These facts make it look hopeless for a governing system to effectively coordinate law enforcement activities, judicial decisions, and so on, across cosmic distances. The universe is simply too big for a government to establish law and order in a top-down fashion. But there is another strategy for achieving peace: Future civilizations could use a policy of deterrence to prevent other civilizations from launching first strikes. A policy of this sort, which must be credible to work, says: “I won’t attack you first, but if you attack me first, I have the capabilities to destroy you in retaliation.” This was the predicament of the US and Soviet Union during the Cold War, known as “mutually-assured destruction” (MAD). But could this work in the cosmopolitical realm of space? It seems unlikely. First, consider how many future species there could be: upwards of many billions. While some of these species would be too far away to pose a threat to each other—although see the qualification below—there will nonetheless exist a huge number within one’s galactic backyard. The point is that the sheer number would make it incredibly hard to determine who initiated a first strike, if one is attacked. And without a method for identifying instigators with high reliability, one’s policy of deterrence won’t be credible. And if one’s policy of deterrence isn’t credible, then one has no such policy! Second, ponder the sorts of weapons that could become available to future spacefaring civilizations. Redirected asteroids (a.k.a., “planetoid bombs”), “,” , , and no doubt an array of exceptionally powerful super-weapons that we can’t currently imagine. It has even been speculated that the universe might exist in a and that a high-powered particle accelerator could tip the universe into a more stable state. This would create a bubble of total annihilation that spreads in all directions at the speed of light—which opens up the possibility that a , weaponizes a particle accelerator to destroy the universe. The question, then, is whether defensive technologies could effectively neutralize such risks. There’s a lot to say here, but for the present purposes just note that, historically speaking, defensive measures have very often lagged behind offensive measures, thus resulting in periods of heightened vulnerability. This is an important point because when it comes to existentially dangerous super-weapons, one only needs to be vulnerable for a short period to risk annihilation. So far as I can tell, this seriously undercuts the credibility of policies of deterrence. Again, if species A cannot convince species B that if B strikes it, A will launch an effective and devastating counter strike, then B may take a chance at attacking A. In fact, B does not need to be malicious to do this: it only needs to worry that A might, at some point in the near- or long-term future, attack B, thus making it rational for B to launch a preemptive strike (to eliminate the potential danger). Thinking about this predicament in the radically multi-polar conditions of space, it seems fairly obvious that conflict will be extremely difficult to avoid. the lesson of this argument is not to uncritically assume that venturing into the heavens will necessarily make us safer or more existentially secure. This is a point that organizations hoping to colonize Mars, such as , , and should seriously contemplate. How can humanity migrate to another planet without bringing our problems with us? And how can different species that spread throughout the cosmos maintain peace when sufficient mutual trust is unattainable and advanced weaponry could destroy entire civilizations? Human beings have made many catastrophically bad decisions in the past. Some of these outcomes could have been avoided if only the decision-makers had deliberated a bit more about what could go wrong—i.e., had done a . We are in that privileged position right now with respect to space colonization. Let’s not dive head-first into waters that turn out to be shallow. Phil Torres is the director of the Project for Human Flourishing and the author of Morality, Foresight, and Human Flourishing: An Introduction to Existential Risks.

The final significant outcome addresses a dog that hasn't barked: the effect of the Great Recession on cross-border conflict and violence. During the initial stages of the crisis, multiple analysts asserted that the financial crisis would lead states to increase their use of force as a tool for staying in power.42 They voiced genuine concern that the global economic downturn would lead to an increase in conflict—whether through greater internal repression, diversionary wars, arms races, or a ratcheting up of great power conflict. Violence in the Middle East, border disputes in the South China Sea, and even the disruptions of the Occupy movement fueled impressions of a surge in global public disorder. The aggregate data suggest otherwise, however. The Institute for Economics and Peace has concluded that "the average level of peace fulness in 2012 is approximately the same as it was in 2007."43 Inter state violence in particular has declined since the start of the financial crisis, as have military expenditures in most sampled countries. Other studies confirm that the Great Recession has not triggered any increase in violent conflict, as Lotta Themnér and Peter Wallensteen conclude: "[T]he pattern is one of relative stability when we consider the trend for the past five years."44 The secular decline in violence that started with the end of the Cold War has not been reversed. Rogers Brubaker ob serves that "the crisis has not to date generated the surge in protection ist nationalism or ethnic exclusion that might have been expected.

For these reasons, the pandemic itself may be conducive to peace. But what about the relationship between broader economic conditions and the likelihood of war? Might a few leaders still convince themselves that provoking a crisis and going to war could still advance either long-term national interests or their own political fortunes? Are the other paths by which a deep and sustained economic downturn might make serious global conflict more likely? One familiar argument is the so-called diversionary (or “scapegoat”) theory of war. It suggests that leaders who are worried about their popularity at home will try to divert attention from their failures by provoking a crisis with a foreign power and maybe even using force against it. Drawing on this logic, that President Donald Trump will decide to attack a country like Iran or Venezuela in the run-up to the presidential election and especially if he thinks he’s likely to lose. This outcome strikes me as unlikely, even if one ignores the . War is always a gamble, and should things go badly—even a little bit—it would hammer the last nail in the coffin of Trump’s declining fortunes. Moreover, none of the countries Trump might consider going after pose an imminent threat to U.S. security, and even his staunchest supporters may wonder why he is wasting time and money going after Iran or Venezuela at a moment when thousands of Americans are dying preventable deaths at home. Even a successful military action won’t put Americans back to work, create the sort of testing-and-tracing regime that competent governments around the world have been able to implement already, or hasten the development of a vaccine. The same logic is likely to guide the decisions of other world leaders too. Another familiar folk theory is “military Keynesianism.” War generates a lot of economic demand, and it can sometimes lift depressed economies out of the doldrums and back toward prosperity and full employment. The obvious case in point here is World War II, which did help the U.S economy finally escape the quicksand of the Great Depression. Those who are convinced that great powers go to war primarily to keep Big Business (or the arms industry) happy are naturally drawn to this sort of argument, and they might worry that governments looking at bleak economic forecasts will try to restart their economies through some sort of military adventure. I doubt it. It takes a really big war to generate a significant stimulus, and it is hard to imagine any country launching a large-scale war—with all its attendant risks—at a moment when debt levels are already soaring. More importantly, there are lots of easier and more direct ways to stimulate the economy—infrastructure spending, unemployment insurance, even “helicopter payments”—and launching a war has to be one of the least efficient methods available. The threat of war usually spooks investors too, which any politician with their eye on the stock market would be loath to do.

The results of the bootstrap panel Granger causality test are shown in Table 2. The findings show that GLOB and MIS are causally related in most of the countries under review. There is a bi-directional causality in UK, US, Saudi Arabia, and Russia. The causality is unidirectional running from GLOB to MIS in Australia, Brazil, India, and China, and running from MIS to GLOB in Turkey. The degree of significance level varies from country to country. There is no any causal relationship between military spending and globalization in France, Italy, South Korea, Germany, and Japan. Overall, this evidence shows a relatively robust association between changes in globalization and changes in military expenditure. In other words, countries experiencing greater globalization have relatively large increases in militarization over the past 20 years. However, it has been shown that globalization may not lead to more peaceful relations or demilitarization. As we discussed in Sect. 2, bilateral trade increases the opportunity cost of bilateral war and may hinder bilateral war. Globalization (equivalent to multilateral economic openness) reduces this opportunity cost with any given country and devitalize the incentive to make concessions during negotiations, and, therefore, increases the probability of war between any given pair of country. Thus, an increase in trade or openness between two countries may restore peace between those but may increase the probability of conflict with third countries.

As the Trump era potentially comes to an end, many foreign-policy voices in the United States and abroad relish the prospect of the country’s roaring return to the global stage. But attempting a full-on comeback would be a mistake. If anything, the strategic pullback that President Donald Trump has initiated needs to continue—albeit in a more coherent and judicious manner.

Much of the debate surrounding the next administration’s foreign policy has focused on boldly reasserting U.S. leadership in the world. And it’s true: Global interdependence and upheaval do require steady U.S. leadership and engagement. What’s been largely missing from this debate, however, are the challenges facing the next president when it comes to right-sizing U.S. engagement abroad—especially military involvement—and bringing the nation’s strategic commitments back into line with it means and purposes.

As the ecological emergency accelerates, so do proposals to address it. Over the last few years, the concept of degrowth has grown in popularity with features in major publications, growing political support, and best selling books like Kohei Saito’s Capital in the Anthropocene: Towards the Idea of Degrowth Communism in Japan.1 Defined as an equitable and democratic reduction of energy and material throughput targeted at rich nations and the globally wealthy, degrowth is based on three first principles: strong ecological sustainability, designing economies and social systems that are not predicated on the economic growth imperative, and global social justice. As Rahila Gupta describes, “degrowth emphasizes a time-rich society of solidarity, equality and mutual care, redistribution of resources and proper democracy based on extended political participation—all ways of living proven to enhance well-being rather than anxiety-producing materialism.”2

While degrowth predominantly targets the Global North’s unsustainable use of fossil-fuels or contributions to biodiversity loss, in a highly interconnected global system, growth in the North necessarily impacts the South in terms of their development, their ecosystems, and the kind of vulnerability these countries are subject to. At the most basic level, increased economic growth means more demand for energy and materials. In a period of an energy transition where those materials are largely found in the Global South—Latin America, Asia, and Africa predominantly—conflicts, injustice, and greenwashing would be inevitable without some kind of just transition that reduces the relative demand for these materials.3 This is where degrowth’s commitment to global justice and ecological sustainability set it apart from other green transition narratives.

I find nothing strange in Joe Biden, at 79 (going on 80), being the oldest president in our history and possibly planning to run again in 2024. After all, who wouldn’t want to end up in the record books? Were he to be nominated and then beat the also-aging Donald Trump, or Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, or even Fox News’s eternally popular Tucker Carlson, he would occupy the White House until he was 86.

Honestly, wouldn’t that be perfect in its own way? I mean, what could better fit an America in decline than a president in decline, the more radically so the better?

Given these technologies and materials are largely to service the Global North’s high consumption, a reduction in energy and material use by rich nations would reduce the potential for environmental conflict in the Global South. In addition to reducing conflict over the minerals themselves, it would also help hasten our pursuit of a more sustainable society, thereby reducing the impact of climate change and environmental degradation in countries like Nigeria or Pakistan, both of which experienced major floods this past year.11 As research demonstrates, countries struck by climate-induced disasters see a rise in authoritarian governments and draconian policy shortly in the aftermath.12 A warming world spells increased oppression among the world’s poor both directly by ecological disasters and how governments respond. Moreover, as the United Nations International Resource Panel found, 90 percent of biodiversity loss and water stress are caused by the extraction and processing of natural resources.13 A reduction in energy and material use would thus also reduce biodiversity loss—another area of life-and-death struggle for many (especially Indigenous people) in the Global South.14 Degrowth increasingly appears as one of, if not the only, Northern political programs that can avert ecological collapse, ensure global justice, and provide everyone with good lives.

A scenario where demand for production and consumption is reduced in the Global North would allow Global South countries room for their own development without having to service Northern growth or follow the ecologically destructive path set by the United States and Europe. Degrowth seeks to reverse this unequal ecological exchange where the North and South’s resource use converge.15 In such a scenario, Global South countries could focus on using their productive capacity and resources to meet their own needs. For instance, according to the research by Jason Hickel and colleagues, an estimate of roughly 43 percent of Global North materials have come from the South. They state, “in 2015 the North net appropriated from the South 12 billion tons of embodied raw material equivalents, 822 million hectares of embodied land, 21 exajoules of embodied energy, and 188 million person-years of embodied labor, worth $10.8 trillion in Northern prices—enough to end extreme poverty 70 times over. Over the whole period, drain from the South totalled $242 trillion.”16 Such an analysis, Hickel and his team claim, confirms that unequal ecological exchange is a significant driver of uneven development, inequality, and ecological breakdown. A degrowth program that is international in scope and decolonial in principle will lessen environmental damage, raise living standards for billions of people, and provide some level of equality on the world’s stage.

As villages and towns change hands in Ukraine during the counteroffensive operations against Russian forces and Moscow grapples with internal instability following Wagner’s failed mutiny, the global energy map is also being redrawn. The war has not only dramatically reduced oil and natural gas flows between Russia and Europe, but it has reshaped energy connections around the world. This evolving shift in energy connectivity could play a significant role in shaping the outlook of the standoff between Russia and the West, as well as Ukraine’s own future.

Ukraine’s own energy sector has been decimated by Russia’s full-scale assault against the country dating back to February 2022. More than half of the country’s power generation plants have been destroyed or damaged, either accidentally or as a result of direct targeting by Russian forces. The public faces frequent cuts in power, heating, and water, and the economic toll has been valued by some estimates at more than $10 billion. The recent destruction of the Nova Kakhovka dam will place even more pressure on Ukraine’s energy sector and economy as a whole.

The pace in which the world needs to transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy needs to urgently accelerate as the threat from rising global temperatures increases each day, experts say.

There is a more than 50% chance that temperatures will exceed 2 degrees Celsius unless the ambitious climate pledges made leading up to the 2021 U.N. Climate Change Conference are not strictly adhered to, a study published this month in the scientific journal Nature found.

Russia’s unjustifiable, brutal assault against Ukraine is an unusually black and white geopolitical situation—we all know who the bad guy is—and yet the climate consequences of Russia’s invasion are mixed. Russia remains important to the global energy transition, both in spite of itself and in defiance of the West’s effort to sanction it out of energy markets.

Putin used oil and gas to strangle Europe and trigger a global energy crisis in 2021-2022, both in advance of the invasion of Ukraine and since. In the immediate term, this caused a spike in coal use for heating and power and an ensuing increase in greenhouse gas emissions in many parts of the world. But in the medium to long run, Putin’s energy crisis has dramatically accelerated the energy transition away from legacy fossil fuels. The International Energy Agency now believes fossil fuel use globally will peak within a decade.

Darnal 3/6/23 [Aude is a research associate in the Stimson Center’s Reimagining U.S. Grand Strategy Program. She leads the Global South in the World Order Project, which examines prevailing assumptions about global south countries, addresses international relations from their perspectives, and promotes partnerships between them and Western powers. “U.S. Foreign Policy Must Consider the Global South”, FP, https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/03/06/us-global-south-diplomacy-multilateralism/] RVP

As 2023 began, the global south seemed to be in the spotlight. Russia’s war in Ukraine worsened the food crisis in many countries last year, revealing underlying tensions with Western powers. At the annual United Nations climate summit last November, known as COP27, smaller states such as Barbados led efforts to spur climate financing for vulnerable developing countries. And at a leaders’ summit in Washington at the end of the year, the United States courted Africa.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org. I’m Amy Goodman, with Nermeen Shaikh.

As debates continue in Washington over raising the debt ceiling and combating inflation, we take a global look at the growing international economic crisis as soaring inflation and devalued currencies leave nations across the globe confronting a catastrophic debt crisis. Lebanon is facing what the World Bank has described as, quote, “among the most severe crises globally since the mid-19th century.” Earlier today, Lebanese protesters attacked at least six banks, setting some on fire, as the Lebanese pound hit a new record low. Since 2019, the pound has lost 98% of its value. Protesters accused the Lebanese government and banks of failing to help the people.

5. Discussion Soil erosion is a surface process that is often accelerated by human activity. Between 2000 and 2010, the level of urbanization in Inner Mongolia had increased significantly, along with an increase in urban population, a decrease in rural population, an increase in GDP-2, and an expansion of the overall urban area. Soil erosion problems clearly declined in the ten-year period examined. A similar trend—of rapid urbanization and reduced soil erosion—obtained here was reported in Inner Mongolia [30]. Indeed, urbanization is known to have a positive influence on sensitive arid and sub-arid regions [51,52]. The growth of the total human population, especially of its rural population, put more pressure on agricultural land. About 679.65 km2 of grassland and 568.77 km2 of wetland were converted to farmland in Inner Mongolia from 2000 to 2010. The phenomenon has led to the acceleration of land desertification resulting in the increased risk of soil erosion [30,53–55]. It has been reported that with the development of croplands, the potential soil erosion increases by an estimated 17% [56]. Similarly, a potential overall increase in global soil erosion is driven by farmland expansion [57]. Without the targeted management of farming activities and well-planned conservation measures, an increase in the rural population could indirectly accelerate soil erosion [55,57]. By contrast, with an increase in the urbanization rate, more and more people leave rural life for the cities, where they become concentrated and engaged in non-agricultural work instead of prior agricultural activities (e.g., planting and grazing). This process could be called “eco-migration”, carried out from 1998, to reduce disturbance to soil and thus provide a favorable environment for natural ecosystem restoration to proceed [58,59]. Approximately 1427.93 km2 , 659.94 km2 area of grassland and farmland, respectively, were restored to forest and wetland (Table 1). From the perspective of demand, the economy’s development has placed enormous pressures on the scarce natural resources of Inner Mongolia, and this extensive economic development has led to greater demands for energy and resources, which is characterized by high energy consumption, large amounts of waste, and serious levels of pollution. From 2000 to 2010, about 2469.73 km2 area of other land was converted to urban land, the GDP-2 rate had improved by 29.66% and the GDP-1 rate had fallen by 64.87%; together, this indicates that the economic structure has been transformed, shifting in emphasis from agriculture to industry. The production of energy and the mining of mineral resources have been accompanied by the destruction of vegetation and the accumulation of waste materials [60]. Large areas of grassland, approximately 1754.03 km2 had been converted to urban land via transportation and excavation that have markedly disturbed local natural ecosystems. The soil erosion generated in just one year due to this activity would be the equivalent of the amount of natural, and even agricultural, erosion occurring over dozens of years [61]. The results of this study suggested that increasing the GDP-2 proportion of total GDP could worsen soil erosion. A study of the WuLanMuLun River, in the Shenfu mining area, indicated that sediment discharge had doubled after mining commenced, the erosion modulus of the mining area had increased by 15,000 t/km2 ·a, with a 14.965-million ton increase in the annual soil erosion loss [62]. In addition, heavy industry, mining, and construction not only directly influence the land surface through excavation and waste accumulation, but they indirectly further aggravate soil erosion through road transport and the consumption of resources and energy [63]. In general, the urbanization process is complicated. It may promote soil conservation by reducing the soil disturbance driven agricultural activity, as more people migrate to urban areas [32]. However, in contrast to that, secondary industries, especially those in mining, transportation, and construction, which all benefit from rapid urbanization, would have a side effect on soil erosion. Therefore, in the urbanization process in Inner Mongolia, the principles of urban planning should be determined before future construction, with the layout and form of the city optimized to make full use of the urban space. By making full and better use of the opportunities for the human population transfer created by urbanization and industrialization, adjusting the policy for registering urban households, reducing the economic dependence of farmers and herdsmen on ecosystems, and helping people to transfer successfully into urban centers, we could achieve enhanced ecological protection and restoration of land. To minimize the harm to soil that is generated from the development of secondary industries, and to reduce soil erosion while exploiting regional resources, it is necessary to adjust and upgrade the industrial structure, strengthen the management of resources, and improve the efficiency of resource utilization, while adopting a strategy of alternative resource use and environmental protection. Collectively, such action should work to enhance the sustainability of industry, maintain the quality of resources and the environment, and optimize the process of urbanization.

4.1 Negative impact of socioeconomic on soil erosion Economic and social development has caused a sharp increase in people's demand for the development and utilization of natural resources, which has exacerbated the occurrence of soil and water loss. Socio-economic development factors are one of the important driving forces affecting soil and water loss. With the economic and social development, the population is growing too fast, the modernization process and the level of urbanization are constantly accelerating, which has led to a sharp increase in the demand for natural resources such as agriculture, forestry, animal husbandry and construction of infrastructure. People even for short-term benefits Destroying natural resources and the environment, causing a large number of new soil erosion. Soil and water loss is affected by five types of factors, including demographic, economic, technical, policy and institutional factors, and cultural factors. The proportion of slope farmland, population density, and forest land coverage are the three major socioeconomic factors that affect soil and water loss[4]; Some scholars have also found through research on autocorrelation that soil and water loss has agglomeration in spatial distribution, and the spatial variation of soil and water loss intensity on a small scale is mainly affected by random factors such as human activities[5], but not at the mesoscale. For example, studies have found that the distribution of soil and water loss areas and the distribution of the poor are geographically coupled. Poverty is often associated with excessively rapid population growth, low educational level of the population, and economic development which cause Man-made soil erosion. Weak awareness of soil and water conservation in the society, and insufficient funding due to poverty, which hinders the development of soil and water conservation[2].

Uncontrolled urbanization causes the negative impact on the biodiversity (Tang et al. 2020). Due to increased amount of urbanization, the area of forest and wildlife habitat converted into the urban area which result into habitat fragmentation and loss (Cincotta et al. 2000). Habitat fragmentation and loss directly affect the biodi- versity (Peng et al. 2019). Loss of habitat creates force on migration of wildlife animal and it decline the rate of biodiversity (Almond et al. 2020). Due to the habitat loss, some animals cannot survive, leading to the decline of the area’s biodiversity. Moreover, urbanization creates a selective force that changes the wildlife commu- nities (Ouyang et al. 2018). Urbanization also creates the geographic isolation of species which disturb the whole life of the species as well as it also affect their dispersal and connectivity of native species (Johnson and Munshi-South 2017). Change in the habitat configura- tion results in the introduction of the alien or invasive species, affecting the native or endemic species. The indirect effect of expanding urban areas includes soil quality and physical transformation. Change in land use pattern also changes the soil component, which affects soil nutrient availability. Moreover, urbanization causes the abiotic stress by increasing air pollution, water pollution, invasive species and enhances the predation rates (Elmqvist et al. 2019). Therefore, understanding the impact of urbanization on biodiversity becomes imperative from the point of view of conservation and planning sustainable cities. This chapter delivers to understand the effect of urbanization on biodiversity. All animals interact with their environment for energy gain and loss, protection, and for various other reasons. Yet, in recent years, the world’s human population has grown so rapidly that natural resources have been depleted, the environment degraded, and animal habitats have been destroyed. Land use, topography, and population change are the main factors that cause environmen- tal degradation. Consequently, there will be a decline or even extinction of wildlife species used for food and business purposes. There can be no saving of wildlife that is a crucial part of biodiversity unless we address and resolve the issues that are propelling their extinction. Gujarat State covers an area of 6.1% of the country’s total geographical location and accounts for 4.9% of the total population. Situated on the Northwestern sea coast, it has the most extensive coastline of 1600 km, concealed in two of the three gulfs of the country (Bajpai 2004; Faizi and Ravichandran 2017). It also shares an international boundary with Pakistan in the North. The maritime location and long coastline have considerably influenced its people’s climate, life, and activities. The mainland of Gujarat on account of its geographical advantages and historical developments has favored the concentration of urban population to 67%. Among the seven micro-geographical regions based on topography, climate, and soils, the Eastern Hilly Region covers an elongated hilly, wooded territory of the Dangs, Eastern parts of Valsad, Surat, Bharuch, Vadodara, Panchmahal and Banaskantha district. Great Indian Bustard Population Decrease: In grassland ecosystems, fragmenta- tion and habitat loss, change in land use/land cover pattern, desertification, harmful- thought plantation of invasive and exotic species, and neglect of state institutions due to classification of “grasslands” as “wastelands”, conversion of grasslands to agriculture lands due to increasing irrigation potential and decline of nature/GIB- friendly farming practices, are all commonly and correctly responsible for the continual decline in India’s GIB population. Many other birds also die due to the collision/electrocution with these transmission lines at the rate of 10 birds per km per month totaling nearly 1 lakh bird deaths annually in 4200 sq. km. Listing out other threats to the Great Indian Bustard, farming technology and irrigation, wind turbines, mining, and connected infrastructure development have caused severe habitat degradation to birds. However, other factor is the noise pollution, which is also adversely affecting the prospects of the Great Indian Bustard’s revival (The Hindu news 2019). The WII report said the GIB population has been reduced by 75% in the last 30 years. As a result of their poor vision and inability to see power lines from a distance, adult GIBs are extremely vulnerable to collisions with power lines that cross their flight paths (The Hindu news 2019). As people interfere more with areas where birds nest and colonize, the population of these birds is declining. The results of studies done by Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) and Wildlife Institute of India (WII) of factors most responsible for the decline of several bird species reveal that grasslands and forests, like wetlands most other habitats such as grasslands and forests, also face severe threat due to developmental pressures. Over the past decades, the drastic loss of grassland habitat has severely threatened species such as the Great Indian Bustard, Siberian Cranes, Bengal Florican, and Jerdon’s Courser McKee et al. (2004) and Flörke et al. (2018) have predicted that maximum urban growth is expected to occur in regions around the world’s biodiversity hotspots. They have also analyze the critical demographic variable and reported that about 20% of the world’s population resides in biodiver- sity hotspot regions. Therefore, predicting patterns of urban developmental in areas of rich biodiversity are essential for conservation.