Climate Change will have dramatic effects on global wealth and where it will move, causing likely global destabilization; it is going have a huge effect on the way we live. Many studies have shown that critical natural resources, including fish stocks, are moving poleward as the planet warms. A new Yale-led study says that these biophysical changes are also moving global wealth in unpredictable, and potentially destabilizing, ways.
On its surface, these biophysical movements will shift resources from communities and nations closer to the equator into places closer to the poles. In many cases this would seem to exacerbate inequalities between richer and poorer communities according to a report at Yale about the study.
Saturday, February 27th, 2016
Stephan A. Schwartz, Editor - The Schwartzreport
Stephan: My friend Paul Smith with whom I am politically antipodal wrote a comment concerning the story I ran about Texas passing a law permitting older students, faculty and staff to carry guns on college campuses. You can see our exchange in the comments sector.
The argument Paul advances is that it was thought this would protect students. It is the "good guy with a gun" logic carried to its natural conclusion. This is the best way to respond to school shootings. Paul states himself that he is licensed for concealed carry in both Texas and Utah. Why a retired Army officer who teaches Remote Viewing would feel the need a license to carry a concealed weapon in the normal course of his day I do not know? A good guy with a gun?
In any case, as a result of our exchange I have been thinking about guns and the U.S. culture off and on for much of the day, and it has prompted the following essay.
UPDATE: It is Saturday morning, and while I was writing the essay last night there was another massacre: "BELFAIR, Wash. - The Mason County Coroner on Saturday released the names of four of the five people found shot to death at a Belfair home on Friday."
I don’t think anybody except conservatives believes to quote my friend Paul Smith in reference to the new law about guns on campus in Texas “thousands of binge-drinking party animal college students will be emboldened to carry a firearm on campus.” I will speak only for myself: What concerns me is not binge-drinking students, although I guarantee there will be incidents. People will die. Wherever there are guns, gun death goes up. What concerns me is the person who most people think quite ordinary and unremarkable who legally owns guns, and who one day just goes out and kills half a dozen people. And I write this right after the less than a week apart massacres in Kalamazoo, Michigan and Hesston, Kansas.
In our current culture authorizing and encouraging the carrying of weapons onto campuses, is an appallingly bad idea. Colleges are locations where young people explore their place in the world, and disputation and debate are a cherished processes, and faculty are by ancient scholarly tradition admonished to be honest. Weapons and that environment do not mix. From the Greek academies onward weapons have not been permitted on campuses except in certain very constrained ways, like fencing clubs, or shooting […]
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Friday, February 26th, 2016
Stephan: As you read this world wide report note that not a single American city rises above 28th in terms of Quality of Living. In North America Canadian cities rank significantly higher than those in the U.S. As the Mercer report says, "Vancouver (5) is the highest ranking city, followed by Toronto (15) and Ottawa (17). In the United States, San Francisco (28) ranks highest for quality of living, followed by Boston (34), Honolulu (35), Chicago (43), and New York City (44)." And ask yourself: Why do Americans settle for 28th best, at best?
Vienna, Austria
LONDON, UK — Despite recent security issues, social unrest, and concern about the region’s economic outlook, European cities continue to offer some of the worlds’ highest quality-of-living, according to Mercer’s18th annual Quality of Living survey. Safety, in particular, is a key factor for multinationals to consider when sending expatriate workers abroad, both because it raises concerns about the expat’s personal safety and because it has a significant impact on the cost of global compensation programmes.
“Heightened domestic and global security threats, population displacement resulting from violence, and social unrest in key business centres around the world are all elements adding to the complex challenge facing multinational companies when analysing the safety and health of their expatriate workforces,” said Ilya Bonic, Senior Partner and president of Mercer’s Talent business. “Multinational companies need accurate data and objective methods to determine the cost implications of deteriorating living standards and personal safety issues when compensating expatriates.”
Vienna continues its reign in the top spot for overall quality of living, followed by Zurich (2), Auckland (3), and Munich […]
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