Everybody’s heard the rhetoric on U.S. China relations. They’ve heard politicians lambast China for a variety of human rights abuses and aggressively expanding their territory in the South China Sea. They’ve also heard legislators in the Democratic Party framing competition with China as a main reason to pass legislation such as the CHIPS Act (which incentivizes domestic semiconductor manufacturing). While it’s true that China poses a threat to world peace and stability, Americans should not be viewing America's relationship with China as a looming catastrophe. In an authoritarianism-versus-democracy scenario, there actually is a lot of hope for The United States' relationship with China if it is analyzed through the lens of political economy. Before anybody can understand why there’s a positive path forward with U.S. and China relations, they need some background. Dr. Yuen Yuen Ang of Johns Hopkins has studied corruption in many countries and analyzed the political economies o...
The most dangerous thing about climate change is that it has the potential to destabilize numerous systems in our world. If left unchecked, it could completely upend weather systems and patterns, food production, oceans, economies, disease patterns, wildlife migration patterns, global trade, governments, and mental health. When poorer countries are slammed by climate disasters it can easily turn their precarious existence from poor to desperate, causing widespread hopelessness, anger and desperation. This becomes fertile ground for climate terrorism. Climate terrorism is when a few people in a country deeply affected by climate change commit an act of violence in retaliation for climicide. Climicide occurs when a small group of wealthy oil executives in rich countries continue pumping out fossil fuels despite knowing the devastating effects. Climicide is such a disturbing phenomenon because fossil fuel companies like Shell, Exxon, BP and Chevron have known all along exactly what the bu...
Environmentalists are empathetic and compassionate, passionate and perseverant. They are also undervalued. But they have trouble with strategic communication. As I mentioned in my first science communicator blog post, people who care about the environment need to be more tactical. Rather than try to convince voters to protect the environment for the greater good, they need to appeal to more selfish, individualistic concerns. Instead of helping voters understand the more impactful ecosystem services that nature provides, they focus on clean air and water, which most Americans already have. That’s not entirely wrong, clean air and water are still under threat from the modern Republican Party. The Supreme Court continues to repeal essential water protections for millions of Americans. It will forever be important to maintain environmental victories already gained, but the biggest fights are for the future. And in order to win those fights, the arguments of environmentalists have to shift ...
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