Anyone teaching energy/IR/finance/ecology/political science etc, please do share with students & colleagues
I concluded my talk with @picharbonnier.bsky.social wise words.
Slides here: tinyurl.com/PolycrisisWe...
@katemac.bsky.social & my podcast ELECTRIC WORLD ORDER tinyurl.com/PolycrisisPo...
Now 14 months in, Canada’s rejection of the U.S. is the most successful tourism boycott in memory.
A full on ban on the use/abuse of AI in the development of graduate-level research or writing is the right thing to do for students. Don't let bullshit technology cheat the next generation of researchers out of the essential skills they need to produce independent, original, and critical analyses.
From our Prime Minster, who I am increasingly convinced actually hates education.
People will be closely studying how Hungary's opposition pulled off their win in such a pro-incumbent system. Important to note that the theme was corruption. Democrats need to get much better at calling out Trump's corruption.
"Leaders of Countries [...] will never be extorted" might be more convincing a position if that hadn't been this administration's primary mode of international engagement
The exercise of chokepoint sovereignty on the tollbooth model would be a remarkable return of the G77-style resource weapon long assumed outmoded.
Excited to see that the Group of 78's report on "Redefining Development in the New World Disorder" includes a recommendation re: funding an independent scientific task force to reassess, reorient, and strengthen the SDGs, and develop a more robust post-2030 agenda. group78.org/group-of-78-... #ICSDP
My latest Swamp Note with @peteratwater.bsky.social as.ft.com/r/ffac2b0e-4... When will Americans take the blame?
In light of recent media pieces arguing that public funds are wasted when they come to our publishing company, we have decided to write a short article about why we remain committed to putting our political commitments over profit-making.
fernwoodpublishing.ca/news/view/wh...
Reasons for being less likely to travel to the US
Political climate between Canada-US (67%)
Trade relations (61%)
No longer feeling safe to travel to the US (59%
Don't feel welcome in the US (48%)
Weak exchange rate (39%)
Among others, from Leger
Screenshot from FT.com, text as follows: Financial Times Opinion: US economy The case for Trump's tariffs looks strong a year on from 'liberation day' Economists' lurid forecasts of disaster have not been realised Oren Cass The writer is an FT contributing editor, chief economist at American Compass and writes the Understanding America newsletter
The FT trying to be a broad church is one thing. But publishing this, and by a contributing editor?
"countries came to the table" is apparently how Republicans are spinning the Trump corruption/shakedown economy. IMO this piece should have been spiked but it does give us some insight into the big delusions we are all up against....
Serious question: how many weeks will I need to cover all this super low class graft in my third-year course on corruption, scandal, and political ethics next year? WTF USA rfi.my/CZxT
Stephen Lewis has gone to the angels. He was a relentless fighter for justice. When I was 9 my Granny (an immigrant mining widow) made me sit in front of the TV and listen to him speak about compensation for mining victims.
His passion and commitment stayed with me.
substack.com/home/post/p-...
NEW from Kate & I: Where once oil signaled stability and prosperity, this war will ensure that hydrocarbons will increasingly come to be seen as a vector of insecurity, intermittency, and scarcity, as the philosopher @picharbonnier.bsky.social has argued.
www.phenomenalworld.org/analysis/war...
South Korea’s Samsung Electronics and SK Hynix dominate memory chip manufacturing, together accounting for 80 per cent of high-bandwidth memory and nearly 70 per cent of dynamic random-access memory. These power AI systems and cloud data centres as well as smartphones and cars. Taiwan’s TSMC makes 90 per cent of advanced semiconductors and virtually all of the high-end AI chips designed by Nvidia, the world’s most valuable company. Both South Korea and Taiwan depend on fossil fuels for energy, which almost entirely come from imports particularly via the Strait of Hormuz. The latter relies on the Middle East for more than one-third of its liquefied natural gas needs.
Asia’s chip industry is reliant on the Middle East for chemicals too. About one-third of global helium supply — a byproduct of natural gas processing that is used to cool silicon wafers — is from Qatar. South Korea and Taiwan get the majority of their helium from the Gulf country, which is a dominant provider of the hard-to-substitute, high-purity variety. Roughly half of global seaborne sulphur — an element used for chip cleaning and etching — transits the strait. Even before the war broke out sulphur was facing a supply squeeze, owing to high demand from the tech and electric vehicle industries. The Dead Sea is also the world’s largest source of bromine, a chemical that helps score patterns on to silicon wafers. South Korea imports virtually all of its supply from Israel.
The blockade of the Strait of Hormuz is holding up shipments of fossil fuels, helium, sulphur, and bromine that are essential for chip production.
Will Iran pop the AI bubble?
www.ft.com/content/df3f...
This kind of Twentieth-century thinking will not unhook us from the staples trap or from planetary despoliation. Europeans are increasingly ready to think better. Why are our green transition thought leaders not being platformed by the @theglobeandmail.com ?
Wherein, two empowered boomers argue that Canada should double down on hydrocarbons. www.theglobeandmail.com/gift/e6beb6b...
Alt headline: "War profiteer TotalEnergies ripe for French windfall tax". giftarticle.ft.com/giftarticle/...
154/ 'The head of Europe’s central bank just said financial markets don’t understand what they’re in for.
This is Christine Lagarde saying the damage is already done. Most people have absolutely no idea.'
x.com/Microinterac...
If you find that you are in need of a meditative mood, you can't go wrong w Work Money Death workmoneydeath.bandcamp.com/album/a-port...
The big money men aren’t loving the complexity of figuring out how the known unknowns might stack up.
The meme-ridden discourse of our era is no longer fully capable of communicating the scale of the crises we face.
We invaded Venezuela, kidnapped their leader and installed a puppet, and are now pillaging the country's resources just like the fascists in the 1930s did, and somehow this has already been normalized and isn't being treated as the crime it is
So much for timber certification ...
That's the weakness of certification schemes - they have incentives to get bigger, which means lowering the barriers to entry and raising the barriers to getting kicked out.
rainforestactionnetwork.substack.com/p/that-fsc-l...
Goldman Sachs reports that 300 million full-time jobs could be replaced by AI by 2030. Labor turnover is high and hiring has slowed. 71% of Americans worry that AI will cause permanent job loss. As young people about to enter the workforce for the first time, the fear of unemployment is understandable, but we cannot save ourselves with the very tool that is putting us at risk. The irony is that as Penn pours endless money and energy into AI advancement in its attempt to get ahead, the University is only quickening its own demise. AI cannot coexist with education — it can only degrade it. As technology advances and workers are replaced by machines, schools are some of the only places we have left to explore and wrestle with human thought. With our own university leading the charge, AI is now corrupting those few sacred spaces and leaving us with nowhere to engage in true scholarship. Editorials represent the majority view of members of The Daily Pennsylvanian Editorial Board who meet regularly to discuss issues relevant to the Penn community. This body is led by Editorial Board Chair Jack Lakis and is entirely separate from the newsroom. Questions or comments should be directed to letters@thedp.com.
An unaccounted for part of the economy is how much young people virulently hate AI, despite how aggressively it's being forced on them. They realize it's making their friends dumber and ruining the world and they want nothing to do with it.
From the Penn student paper:
www.thedp.com/article/2026...
