Because I tend to write (and think) very macro, I wanted to take a moment to write about the local…. about one place on planet Earth (approx. 48.2, 16.3: or, my neighborhood, that which is near to me). I wish I could create a comprehensive picture, but it is too complex a place for …
Lately, Al-Jazeera has been running a few op-eds by U.S. writers on resource wars. Check out the visions being presented. Yesterday’s piece was from Richard “Peak Everything” Heinberg. The opener: Santa Rosa, CA - From competition among hunter-gatherers for wild game to imperialist wars over precious minerals, resource wars have been fought throughout history; today, …
It’s almost Davos time, and the World Economic Forum just released the Seventh Edition of the Global Risks Report, a totally weird exercise in demonstrating how the world’s elite view the uncertain landscape of the world. The methodology is expert-driven, with 469 respondents assessing a list of risk that was generated through workshops and expert …
Two interesting recent papers on the “global land grab”… This one by Eckart Woertz points out that most Arab countries are food secure (exceptions: Yemen, Sudan, Iraq), and it is the perception of insecurity that drives their policies. This gulf between threat perception and reality is not unfamiliar … Woertz even makes a comparison to …