This article is adapted from “Population Trends and the Future of US Competitiveness”

Demographic issues intersect with a number of policy priorities on the congressional agenda, including the economy, immigration, health care and foreign policy, but how population trends influence policy outcomes is often overlooked or misunderstood. In a new report, we explore how population dynamics have changed dramatically over the last few decades, and what these changes mean for the economic and security interests of the United States.

A window into what we are reading at the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program

The Worsening Environmental Impact of the War in Gaza

The Gaza Strip has long been uniquely vulnerable to the climate crisis, with rapid temperature increase and decreasing rainfall plaguing this whole region. Even prior to the current conflict, NGOs in the region and the UN have warned that climate change would be devastating, particularly for food and water security in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

A quiet agricultural community in east, central Iowa is a surprising place to learn about the evolution of communes in the United States. While a graduate student at Iowa State University, I first visited the Amana Colonies in 1979. The brick homes, the woolen mill, and the community kitchens were first built in 1855 by a group of German immigrants, forming the now oldest commune in the country.

Tracking signs and signals is one of the hallmarks of foresight professionals. They are always on the prowl for novel products and technologies that promise to change the world. Sustainable aviation fuel made from biomass or non-biological sources like CO2 is one innovation on their radar. The increasingly popular generative AI technology is another, especially since its proponents claim it will revolutionize early disease detection, unleash new forms of creative arts, transform engineering, and reshape architecture.

A window into what we are reading at the Wilson Center’s Environmental Change and Security Program

Why is COP Important?

Governments, policymakers, advocates, and observers have entered another annual UN climate conference cycle. Known as a “COP” (or “conference of parties”), these annual government-level gatherings focus on climate action, including assessments of progress toward the Paris Agreement and the creation of even more ambitious plans.

The annual multilateral Conference of the Parties (COP) has become one of the most important meetings on the global agenda. So the fact that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) will host COP28 starting this week in Dubai—on the coattails of another Arab country, Egypt, hosting COP27 in 2022—is a big deal. Bringing such important international meetings to the Global South is a step forward in decentering and reorienting global climate action.

Future projections of social disturbance due to climate change and ecological pressures provide little optimism for peace in conflict-affected areas over the coming decades. Yet, can we identify current hotspots and future areas of conflict risk? The fourth Ecological Threat Report (ETR), produced by the Institute for Economics & Peace, attempts to do so by taking on the monumental task of evaluating the relationship between ecological threats and peace.

The new report documents a world of growing ecological threats and declining social resilience in the states and territories most vulnerable to a changing climate. And by assessing ecological threats, societal resilience, and levels of peacefulness at the state, territorial, subnational, and city levels, the report also finds a strong correlation between ecological threats and levels of peacefulness.