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8 Rules of Political Demography That Help Forecast Tomorrow’s World
›In a world rapidly churning out unpredictable political shocks, intelligence analysts occasionally need to clear their heads of the daily barrage of newsworthy events and instead work with simple theories that discern the direction and speed of trends and help predict their outcomes. Political demography, the study of population age structures and their relationships to political trends and events, has helped some analysts predict geopolitical changes in a world that, from time to time, appears utterly chaotic.
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ND-GAIN Updates Climate Adaptation Index: Good News for Myanmar, Bad News for Brazil
›As climate change leads to more weather variability and natural disasters, the need for adaptation is more urgent than ever. The Notre Dame Global Adaptation Initiative (ND-GAIN) aims to enhance understanding of adaptation and inform the public and private sectors on actions and investments.
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Roger-Mark De Souza on the Paris Climate Agreement, With or Without the U.S.
›“A lack of U.S. government support for the Paris climate agreement will mean that the United States will further isolate itself from international collaboration and cooperation on multiple fronts. It will affect U.S. security, the provision of jobs; U.S. business operations, and U.S. diplomatic efforts. The agreement, because it has a broad basis of support, will continue with or without the United States.”
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Silently, Quickly, and Completely: The World’s Lakes in Peril
›September 28, 2016 // By Cara ThuringerWhen Lake Poopó, Bolivia’s second-largest lake, dried up last December, an entire community lost their way of life and the scientific community cast their eyes to the map asking, where next? They didn’t have to look far. According to a report prepared by the World Lake Vision Committee, a collaboration between the International Lake Committee Foundation, the Shiga Prefectural Government of Japan, and the United Nations Environment Program, there are very few major lake systems that are not experiencing decreasing water quality, volume, biodiversity, or some combination of the three.
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Eelke Kraak, ChinaDialogue
Central Asia’s Dam Debacle
›March 13, 2012 // By Wilson Center StaffThe original version of this article, by Eelke Kraak, appeared on ChinaDialogue.
The Toktogul Dam in Kyrgyzstan is an imposing structure. The dam guards the largest and only multi-annual water reservoir in central Asia. The cascade of five hydroelectric stations downstream produces 90 percent of Kyrgyzstan’s power. Cotton fields thousands of kilometers away in Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan depend on the release of water from this dam.
The Toktogul is literally and figuratively the “valve” of the Syr Darya River. But by relying on large-scale engineering projects to control the river, these countries have ignored the fundamentally political nature of water management.
The significance of the Toktogul dam goes beyond its economic benefits. It was the center piece of the Soviet Union’s efforts to conquer nature in its drive to modernize central Asia. When it became fully operational in the late 1980s, the project to control the region’s rivers seemed complete.
But the costs have been high. The Aral Sea, the terminal lake of the main sources of water in central Asia, the Syr Darya and Amu Darya rivers, has shrunk to almost nothing. Many areas surrounding what is left of the lake are heavily polluted. Moreover, the now independent Syr Darya riparian countries – Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and Kazakhstan – disagree on how the Toktogul should be operated.
Continue reading on ChinaDialogue.
Syr Darya River Floodplain, Kazakhstan, courtesy of NASA and the Center for Philosophy of Sciences of the University of Lisbon.
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