Robert Fox
Climate Crunch

Much of Europe has been overtaken this summer by a climate crisis which has been predicted for a long time. Europe now faces its sixth heat wave in under four months—with huge implications for food security and infrastructure. Wildfires in America, Austria, and China threaten even worse. Why is it that governments—and their citizens—are so badly prepared for such events? The challenges of migration, climate shifts, and aging populations have been debated and discussed for ages, yet modern systems of governance seem to be bent on avoiding difficult decisions on the crisis that is upon us: the climate crunch. Moreover, mighty powers seem to have lost any notion of war as a necessity or to deliver advantage; it just gets them stuck (US, Russia, Iran, and Israel, and the Houthis). We address these questions as many of these powers now have to refer to a difficult passage in the political process; elections in the case of Russia, the US, and Israel, and reference to the Party Congress for a semblance of probity and legality on the part of China. (We will not look at the election processes and campaigns per se for the midterms, the duma and regional elections in Russia, or the general election in Israel; they will be covered in a subsequent lecture.)