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POST # 1 (2/26/2020) Australia Climate Change

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POST # 1 (2/26/2020) Australia Climate Change

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This article focused on climate change in Australia. More specifically it looked at how climate change has affected Australia and how the fires have impacted a lot of its residents. Many Australians feel that the government ignored climate change warnings and continue to not do anything about it.

This article is an example of what we have learned in class about climate change and globalization. Globalization tends to have a negative impact on our way of life, such as the use of fossil fuels. Sustainability is needed and critical to our environment.

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A forest this month near Lake Conjola in New South Wales, Australia, where a fire swept through on Dec. 31.

Devastating floods came soon after the bush fires. Scientists call it "compound extremes," as one catastrophe intensifies the next.

A forest this month near Lake Conjola in New South Wales, Australia, where a fire swept through on Dec. 31. Credit...

RAINBOW FLAT, Australia - Standing in thick mud between burned trees and a concrete slab where his house had been, Peter Ruprecht admitted that he was not sure how or when to rebuild.

He was still dizzied by what Australia's increasingly volatile climate had already delivered: first a drought, then a devastating bush fire, then a foot of rain from a tropical storm.

"It's unstoppable," said Mr. Ruprecht, a former dairy farmer. "We speak about the warmth of Mother Nature, but nature can also be vicious and wild and unforgiving."

Australia's hellish fire season has eased, but its people are facing more than a single crisis. With floods destroying homes not far from where infernos recently raged, they are confronting a cycle of what scientists call "compound extremes": one climate disaster intensifying the next.

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Peter Ruprecht at a new dam on his property in Rainbow Flat, where fires destroyed his home. He and his wife dug two reservoirs to help protect them from future fires.

Warmer temperatures do more than just dry out the land. They also heat up the atmosphere, which means clouds hold more moisture for longer periods of time. So droughts get worse, giving way to fires, then to crushing rains that the land is too dry to absorb.

One result of that multiplier effect for Australia - a global bellwether for climate change's effects - is that rebuilding after a disaster becomes far more complicated. Many Australians in disaster zones complain that their government, after dismissing climate change for years, has yet to outline recovery plans that are clear and that take future threats into account.

At the same time, the economic costs of a changing climate are skyrocketing. Philip Lowe, the governor of the Reserve Bank of Australia, warned recently that Australia was already paying a price, and that it would only go up.

"Addressing climate change isn't something that is any responsibility of the Reserve Bank of Australia, but what we do have a responsibility to do is to understand the economic and the financial implication of climate change," he said. "The economic implications are profound."

Tourism has already taken a major hit. In the longer term, Australia should expect agricultural output and property values to suffer, according to a recent study by the Climate Council, an independent advocacy group. It said property losses related to climate change could reach 571 billion Australian dollars ($384 billion) by 2030, and 770 billion ($510 billion) by 2100.

The insurance industry is already scrambling to adjust. The drenching storms of the past month led to a rush of damage claims and left tens of thousands of homes without electricity, prompting insurers to declare a catastrophe for the sixth time in five months. Such declarations, which speed up payouts, have become more frequent and more costly in recent decades.

Now, more disasters are threatening to overlap.

In Conjola Park south of Sydney, where fires over the New Year holiday destroyed 89 homes, the lake recently flooded, causing still more damage. Up and down Australia's east coast, trees killed by drought, charred by flame and toppled by thunderstorms have crushed cars and homes.

Neither insurers nor residents are sure which disaster to blame. One thing that's clear is that the stacking crises put people at risk and multiply their anxieties.

"I don't like going anywhere," said Karen Couzins, who lives in Nattai, about 95 miles southwest of Sydney. School has been canceled because of blocked roads, and simply getting groceries has become dangerous, she said.

"The trees are just falling across roads all over the place," Ms. Couzins said. "I've just come back from a drive on the road. I saw a car with the front end all damaged; a tree fell on their car."

The extremes have been especially severe north of Sydney, where Mr. Ruprecht and his wife are living in a converted metal shed, for now.

First came the drought, which wore on for years, leaving farms and forests dusty, brown and brittle. When the fires arrived in October and November, before summer had even officially started, anyone with knowledge of the bush knew there would be months of pain and struggle.

"It was a bomb ready to go off," said Ian McMullen, 56, a third-generation timber owner, who estimates that he lost a half-million Australian dollars to the fires.

He was sitting on a bench near the shore in Hallidays Point, talking to a friend from childhood, Tim McNamara, who owns a nearby cattle farm. They said they had been discussing climate change even before I arrived, because they could not help it.

In front of them, huge waves rose like muddy mountains, the usually clean water full of ash and debris from the fires. Cyclone Uesi had weakened before drifting so far south, but its mere appearance pointed to yet another climate trend: the drift of tropical weather into areas where it had not been before.

Up the road, in a shop for local artists, 63-year-old Jenny Dayment said, "Change is certainly happening all around us." She cited little things, like rising humidity and shifts in the bird population.

After so many years of people praying for rain, the recent downpours have been bittersweet, Mrs. Dayment said. Even as they have turned the ground green again, they have brought the ominous crack of falling trees.

"Maybe we'll get some normalcy back in our day-to-day routines," she said. "But people are going to be wary for a very long time. I don't think we can ever be the same."

Her daughter's house had burned to the ground, she said. She pulled up a photo of what was left: a fireplace surrounded by crumpled chaos. Her daughter was not sure what to do next; she and her husband were thinking about buying temporary container housing.

The Ruprechts also cannot decide on the next step. Mr. Ruprecht said the biggest challenge had been "the absence of structure in government."

"Most inhabitants of first-world countries view themselves as being quite resilient," he said. "This has tested that."

Like many others in areas affected by climate-induced extremes, the Ruprechts have listened carefully to federal and local officials, but they hear mixed signals. Sometimes there are hints of "don't rebuild, it's too dangerous"; at other times, moving quickly and keeping the economy humming seems to be the priority.

"It's really affected our confidence to rebuild," Mr. Ruprecht said. "Without some sort of vision and leadership, we're not quite sure what to do."

Scientists say Australia should have been better prepared, because what is happening has long been predicted.

In 2015, to take one example among many, the country's Academy of Science declared that "for Australia, a warmer future will likely mean that extreme precipitation is more intense and more frequent, interspersed with longer dry spells."

"We've been writing about climate change being a stress multiplier for many years," said Lesley Hughes, a climate scientist at Macquarie University in Sydney. "It's absolutely been foreseen that our climate is becoming more variable and more severe."

Lucinda Fischer, 32, the Ruprechts' daughter, said the government was "kind of the blind leading the blind." The only way forward, she said, is for the public to get more involved, and for officials to step back and assess what went wrong, and what needs to happen next time.

"It's not a question of if we're going to have another disaster," she said. "It's when, and how we're going to deal with it then."

Michelle Elias contributed reporting from Sydney.

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The Fires Are Out, but Australia's Climate Disasters Aren't Over

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Devastating floods came soon after the bush fires. Scientists call it "compound extremes," as one catastrophe intensifies the next. A forest this month near Lake Conjola in New South Wales, Australia, where a fire swept through on Dec. 31. Credit...

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POST #2 (3/31/2020) Coronavirus in Developing Countries

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POST #2 (3/31/2020) Coronavirus in Developing Countries

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This article focused on how the coronavirus will affect developing countries. Wealthy countries like China, Italy, South Korea and the United States are among the countries that have more resources to fight the virus. Developing countries have large populations and widespread poverty so a coronavirus outbreak could be devastating.

This article relates to what we have learned in class of globalization because it shows the effects of the global coronavirus pandemic. Developing countries are the most at risk as their countries are under prepared. Countries with more resources will be better equipped to handle the virus while developing countries will struggle.

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So far, the coronavirus has hit hardest in wealthy countries. But the pandemic now appears poised to explode in many parts of the developing world - which has far fewer resources to combat the virus.

The virus initially traveled outward from China to places that had the most interaction with China. These are the richer parts of East Asia - South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Singapore - along with Europe and the United States. All these places had lots of flights, business dealings and tourism with China.

Of the 24 countries with the most coronavirus cases, all but a couple are from the developed world, according to a comprehensive chart maintained by Johns Hopkins University.

But now, several months after the virus first appeared, it appears poised to explode in many lower-income parts of the world - which has far fewer resources to combat the virus.

"There are a lot of other countries at lower-income levels that already have significant coronavirus outbreaks," said Mira Rapp-Hooper of the Council on Foreign Relations. Due to limited testing, the overall scope is "very likely going undetected or under-detected while the pandemic continues to spread in those countries."

Analysts caution that it's impossible to predict with certainty which countries will be hit hardest and which may be able to mount an effective defense.

But a list of vulnerable nations includes countries with huge populations and widespread poverty, such as Brazil, India, Indonesia, Nigeria and Pakistan.
So far, few cases
To date, the number of confirmed cases in these countries have been relatively low, ranging from fewer than 5,000 in Brazil to just over 100 in Nigeria.

But all these nations have lagged behind wealthier countries in responding to the threat, and their options are far more limited.

In India, the world's second most populous nation with 1.3 billion people, Prime Minister Narendra Modi imposed a 21-day lockdown last week. By Sunday, he was on nationwide radio acknowledging the hardships.

"I would firstly like to seek forgiveness from all my countrymen," Modi said. Impoverished Indians will "definitely be thinking what kind of prime minister is this, who has put us into so much trouble."

But Modi said there was no other option. The number of confirmed cases in India has just passed 1,000, though in the absence of widespread testing the actual number is likely much higher.

The measures imposed in wealthier countries may not be realistic in poorer ones, says Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist and director of the Outbreak Observatory at Johns Hopkins University's Center for Health Security.

"It's one thing for us here in the United States to sit at home and telework for weeks or months," she says. "But it's another thing to ask people in countries where their sole income may be from going out into the streets and selling things, to tell them to stay home for weeks and months and potentially not earn an income to feed their families."
Indians head to villages
Modi's moves in India sparked a mass migration, with millions of the urban poor fleeing for their home villages.

Nuzzo sees this as extremely dangerous.

"The last thing you want in these circumstances is to increase the geographic footprint of your epidemic," she says. "I do really worry that when governments announce an intention to implement lockdowns, it winds up scattering cases and it becomes much harder to control when you don't know where everyone went."

Experts say there are no easy, low-cost solutions that poorer countries could adopt. Like wealthier countries, they need more tests, more protective equipment for doctors and nurses, more hospital beds - and have no clear way to get them.

As many wealthier countries struggle to contain their own coronavirus cases, it's not clear if the U.S. and other developed countries will be able to help orchestrate a strong response, as they have done for previous international health crises, like the 2014 Ebola outbreak in West Africa.

Nuzzo did cite one glimmer of hope. She was part of a study, published just last October, on how well countries were prepared for a pandemic. The results did not track strictly along national income levels. Past experience mattered, she said, citing two examples from Africa.

Nigeria did much better than expected when hit by Ebola in 2014, Nuzzo says. The health system functioned, and the disease was brought under control.

"They were able to contain it quickly and it didn't become the nightmare scenario that we predicted," she says.

In East Africa, Uganda and neighboring countries were the first countries ravaged by HIV/AIDS back in the 1980s. As a result, they've built public health systems that perform well above what their income levels would suggest, she notes.
Greg Myre is a national security correspondent. Follow him .

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As Pandemic Spreads, The Developing World Looks Like The Next Target

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So far, the coronavirus has hit hardest in wealthy countries. But the pandemic now appears poised to explode in many parts of the developing world - which has far fewer resources to combat the virus. The virus initially traveled outward from China to places that had the most interaction with China.

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POST #3 (5/13/2020) Limited Money from the U.S

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POST #3 (5/13/2020) Limited Money from the U.S

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This article focused on how the United States will be giving money to developing countries to help fight the coronavirus, but with conditions. One condition is that the countries receiving aid will not be allowed to use the money to buy personal protective equipment for healthcare workers without approval from the U.S.

This relates to globalization as discussed in class because it relates to class divisions regarding those who prosper and those who don’t. The U.S. helps developing countries by donating monetary aid, but limiting them to purchasing gloves and masks as the U.S. deals with shortages. As a result, developing countries health care workers will suffer and so will their population.

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When it comes to fighting COVID-19 abroad, the U.S. has been the most generous nation in the world, committing $900 million to global health, humanitarian and economic programs in 120 countries, according to the State Department. The money goes to international and local aid groups and health facilities in country.

But there's a catch.

Aid recipients can't use U.S. funds to buy personal protective equipment for health workers - masks and gloves, for example - without prior approval from the U.S. Agency for International Development.

The restriction, first reported by The New Humanitarian on April 29, has drawn criticism from global aid groups that rely on U.S. funds to do life-saving work in the developing world and in countries struggling with the pandemic.

"It just sets up an additional obstacle for implementing partners who also need to be mindful and protect their staff during an already challenging time," says Amanda Glassman, executive director of the Center for Global Development, a think tank.

USAID answered questions about the restriction in an email to NPR and then a follow-up phone interview. USAID requested that the comments be attributed to "a USAID spokesperson."

The measure was put in place to ensure there would be enough PPE for the U.S., the spokesperson told NPR. In the emailresponse, the spokesperson noted: "We continue to remain sensitive to the needs of humanitarian beneficiaries around the world while balancing the urgency of the domestic requirements here in the United States."

It's part of a series of government efforts to save PPE stocks for the U.S. In a press briefing on April 7, Secretary of State Michael Pompeo said the U.S. would no longer be shipping PPE outside the country. That represented a shift in policy. In February, for example, the U.S. sent 17.8 tons of donated medical supplies, including masks and gowns, to China.

"Right now, given the great need for PPE in our own country, our focus will be on keeping critical medical items in the United States until demand is met here," said Pompeo in the briefing.

Indeed, U.S. health workers remain in need of PPE. In mid-April, the American Medical Association sent a letter urging the Federal Emergency Management Agency to address "rampant" PPE shortages in the U.S. "Physicians and other health-care workers in every state have expressed serious concerns regarding the availability of appropriate safety equipment," the letter stated.

In the May 8 phone interview with NPR, the USAID spokesperson said the agency recently began telling aid recipients that they could not use their funds to purchase PPE. This restriction was communicated to the groups via their USAID contact person or included in their grant agreement.

If aid recipients would like to use their COVID-19 funds to purchase PPE, they must submit a request to USAID, according to the USAID spokesperson.

Lisa Hilmi, executive director of Core Group, a global consortium of 9,000 community health organizations, says she has been in regular communications with aid groups around the world. The groups she works told her that they began learning of this new guideline the week of April 20.

According to Hilmi, the groups were informed by their USAID liaisons that they cannot use existing aid funds to buy PPE. In bids for new USAID funding, they must specify that they would like to use the funds to purchase PPE - and get approval from the agency to do so.

After being informed of the need to ask for permission to purchase PPE,says Hilmi, "hundreds of groups filled out this request. But so far, none have heard back from USAID."

Last week, Hilmi says she asked a USAID contact for an update - but "they said they were not aware of what the timeline and process was [to approve the requests]."

Hilmi says she is "frustrated" by the delay in response from the agency to requests for PPE purchase.

"During a pandemic, we expect things to be more nimble," she says. "People's lives are at stake."

NPR asked USAID to comment on the reports of delays in responses regarding the purchase of PPE. USAID did not provide an answer, telling NPR they could not give a reply in time for publication.

Asked whether it is understandable that with shortages in the U.S. of PPE, the U.S. might put priority on establishing its own supply, Glassman of the Center for Global Development replied, "As the wealthiest country on the planet, surely we can do both with a bit of effort."

Aid organizations contacted by NPR that receive U.S. funding have also expressed frustration with the restriction. "It is unacceptable that USAID restricts Partners In Health and NGOs [nongovernmental organizations] like us from purchasing these items with their funds. We are one global community and must fight this disease as one global community. We are not safe until we are all safe," said Cate Oswald, chief policy and partnership officer for the global health group Partners In Health.

In a statement from Save the Children to NPR, Bernice Romero, senior director of humanitarian policy and advocacy, wrote: "Save the Children is aware of the new guidance and is extremely concerned ... We are urging the U.S. government to make provisions to allow us to procure the protective equipment we need in order to reach vulnerable children and families and protect our staff during this crisis."

Meanwhile, USAID, in public statements, has emphasized the importance of other kinds of pandemic strategies.

In response to a question at a press briefing on May 1, USAID acting administrator John Barsa noted that the COVID response extends beyond medical supplies such as PPE and ventilators. "There's many things in our toolkit to fight the pandemic. So it is more than just equipment," he said.

He noted that the U.S. aid can be used for other efforts, such as raising awareness about COVID-19, boosting access to water and sanitation and improving disease surveillance.

But at least one piece of critical COVID-19 equipment is now being sent by the U.S.

On May 8, Barsa tweeted that the agency sent ventilators to South Africa. "This equipment will be used in South African intensive care units & will in no way impact the availability of these critical supplies for the American people," he wrote.

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The U.S. Is Giving Vast Sums Of Money To Fight COVID-19 Abroad. But There's A Catch

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When it comes to fighting COVID-19 abroad, the U.S. has been the most generous nation in the world, committing $900 million to global health, humanitarian and economic programs in 120 countries, according to the State Department. The money goes to international and local aid groups and health facilities in country.

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POST #4 (05/14/2020) The Fate of Globalization

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POST #4 (05/14/2020) The Fate of Globalization

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This article focused on the impacts coronavirus will have on trade and globalization. Trade has been impacted as some factories are not able to produce what they could before. Also, the article states that as a result of what is happening, people are moving away from the idea of globalization and now we must worry what is to come in its place.

This article relates to class discussions as poor countries will be most affected through this pandemic. Globally, countries will struggle and as a result, there will be an economic struggle in the global economy.

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Editor's note: The Economist is making some of its most important coverage of the covid-19 pandemic freely available to readers of The Economist Today, our daily newsletter. To receive it, register here. For our coronavirus tracker and more coverage, see our hub

E VEN BEFORE the pandemic, globalisation was in trouble. The open system of trade that had dominated the world economy for decades had been damaged by the financial crash and the Sino-American trade war. Now it is reeling from its third body-blow in a dozen years as lockdowns have sealed borders and disrupted commerce (see Briefing). The number of passengers at Heathrow has dropped by 97% year-on-year; Mexican car exports fell by 90% in April; 21% of transpacific container-sailings in May have been cancelled. As economies reopen, activity will recover, but don't expect a quick return to a carefree world of unfettered movement and free trade. The pandemic will politicise travel and migration and entrench a bias towards self-reliance. This inward-looking lurch will enfeeble the recovery, leave the economy vulnerable and spread geopolitical instability.

The world has had several epochs of integration, but the trading system that emerged in the 1990s went further than ever before. China became the world's factory and borders opened to people, goods, capital and information (see Chaguan). After Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008 most banks and some multinational firms pulled back. Trade and foreign investment stagnated relative to GDP, a process this newspaper later called slowbalisation. Then came President Donald Trump's trade wars, which mixed worries about blue-collar jobs and China's autocratic capitalism with a broader agenda of chauvinism and contempt for alliances. At the moment when the virus first started to spread in Wuhan last year, America's tariff rate on imports was back to its highest level since 1993 and both America and China had begun to decouple their technology industries.

Since January a new wave of disruption has spread westward from Asia. Factory, shop and office closures have caused demand to tumble and prevented suppliers from reaching customers. The damage is not universal. Food is still getting through, Apple insists it can still make iPhones and China's exports have held up so far, buoyed by sales of medical gear. But the overall effect is savage. World goods trade may shrink by 10-30% this year. In the first ten days of May exports from South Korea, a trade powerhouse, fell by 46% year-on-year, probably the worst decline since records began in 1967.

The underlying anarchy of global governance is being exposed. France and Britain have squabbled over quarantine rules, China is threatening Australia with punitive tariffs for demanding an investigation into the virus's origins and the White House remains on the warpath about trade. Despite some instances of co-operation during the pandemic, such as the Federal Reserve's loans to other central banks, America has been reluctant to act as the world's leader. Chaos and division at home have damaged its prestige. China's secrecy and bullying have confirmed that it is unwilling-and unfit-to pick up the mantle. Around the world, public opinion is shifting away from globalisation. People have been disturbed to find that their health depends on a brawl to import protective equipment and on the migrant workers who work in care homes and harvest crops.

This is just the start. Although the flow of information is largely free outside China, the movement of people, goods and capital is not. Consider people first. The Trump administration is proposing to curtail immigration further, arguing that jobs should go to Americans instead. Other countries are likely to follow. Travel is restricted, limiting the scope to find work, inspect plants and drum up orders. Some 90% of people live in countries with largely closed borders. Many governments will open up only to countries with similar health protocols: one such "travel bubble" is mooted to include Australia and New Zealand and, perhaps, Taiwan and Singapore (see article). The industry is signalling that the disruption to travel will be lasting. Airbus has cut production by a third and Emirates, a symbol of globalisation, expects no recovery until 2022.

Trade will suffer as countries abandon the idea that firms and goods are treated equally regardless of where they come from. Governments and central banks are asking taxpayers to underwrite national firms through their stimulus packages, creating a huge and ongoing incentive to favour them. And the push to bring supply chains back home in the name of resilience is accelerating. On May 12th Narendra Modi, India's prime minister, told the nation that a new era of economic self-reliance has begun. Japan's covid-19 stimulus includes subsidies for firms that repatriate factories; European Union officials talk of "strategic autonomy" and are creating a fund to buy stakes in firms. America is urging Intel to build plants at home. Digital trade is thriving but its scale is still modest. The sales abroad of Amazon, Apple, Facebook and Microsoft are equivalent to just 1.3% of world exports.

The flow of capital is also suffering, as long-term investment sinks. Chinese venture-capital investment in America dropped to $400m in the first quarter of this year, 60% below its level two years ago. Multinational firms may cut their cross-border investment by a third this year. America has just instructed its main federal pension fund to stop buying Chinese shares, and so far this year countries representing 59% of world GDP have tightened their rules on foreign investment. As governments try to pay down their new debts by taxing firms and investors, some countries may be tempted to further restrict the flow of capital across borders.

It's lonely out there

Don't be fooled that a trading system with an unstable web of national controls will be more humane or safer. Poorer countries will find it harder to catch up and, in the rich world, life will be more expensive and less free. The way to make supply chains more resilient is not to domesticate them, which concentrates risk and forfeits economies of scale, but to diversify them. Moreover, a fractured world will make solving global problems harder, including finding a vaccine and securing an economic recovery.

Tragically, this logic is no longer fashionable. Those three body-blows have so wounded the open system of trade that the powerful arguments in its favour are being neglected. Wave goodbye to the greatest era of globalisation-and worry about what is going to take its place.■

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Editor's note: The Economist is making some of its most important coverage of the covid-19 pandemic freely available to readers of The Economist Today, our daily newsletter. To receive it, register here. For our coronavirus tracker and more coverage, see our hub E VEN BEFORE the pandemic, globalisation was in trouble.