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The Economist Magazine Cover For 04/27/2024
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APRIL 27TH 2024
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Cover Story
How we chose this week’s image
The Economist
Zanny Minton Beddoes
Editor-in-chief
This week we put India on our cover. Voting is under way and in just six weeks Narendra Modi is expected to win a third term as prime minister, cementing his status as the country’s most important leader since Jawaharlal Nehru.
Our coverage focuses on India’s economy and at its heart is a special report by two of our correspondents, Arjun Ramani and Thomas Easton. Many Indians support Mr Modi because they sense that under him India has grown more prosperous and that it has become a force in the world. We agree that Mr Modi’s formula for growth is working—up to a point. But we also question whether India’s success can last and whether it depends on his remaining in power.
Today Mr Modi dominates India more than ever. As much as a vote can be a foregone conclusion in a democracy, his victory is assured. The success of this tea-seller’s son reflects his political skill and the potency of his Hindu-nationalist ideology (but also his erosion of democratic institutions). Naturally, therefore, our thoughts turned to him. Here we have Mr Modi pointing the way ahead and posing as India’s muscle-bound strongman.
Yet precisely because we can foresee putting Mr Modi on the cover in his moment of triumph in June, we wanted something different this week.
The fist in an arrow combines a nod to Mr Modi’s strongman politics with a symbol of India’s growth. But it risks signalling that the intolerant and chauvinistic parts of Mr Modi’s style are what lie behind his success. That isn’t quite right. His most fruitful policies draw on the liberal agenda that emerged in India in the 1990s and 2000s. Where his authority has counted has been in his determination to force through stalled reforms, personally overseeing key decisions and browbeating laggards and opponents in the bureaucracy.
A tiger climbing a bar chart is better. India’s economy is expanding at an annual rate of 6-7%, which makes it the fastest-growing of any big country—though, in truth, that is a continuation of long-run trends rather than a dramatic acceleration. A massive programme of infrastructure knits together a vast single market: India has 149 airports, double the number a decade ago, and is adding 10,000km of roads and 15GW of solar-energy capacity a year. Rising wealth means more geopolitical heft. Both Joe Biden and Donald Trump have used their presidencies to court it without disputing that it should remain broadly non-aligned.
However, this illustration is too neutral. We wanted the cover both to be more lively and also to hint at our reservations.
One thought was to show India’s growing strength by having the eight-armed goddess often known as Durga supporting a great weight. But, understandably, people often resent their gods and goddesses being used to make a point. A monster-truck version of a tuk-tuk manages to be lively without breaking taboos—but it is still missing our reservations.
India is developing at a time of stagnating goods trade and factory automation. In a working-age population of 1bn, only 100m or so have formal jobs. Most of the rest are stuck in casual work or joblessness. India therefore needs to pioneer a new model for growth.
We lit upon two versions of the lotus, India’s national flower, as a symbol for this distinctive model. In one growth is represented by the yellow stamens, poking out of the flower—though in this rough they are gaining a lot more than 6% a year. In the other it is the lotus stem that shows India’s rising prosperity. Some of us worried that a stylised version of the lotus flower is also the logo of the Bharatiya Janata Party, or BJP, which is Mr Modi’s party. But, given the likelihood of his victory, that was a strength of this idea, not a weakness.
We worked up both. Here is the single flower, with Mr Modi’s more modest stamens. We think that India could continue to grow, with an even bigger IT sector and a cluster of export industries. An efficient, single domestic market would raise productivity and well-targeted welfare could help those who fall behind. For this, India would have to transform education and agriculture, and enable migration from the populous north to big southern and western cities. However, we worry that Mr Modi and his party have not grappled with the magnitude of the challenge ahead.
That message comes across better with this cover—especially if we were to make the stem on the tallest lotus look less steady. To create a new reform agenda and foster a thriving knowledge economy, Mr Modi will have to temper his autocratic impulses. To attract more local and foreign investment and to find a growth-minded successor, his party will need to curb its chauvinistic politics. If not, Mr Modi’s mission of national renewal will not live up to its promise.
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Backing stories
→ How strong is India’s economy? (Leader)
→ The India express (Special report)
→ Five charts that show why the BJP expects to win India’s election (Graphic detail)
Also from The Economist
Even In The Days Of President Nixon There Was Awareness Of Global Warming and Climate Change
The “Carbon Dioxide Problem”: Nixon’s Inner Circle Debates the Climate Crisis
On the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, President Nixon and First Lady Pat Nixon plant a California Giant Sequoia tree
On the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970, President Nixon and First Lady Pat Nixon plant a California Giant Sequoia tree on the South Lawn (Nixon Foundation, WHPO-6308-10A)
Nixon Science Adviser: Become “Snow-Tripping Mastodons” or “Grow Gills” to Survive Sea-Level Rise
Costs of Climate Study “Not Quantifiable” Since “Man’s Very Survival” at Stake
“Burning of Fossil Fuels” Main Cause of Growing “Instability”
Nixon Aides Called for Worldwide Climate Monitoring System
and International Cooperation on Environmental Issues
Published: Apr 26, 2024
Briefing Book #
858
Edited by Rachel Santarsiero
For more information, contact:
202-994-7000 or nsarchiv@gwu.edu
Subjects
Energy and the Environment
Science and Technology
Project
Climate Change Transparency Project
A newly inaugurated President Nixon visits a Santa Barbara Beach in March 1969 two months after an oil spill
President Nixon visits Santa Barbara Beach in March 1969, two months after what was then the largest oil spill in U.S. waters. (U.S. National Archives and Records Administration)
President Nixon signing the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969
President Nixon signs the National Environmental Policy Act of 1969, January 1, 1970. [Nixon White House Photographs, 1/20/1969-8/9/1974; Collection RN-WHPO: White House Photo Office Collection (Nixon Administration); Richard Nixon Library, Yorba Linda, Ca. NAID 27580121]
President Nixon signed two pieces of legislation
President Nixon signed two pieces of legislation on April 3, 1970: The Water Quality Improvement Act (H.R. 4148) and a law that authorized the acquisition and improvement of land needed for the establishment of Point Reyes National Seashore (H.R. 3786). (Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum, WHPO-3247-03)
High school students in Denver march on the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970
High school students in Denver march on the first Earth Day, April 22, 1970. Environmental demonstrations were modeled on antiwar and civil rights protests. (The Denver Public Library, Western History Collection, RMN2129)
Nixon signs the Clean Air Act of 1970
Nixon signs the Clean Air Act of 1970. Nixon is flanked by William Ruckelshaus, head of the newly formed Environmental Protection Agency (at left), and Russell Train, chairman of the Council on Environmental Quality (at right). (Associated Press)
John D. Enrlichman, Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs
Staff portrait of John D. Ehrlichman, Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs. (Oliver F. Atkins, Photographer, NARA record: 8451334, NARA)
President Nixon and advisor Daniel Patrick Moynihan in 1970
President Nixon and advisor Daniel Patrick Moynihan in 1970. (Associated Press)
Washington, D.C., April 26, 2024 - High-level officials inside the Nixon administration debated climate change and the impacts of sea-level rise, extreme temperatures, and fossil-fuel consumption as early as 1969, according to declassified documents posted today by the National Security Archive’s Climate Change Transparency Project.
To celebrate Earth Day, the National Security Archive this week publishes a small collection of records from the Nixon Presidential Library and other sources that shed light on the internal debates Nixon advisors were having about climate change and other environmental issues amid the rise of the American environmental movement of the 1970s. The records published here today include correspondence between Nixon aide Daniel Patrick Moynihan, domestic affairs adviser John Ehrlichman, and the Deputy Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Hubert Heffner, among others, and provide new details on what was a first-of-its-kind White House climatic assessment initiated in 1971.
The Climate Change Transparency Project seeks to uncover previously closed and classified documents that illuminate the policy debates and decisions that have guided the United States through more than 40 years of climate change negotiations and global environmental issues. Tracing the arc of the major diplomatic efforts of the 1970s and 1980s—including the most successful environmental treaty to date, the Montreal Protocol—a primary focus of the project is to document U.S. efforts to reach agreement on a treaty to curb greenhouse gas emissions driving global warming.
Combining hundreds of FOIA requests and open-source research, this project uses primary sources to track decades of U.S. debates around climate change and environmental diplomacy inside the White House, State Department, and other agencies—including the EPA, CIA, and the Defense, Commerce, and Treasury departments. This evidence-based approach augments the available scholarship on climate change by revealing how the debates evolved behind-the-scenes—from the establishment of key environmental agencies under Nixon, to the successes of the Montreal Protocol and the failures of the Kyoto Agreement, to the Paris Climate Accords and the present-day partisan discourse.
The Nixon-era documents posted today are a reminder that the policies and rhetoric of U.S. conservatives toward environmental issues have not always been as divisive and vitriolic as in recent years.[1] [2] On the one hand, Nixon was an unlikely environmental reformist, who was often disdainful of environmental activism. But Democrats and Republicans also found much common ground on environmental issues, and key officials in the Nixon White House were free to discuss and debate the origins and impacts of climate change and the implications for government policy without the level of polarization often seen today. As a result, President Nixon left a significant environmental legacy, fostering the passage of important legislation and the establishment of key agencies such as the EPA and CEQ.[3]
* * * * *
In his first State of the Union Address in 1970, President Nixon designated the environment as the defining issue of the decade: “The great question of the Seventies is … shall we make our peace with nature and begin to make reparations for the damage we have done to our air, to our land, and to our water?”[4]
Although Nixon’s political conservatism fueled his election, the United States was entering a new age of environmental awareness during the 1960s and early 1970s. In part galvanized by the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring in 1962 and Paul Ehrlich’s The Population Bomb in 1969, and spurred by the largest-ever oil spill from an offshore rig in Santa Barbara that same year, the public was demanding increased environmental awareness from its leaders.
Recognizing the huge political power of environmentalism, the Nixon administration and Congress initiated many of the most important, and enduring, environmental policies in U.S. history, including:
The signing of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) of 1970
The signing of the Clean Air Act of 1970
The signing of the Endangered Species Preservation Act of 1969 and the Endangered Species Act of 1973
Establishing the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ) in 1969
Establishing the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1970
Establishing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) in 1970
By the time he had declared the first-ever Earth Day on April 22, 1970 (an environmental initiative originally proposed by Sen. Gaylord Nelson (D-WI) after the Santa Barbara oil spill), President Nixon had signed over ten pieces of major legislation on environmental issues and established key agencies that would become the bedrock of American environmentalism.
Despite his green record as president, Nixon was ambivalent, at best, and often derisive in his personal opinions about environmentalism. In a private meeting with Henry Ford II, Nixon said environmental predictions were “greatly exaggerated” and he blasted environmentalists for wanting humans to “go back and live like a bunch of damned animals.”[5] But his private fulminations about environmentalists did not seem to carry over into policymaking.
Instead, Nixon relied on his closest advisors to manage environmental policy. John Ehrlichman, Nixon’s domestic policy adviser, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, one of a handful of Democrats to serve in the Nixon administration, were important influences on White House environmental initiatives. According to historian Joan Hoff, Nixon “turned the environmental policies over to Ehrlichman,” telling him to “keep me out of trouble on environmental issues,” while privately continuing to call the environmental movement “crap for clowns.”[6] He would also bring on “forceful environmentalists” William Ruckelshaus and Russell Train to run the EPA and CEQ, respectively, and John C. Whitaker, another key domestic affairs aide who in 1973 was appointed as Under Secretary of the Interior.[7]
Outside of the White House, Democratic senators, including Edmund Muskie (Hubert Humphrey’s running mate) and Henry “Scoop” Jackson, put pressure on Nixon to tighten environmental regulations. Both senators “created problems for the new president,” with Jackson aiming to coordinate the government’s environmental policy through the congressionally proposed CEQ, and Muskie proposing that oil companies be held fully liable for spills. Nixon complained to Ehrlichman about the “onslaught of Democratic proposals,” prompting environmentalists within the administration, like Train and Whitaker, to push Nixon to “act more assertively to claim [the environment] as a Republican issue.”[8]
Amid various environmental initiatives, Nixon’s advisors believed that global warming, specifically, was a “subject that the Administration ought to get involved with.” Seven months before the first Earth Day, Moynihan wrote to Ehrlichman warning of the potential dangers “of the carbon dioxide problem,” mentioning topics that persist in the discussion about climate change impacts today. These included extreme temperatures and sea-level rise, which he said would mean: “Goodbye New York. Goodbye Washington, for that matter.” Moynihan said that the “burning of fossil fuels” was one of the main causes of increased atmospheric “instability” and pressed for the creation of a worldwide system to monitor carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, something that would not become part of the public conversation on climate change for decades. (Document 1) At the end of the memo, Moynihan attached a 1965 report by the Environmental Pollution Panel of President Lyndon Johnon’s Science Advisory committee, which summarized the risks of rising carbon pollution. (Document 2)[9]
Several months later, Hubert Heffner, Deputy Director of the Nixon administration’s Office of Science and Technology, responded to Moynihan, acknowledging that atmospheric temperature rise was an issue that should be looked at. “The more I get into this, the more I find two classes of doom-sayers, with, of course, the silent majority in between,” he wrote. “One group says we will turn into snow-tripping mastodons because of the atmospheric dust and the other says we will have to grow gills to survive the increased ocean level due to temperature rise.” (Document 3)
Within the White House Office of Science and Technology, under the authority of Office Director Edward E. David, a sub-initiative was proposed to evaluate the impacts of “climate change caused by man and nature” and to create additional global baseline monitoring stations to “assess current and future impacts of natural climatic changes, provide alerts to potential catastrophic trends, and gain new environmental insight and understanding.” (Document 4) Similar to Moynihan’s first memo to Ehrlichman, the newly published sub-initiative outlined several topics that have particular relevance to today’s climatic discourse, including the linkage of land and air travel to air pollution and climate change to potential natural disasters. The authors observed that the benefits of one of the proposed “remote sensing” initiatives were “immense but not quantifiable since the element contributes to ensuring man’s survival.”
David would go on to join the oil and gas industry, serving as President of Exxon Research and Engineering (ER&E) from 1977 to 1986, during which time Exxon launched its own research into the release of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel combustion and the effects of these emissions on global climate. In 1979, David signed off on an Exxon project that used one of its oil tankers to track atmospheric and oceanic carbon dioxide samples and he also oversaw the company’s general climate modeling.[10] Oddly enough, David would later become a climate change denier and was one of 16 co-authors of a 2012 Wall Street Journal op-ed claiming that there was “no need to panic about global warming.”[11]
The Nixon administration’s domestic commitment to environmental progress gave credibility to U.S. leadership on the international stage, playing what CEQ Chairman Russell Train later characterized as “an active role on environmental issues in the principal multilateral institutions.”[12] Moynihan and Ehrlichman saw an opportunity for the United States to lead the global movement in combatting environmental problems, a vision outlined by Moynihan in a proposed policy directive for the Secretary of State. (Document 5) In it, Moynihan advocated for concentrating U.S. international efforts within three major organizations: NATO (which he proposes in Document 1), the United Nations, and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). According to a memorandum from Acting Secretary of State U. Alexis Johnson to President Nixon later that month (Document 6), Nixon approved the policy toward the “Major International Organizations Dealing with the Environment.”
While Train has noted that Nixon and principal foreign policy advisor Henry Kissinger never “assigned any significance to environmental concerns in any of their later foreign policy writings,” Nixon was still closely involved with the international environmental agenda, including efforts ahead of the 1972 United Nations Conference on the Human Environment in Stockholm, Sweden.[13] The administration also pushed the OECD to adopt a “polluter pays” principle, a concept designed to promote free market mechanisms in addressing pollution. On the 20th anniversary of NATO in 1970, Nixon proposed that the alliance undertake a new non-military dimension that would become the Committee on the Challenges of a Modern Society (CCMS). (Document 7) The CCMS addressed various pollution problems and environmental management issues, as well as automobile safety and disaster relief.[14]
One of the most notable international environmental efforts, however, was the U.S.-USSR environmental agreement signed by Nixon at the Moscow Summit in June 1972. (Document 8) The agreement covered air pollution modeling, pesticides, conservation, preservation, and earthquake predictions. According to Train’s account of the agreement, “as many as 700 scientists and other environmental professionals participated annually in the exchange program,” making it one of “the most comprehensive, bilateral, and environmental agreement[s] ever attempted.”[15]
Today, Nixon’s environmental achievements tend to be overshadowed by discussions of his overall record as President. However, the documents posted below demonstrate that the administration’s environmental agenda began to answer the call from American environmentalists and established credibility on the international stage as the United States became a world leader in environmental protection programs. Bipartisan support for environmental issues in the Senate undoubtedly played a major role in the success of the administration’s legislative agenda, and Nixon’s personal disdain for environmentalism and environmentalists at times seemed in marked contrast to his administration’s overall efforts. Despite this, his time in office marked a moment when environmental issues were at the forefront of the political agenda and could be discussed without the virulent discourse of today’s climate debates.
THE DOCUMENTS
Document 1 Memorandum from Daniel P. Moynihan to John Ehrlichman, September 17, 1969, folder E [03/13/1969 –
Document 1
Memorandum from Daniel P. Moynihan to John Ehrlichman, September 17, 1969, folder E [03/13/1969 – 11/12/1969]; Box 2; Correspondence; WHCF: SMOF: Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Sep 17, 1969
Source
Nixon Presidential Library
Daniel Moynihan’s fascinating and frequently cited memorandum to John Ehrlichman begins with the question of the “carbon dioxide problem.” Moynihan, Nixon’s Executive Secretary of the Council of Urban Affairs and a sociologist believes that increased levels of CO2 in the atmosphere “very clearly is a problem” and that the scale of such impacts would “seize the imagination of persons normally indifferent to projects of apocalyptic change.” As such, this is something Moynihan strongly believes “the Administration ought to be involved with.”
Interestingly, Moynihan also mentions “countervailing” practices humans could take to lessen the impacts of the CO2 effect, including the suggestion of geoengineering techniques that are often mentioned amid today’s myriad of “climate solutions.” Such efforts would have to be “fairly mammoth man-made efforts to countervail the CO2 rise.” Moynihan also urges the administration to initiate a worldwide system of monitoring carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and believes that NATO would be a suitable organization to deal with this international challenge, in part for its expertise in the field and experience with international research coordination. Moynihan attaches the 1965 White House Science Advisory Report to the memorandum (Document 2), and this is presumably from where he pulled the carbon dioxide statistics that appear in paragraph two. He also cites Dr. Hubert Heffner, the Deputy Director of the Office of Science and Technology, and Robert White, the head of the U.S. Weather Bureau, as resources to contact on this issue.
This famous memo is one of the earliest known warnings about climate change and atmospheric warming that circulated in the high levels of the U.S. government. While quotes and excerpts from the document have been published previously, the National Security Archive here posts the complete record as a vital archival resource.
Document 2 White House Report, “Restoring the Quality of Our Environment,” Report of the Environmental Poll
Document 2
White House Report, “Restoring the Quality of Our Environment,” Report of the Environmental Pollution Panel, President’s Science Advisory Committee, November 1965
Nov 1, 1965
Source
University of California Libraries
This 1965 report by President Lyndon B. Johnson’s Science Advisory Committee warns about the impacts of pollution and humanity’s role in curbing its effects. The panel suggests “economic incentives to discourage pollution” in which “special taxes would be levied against polluters.” The selected excerpt posted today features Appendix Y4 on “Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide,” in which the panel’s chairman, Roger Revelle, and other climate scientists focus on the hazardous increase of atmospheric carbon dioxide due to humanity’s production and combustion of fossil fuels. Moynihan attached the “Conclusions and Findings” from this appendix to his September 17, 1969, memo to Ehrlichman (Document 1).
In Appendix Y4, the authors link the “measurable” effects of fossil fuel production to the increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide. The Committee reports that fossil fuel combustion is the only new major producer of carbon dioxide, having increased the quantity of CO2 in the atmosphere and ocean from 1860 to 1960 by roughly 7%. Revelle and his co-authors pose two open questions: 1) “What will the total quantity of CO2 injected into the atmosphere (but only partly retained there) be at different future times?” and 2) “What would be the total amount of CO2 injected into the air if all recoverable reserves of fossil fuels were consumed?” Their answer follows: “At present rates of expansion in fossil fuel consumption, this condition could be approached within the next 150 years.”
Throughout this featured section, the authors predict a future of melting ice caps, rising sea levels, and acidification of water sources. They conclude with a warning of the effects to come: “By the year 2000 the increase in atmospheric CO2 will be close to 25%. This may be sufficient to produce measurable and perhaps marked changes in climate, and will almost certainly cause significant changes in the temperature and other properties of the stratosphere.”
Document 3 Memorandum from Hubert Heffner to Dr. Daniel P. Moynihan, January 26, 1970, folder H [12/04/1969 –
Document 3
Memorandum from Hubert Heffner to Dr. Daniel P. Moynihan, January 26, 1970, folder H [12/04/1969 – 01/26/1970]; Box 3; Correspondence; WHCF: SMOF: Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Jan 26, 1970
Source
Nixon Presidential Library
Four months after Moynihan’s September 17, 1969, memo (Document 1), comes this oft-cited document in which the Deputy Director of the White House Office of Science and Technology, Hubert Heffner, responds with his thoughts on the issue of carbon dioxide and atmospheric temperature rise. Heffner agrees that this is an issue that needs more attention: “The more I get into this, the more I find two classes of doom-sayers with, of course, the silent majority in between.” Some of the more extreme solutions suggested by Heffner, such as “snow-tripping mastodons” and “growing gills,” sound like science fiction. To Heffner and others, the potential consequences of climate change were “so large” but were still based on theoretical hypotheses and were for future generations to address. Even so, to Heffner, it is still important to “find out what the true situation is.” He writes that he will ask the Environmental Science Services Administration to look further into the issue and says he will bring up the issue at an upcoming engineering conference, but there is no record indicating whether or not either of these follow-ups occurred.
Document 4 Office of Science and Technology Sub-Initiative, “Determine the Climate Change Caused by Man and N
Document 4
Office of Science and Technology Sub-Initiative, “Determine the Climate Change Caused by Man and Nature”, December 20, 1971, folder 1.2.3 Climate Change [1971], Box 82, New Technology Opportunities Series, Edward E. David’s Files
Dec 20, 1971
Source
Nixon Presidential Library
This newly published record details some elements of the New Technology Opportunities (NTO) program that was initiated by the Office of Science and Technology to stimulate research and development toward the application of new technology to national problems, including energy, the environment, health care, natural disasters, and transportation. On pages 1 and 2, the sub-initiative entitled “Determine the Climate Change Caused by Man and Nature” aims to “assess the future impact of natural climatic changes, provide alerts to potential catastrophic trends and gain new environmental insight and understanding as a basis for wise strategies.” This report notably links climate change “to all other initiatives to a varying degree,” such as the transportation industry, natural disasters, and human health. Pages 3-6 outline two program elements that are “essential for assessment of global climatic trends”: 1) to establish international and regional carbon dioxide monitoring stations, and 2) to use laser and other technologies for remote sensing to aid other climate modeling research. This report details the potential economic and social impacts of such an assessment, citing “immense” but “not quantifiable” benefits to “man’s very survival.”
Document 5 Memorandum from Daniel P. Moynihan to John D. Ehrlichman, August 13, 1970, folder Memos to Staff: Jo
Document 5
Memorandum from Daniel P. Moynihan to John D. Ehrlichman, August 13, 1970, folder Memos to Staff: John Ehrlichman [07/07/1970 – 12/03/1970]; Box 7; Correspondence; WHCF: SMOF: Daniel Patrick Moynihan
Aug 13, 1970
Source
Nixon Presidential Library
In a memo to Ehrlichman, Moynihan attaches a proposed draft memo on international environmental issues that he would like President Nixon to send as a directive to the Secretary of State. Moynihan proposes that the President set forth a “balanced and realistic” approach that Nixon “should lay down as law with respect to international environmental activities.” Moynihan’s draft memo calls for U.S. leadership on environmental issues at NATO, the United Nations, and the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD), noting each institution’s expertise in environmental issues and their ability to galvanize international cooperation, specifically among “less developed countries” and “non-Communist industrial powers.” Moynihan’s memo also suggests that the U.S. increase its expertise in areas like regional land use planning, population distribution, and urban planning. The policy, in Moynihan’s view, would position the United States as a global leader on environmental issues while also leaning on the capabilities of these international institutions to “have a genuine impact on seizing environmental issues.”
Document 6 Memorandum from Acting Secretary of State Johnson to President Nixon, August 24, 1970, [Unclassified
Document 6
Memorandum from Acting Secretary of State Johnson to President Nixon, August 24, 1970, [Unclassified]
Aug 24, 1970
Source
National Archives, RG 59, Central Files 1970-73, SCI 41
Eleven days after Moynihan sent a memo to Ehrlichman about his idea for the administration’s involvement with international environmental issues (Document 5), acting Secretary of State U. Alexis Johnson sent this memo to President Nixon on a proposed new U.S. policy toward the major international organizations dealing with the environment: the United Nations, NATO, and OECD. In addition to recommending that the U.S. exercise “affirmative leadership” in each of the three organizations, Johnson also recommends that the United States “Encourage each organization to develop its special competences to the fullest.” A notation at the top of the first page indicates that President Nixon approved the statement.
Document 7 Memorandum from the President’s Assistant for Urban Affairs (Moynihan) to President Nixon, July 1,
Document 7
Memorandum from the President’s Assistant for Urban Affairs (Moynihan) to President Nixon, July 1, 1970, [Classification Unknown]
Jul 1, 1970
Source
Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Kissinger Papers, Box CL 6
In this 1970 memo to President Nixon, Moynihan provides a report about the NATO Committee on the Challenges of Modern Society (CCMS). The CCMS was an initiative originally proposed by Nixon to focus on common environmental problems in developed nations, with Moynihan calling the organization “the most active, and productive international activity of its kind.” He goes on to praise the participation of other countries, including the Netherlands, Germany, Britain, France, Belgium, and Canada, although he remarks about a few “rather inactive” nations including Norway, Denmark, and Iceland. The CCMS tackles a range of projects related to air pollution, disaster assistance, traffic safety, sea pollution, inland water pollution, and narcotics. Moynihan concludes that the CCMS has grown “a long way from [its] shaky beginning,” but its longevity will still require “an expression of interest” by Nixon, especially to the other participating countries.
Document 8 White House Memorandum from Henry A. Kissinger to Russell E. Train, Subject: Environmental Cooperati
Document 8
White House Memorandum from Henry A. Kissinger to Russell E. Train, Subject: Environmental Cooperation with the Soviet Union, Undated, Circa December 1971 [Secret]
Dec 1, 1971
Source
Digital National Security Archive, Presidential Decision Directives, Part II
The United States and the Soviet Union signed the Environmental Protection Agreement on May 23, 1972. Negotiated by the Council on Environmental Quality (CEQ), the agreement included eleven specific areas of implementation covering various aspects of pollution and the environment. In this memorandum from five months earlier, during the negotiating stages, Kissinger tells Train, the chairman of the CEQ, that President Nixon has approved Train’s recommendations on environmental cooperation with the Soviet Union. Nixon has also “authorized” Train to “explore the possibility of conducting bilateral negotiations with the Soviets with the objective of producing a draft bilateral understanding that he might act upon during his May visit.” This record shows Nixon’s proximity and involvement with the U.S.-USSR environmental agenda, given his “wish to review [Train’s] report and recommendations” after the exploratory talks. Unwilling to fully commit to a bilateral agreement with the Soviet Union at that time, however, Nixon has directed that “no environmental agreement with the Soviet Union be initiated or otherwise concluded without his approval.”
NOTES
[1] Mark Joyella, “On Fox, Donald Trump Calls Climate Change A ‘Hoax’: ‘In the 1920’s They Were Talking About Global Freezing’,” Forbes, March 21, 2022.
[2] For more information about the Republican Party’s environmental stances in 1968, see the August 5, 1968, Republic Party Platform. The statement calls for an expansion of urban green spaces and natural parks, declaring that “our nation must pursue its activities in harmony with the environment… We must be mindful of our priceless heritage of natural beauty.”
[3] See Joan Hoff’s, Nixon Reconsidered, for an analysis of Nixon’s innovative domestic policy reforms in welfare, civil rights, economic and environmental policy, and reorganization of the federal bureaucracy.
[4] President Nixon, “Annual Message to the Congress on the State of the Union,” January 22, 1970.
[5] “Nixon & Detroit: Inside the Oval Office,” Frontline, February 21, 2002.
[6] See Elizabeth Drew, Richard M. Nixon (The American Presidents), Series: The 37th President, 1969-1974, March 29, 2007.
[7] See Joan Hoff’s, Nixon Reconsidered, and Melvin Small’s, The Presidency of Richard Nixon (American Presidency Series), 1999.
[8] Meir Rinde, “Richard Nixon and the Rise of American Environmentalists,” Distillations Magazine, Smithsonian History Institute Museum & Library, June 2, 2017.
[9] The 1969 Moynihan memo to Ehrlichman first received major media attention in 2010 when the Nixon Presidential Library publicized 100,000 pages of presidential records. Since then, the document and excerpts from the record have been widely shared. The document recently resurfaced earlier this month, demonstrating its relevance to modern day climate problems.
[10] “Edward E. David,” Inside Climate News, September 15, 2015.
[11] “No Need to Panic About Global Warming” Wall Street Journal, January 27, 2012. This op-ed, signed by 16 scientists, lists reasons that politicians should not focus their efforts on climate change mitigation. The authors claim that a consensus hadn’t yet been reached on whether climate change was really occurring and stated that increased CO2 in the atmosphere may even prove beneficial for the planet, which has been widely disproven.
[12] See Russel E. Train, “The Environmental Record of the Nixon Administration,” Presidential Studies Quarterly, Winter, 1996, Vol. 26, No. 1, The Nixon Presidency (Winter, 1996), 194.
[13] For more information on the 1972 U.N. Stockholm Conference on the Human Environment, see National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book, “50 Years of U.S. Resistance to Environmental Reparations.” See also Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969-1976, Volume E-1, Documents on Global Issues, 1969-1972, International Environmental Policy.
[14] Train, 194.
[15] Train, 195.
Friday, April 26, 2024
Thirty Years Ago I Voted In The First All-Race Election In South Africa
This is a very special day indeed:
30 years ago, this morning I was in Port Elizabeth, South Africa. The morning was bright and sunny. There was not a cloud in the sky. I was sharing a very humble lower middle-class apartment with two other men. I was very poor. I did not own a car. A most unusual thing happened. A three-series BMW pulled up in front of my apartment building. A captain in the South African army came to my door and knocked. He introduced himself. He told me that he had been sent by the African National Congress to take me to vote in South Africa’s first all-race election. I left and got in the captain’s car. We drove several miles to the polling place. Tanks and armored cars were everywhere. Soldiers could be seen with assault rifles. Clearly those in power were expecting the worst. When we got to the polling place, I went in with the captain. I presented my South African Identity Book for Life. The female election clerk told me that I could not vote because I was not a citizen. The army captain assumed a very authoritarian pose. He instructed the lady to let me vote. I was given a paper ballot. I was told where to write out my vote and leave it for counting. The ballot was on a large sheet of white paper. Many first-time voters could not read and write. There were pictures of each candidate. I made my selection of candidates and deposited my ballot. The army captain drove me to my workplace.
We all tried to act as if it was just another day at work. Secretly we were all frightened that a civil war would erupt with incredible violence. Sadly, a couple of bombs did go off. There were a couple of isolated shootings. Overall things went quite well. The polls closed all over South Africa at 7:00 that evening. By 10:00 PM, all votes had been counted. Nelson Mandela was officially declared to be State President of South Africa.
I spent 5 years of my life in South Africa. Despite all the social problems there, I can assure you that if you live there, you will have an incredible social life. There always seems to be something to do or someone to go see. A wild party erupted nationwide. People were up all night long rejoicing and giving thanks that the election had gone smoothly. The most touching moment that night came when an African woman was interviewed on television. She said these simple and profound words: “Finally they are going to start treating us like adults and stop treating us like children.”
Thirty years later I treasure the memory of that day and the small part that a played in a momentous moment in history. The constitution that Nelson Mandela wrote still exists and it basically works. Elections happen regularly. There is always a peaceful transition of power. People’s rights and property are protected. Sadly, Nelson Mandela’s dream of making life better for the poor of South Africa has not been achieved. There is still massive unemployment and poverty. In some areas there is a very high crime rate. Government corruption is a way of life. Long before the election a South African writer named Alan Paton wrote a literary classic: “Cry The Beloved Land.” I will leave you to reflect on those words.
Thursday, April 25, 2024
Wednesday, April 24, 2024
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Monday, April 22, 2024
Sunday, April 21, 2024
Long Ago The Human Race Almost Went Extinct
https://historyfacts.com/science-industry/fact/humans-almost-went-extinct/
Saturday, April 20, 2024
Iran Got An Ominous Message
Long ago in the U.S. Navy, I learned the value of using psychology in war. Sometimes, you can score a victory by frightening an enemy rather than killing him or her. If you were off the coast of North Vietnam riding a U.S. Navy jet or patrol boat, your worst nightmare was for a North Vietnamese radar to get "a radar lock" on you. What followed at lightning speed was a SAM missile or artillery shell coming at you with devastating results. You had a few precious seconds to take evasive action.
The military radar detectors provided did not work well. Every pilot and patrol boat driver used an illegal radar detector used by drivers in the US who loved to drive fast and evade law enforcement detection. Such devices have the nickname of "fuzz busters." They worked quite well.
We would sometimes play games with our radar. At moments when we did not intend to attack an enemy or were out of range to do it, we would turn on our radar. The North Vietnamese on the other end would rapidly know we had "a radar lock" on them. It scared them, to say the least.
More details have come out about the Israeli attack on Iran yesterday. The Israeli Air Force officers who planned this attack were ingenious and very creative. They used a home-produced stand-off missile called The Sparrow. It was launched from an aircraft far away from Iran. Pilots and expensive aircraft were never at risk. The missiles launched had small warheads. The potential for serious casualties was avoided. The missiles had precision guidance systems.
Iran has a weak and obsolete air defense system. The object of the attack was to knock out Iranian air defense radars. Once the radars are knocked out, Israel could launch massive air attacks with impunity. What Israel did was to scare Iran. The message was sent that Israel could launch massive air attacks after knocking out air defense radars. Israel accomplished its objective. Iran got an ominous message.
Friday, April 19, 2024
Ukraine Says That It Used 7 Exploding Drones To Destroy A Very Expensive Russian Radar System To Detect Nuclear Attacks
Business Insider
Ukraine says it used 7 exploding drones to take out a $100 million Russian radar system
By Matthew Loh,
2 days ago
A Russian radar installation during Vostok-2018 military drills at a training ground in Telemba, Russia, in September 2018.
MLADEN ANTONOV/AFP via Getty Images
Ukraine said on Tuesday that it used seven exploding drones to destroy a Russian radar system.
Ukrainian media reported that the system was a Nebo-U, which monitors hundreds of miles of airspace.
Ukraine assessed that the Nebo-U, downed by cheap drones, was worth $100 million.
Ukrainian media reported on Tuesday that Kyiv destroyed a sophisticated Russian radar complex using seven exploding drones, in another apparent sign of how the cheap unmanned devices are changing the face of modern combat.
Citing an unnamed source from the Security Service of Ukraine, or the SBU, The Kyiv Independent and Ukrainska Pravda reported that the Russian system was a Nebo-U radar complex stationed in Bryansk, a Russian region bordering northern Ukraine.
The Nebo-U system was monitoring Ukrainian airspace as deep as 434 miles past the border and was worth about $100 million, the outlets reported.
The exact price of this Nebo-U isn't immediately clear, but reports from Russian state media say it's a newer system that was rolled out to Russian forces about eight years ago.
The SBU source said that with the elimination of this Nebo-U, Russia now had "fewer opportunities to detect air targets along Ukraine's northern border."
Ukraine said this was the second Nebo-U it had destroyed, with the first taken out in Belgorod, a Russian region near the northeastern Ukrainian city of Kharkiv.
Multiple variations of the Nebo, which translates to "sky," are used by Russian air and ground forces. More modern versions, such as the Nebo-U and the Nebo-M, were listed at launch by Russian media as being able to detect aircraft, guided missiles, and ballistics up to a range of 372 miles.
In recent weeks, Ukraine has intensified drone strikes on Russian soil, attacking targets hundreds of miles from the front lines. On April 5, for example, it launched a large-scale drone attack on an airbase in the Russian region of Rostov.
Kyiv has also struck multiple Russian oil-processing facilities in border regions, including Russia's third-biggest refinery , which is some 800 miles from the front lines.
The Russian defense ministry and Ukraine's security services didn't immediately respond to requests for comment sent outside regular business hours by Business Insider.
The war in Ukraine has cast a spotlight on the combat deployment of first-person unmanned drones , which are inexpensive and often equipped with explosives that can be dropped on or flown into targets with precision.
The tactic has been used more widely in recent high-profile conflicts elsewhere, including by Hamas in its October 7 attacks on Israel and by Yemen's Houthi rebels harassing international ships in the Red Sea.
Read the original article on
Business Insider
Thursday, April 18, 2024
How They Filmed The End Of The Movie "Civil War."
How They Pulled Off the Ending to ‘Civil War’
The action thriller from Alex Garland concludes with an explosive sequence in the nation’s capital. A behind-the-scenes look at how it was done.
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Two women crouch outside wearing protective gear and helmets. One woman holds a camera.
Kirsten Dunst, left, and Cailee Spaeny in “Civil War.”Credit...Murray Close
By Esther Zuckerman
April 16, 2024
This article contains spoilers for the film “Civil War.”
When Alex Garland was writing the script for “Civil War,” he started with the ideas in the last moments. “In some ways the film was kind of reverse engineered from the ending,” he said during an interview in New York.
The path to that ending finds the rebel Western Forces reaching Washington, D.C., laying siege to the White House and cornering the president (Nick Offerman), all while the journalists at the center of the film capture it through their own lenses. It’s a relentless, loud 20 minutes of screen time, during which the Lincoln Memorial is blown up. Garland said he wanted the audience to feel “aversion to it and to feel dismayed.”
It also was an intricate production challenge, which involved digitally recreating Washington, shooting on sets throughout the Atlanta area, and executing detailed choreography that Garland likened to “football plays.” (Garland is British, but he noted that “football” could refer to soccer or American football. “It’s like little circles and triangles and arrows,” he added.)
From the start of “Civil War,” two journalists at the center of the story — Lee (Kirsten Dunst), a photographer, and Joel (Wagner Moura), a correspondent — want to get to the White House for an audience with the president. They reach it alongside Jessie (Cailee Spaeny), a younger, novice photographer who idolizes Lee. In the end it’s Jessie who gets the most important shot.
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But before that, they have to navigate a treacherous military operation on Pennsylvania Avenue and the surrounding streets.
The process of designing the sequence began with a trip to Washington with crew members including Garland, the cinematographer Rob Hardy and the visual effects supervisor David Simpson. The team walked the route of the invasion, Simpson said, mapping out how the troops would move from the memorial to the White House.
Image
Three members of the press walk through a building, large chandeliers in the background behind them.
From left, Dunst, Wagner Moura and Spaeny in “Civil War.”Credit...Murray Close
At first, the idea was to find locations in Atlanta that could double as Washington, but that proved too tricky, according to Simpson. Instead, they built three sets in a parking lot in Stone Mountain, Ga., that were surrounded by thousands of feet of blue screen. The exterior of the president’s residence was played by a replica that exists at Tyler Perry Studios, but Garland used only some of Perry’s interiors. Instead, they built out their own corridor, with rooms to the side, leading to the Oval Office. The production designer Caty Maxey said that the Oval Office itself was rented, so they could more easily adjust it to their specifications.
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“We were very careful to get the right tone of the real White House,” Maxey said. “But because we didn’t want it to be tied to any political party or any president or any former president, we very deliberately stayed neutral.” The idea was to replicate the objectivity of the journalist protagonists.
The Making of ‘Civil War’
Alex Garland Answers the Question: Why Make a Film About Civil War Today?
April 11, 2024
Watch a Sniper Scene From ‘Civil War’
April 12, 2024
For all departments, the goal was to make the assault on Washington feel as real as possible. “We deliberately steered away from anything that felt too Hollywood or too cinematic,” Simpson said. “We wanted it to feel like you’ve seen a news report.”
Simpson’s responsibility was creating an entire digital version of Washington as a war zone — from the Lincoln Memorial to the working streetlights and interiors of offices. When it came time to demolish the memorial, Simpson and his team found multiple examples of what a javelin missile would do, selecting an explosion before “painstakingly” recreating it.
Beyond the digital specificity, the logistics of the assault were mapped out in multiple ways. Garland did not storyboard, but he pulled out his phone during the interview to show the diagrams he used to plot the movement of vehicles and characters. Maxey said they used models laid out on a conference table to make sure all the disparate parts would fit together.
Garland shot the film chronologically, meaning Washington came at the end. As the time approached, Hardy said the anticipation grew. “You could feel the tension becoming palpable in a way, in a good way,” he said, adding, “there was this real sense of, this is it.”
Hardy wanted to immerse the audience in the fighting. That also meant getting the pictures the journalist characters are capturing, which are shown throughout the action. While the actors were shooting with the cameras in their hands, Hardy’s team was using a high speed camera from which they could grab stills.
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Although the experience of watching the nation’s capital become a battlefield in “Civil War” is nightmarish, for Hardy it was more balletic.
“We prepped it so hard that by the time we got to shooting it, everybody knew where that Humvee was going to stop, everybody knew where the tank was coming, everybody knew when the Beast would break through the doors and where it would land. But then, my job is to then feel like it’s really happening then and there.”
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Wednesday, April 17, 2024
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Sunday, April 14, 2024
The Peace Of Sunday Was Shattered By Iran
This is normally a day of rest and reflection. Sadly, the peace was shattered by the Iranian attack on Israel in the form of some 300 drones, cruise missiles, and ballistic missiles on Israel. My readers, this was not "a shot across the bow" to deter Israel from further action. It was carefully planned and calculated to overwhelm the Israeli anti-aircraft and anti-missile capabilities to inflict some bad damage on Israel. There was a miscalculation on the part of the Iranian planners. They failed to consider that the U.S., French, and Jordanian anti-aircraft and anti-missile assets came to the defense of Israel. 99% of the projectiles were intercepted. 1% of the projectiles landed near an Israeli air base in Southern Israel where F-35s are based. Limited material damage was done. One seven-year-old child suffered a serious shrapnel wound. She is in critical condition. I hear reports that Iran is threatening to close the Straits of Hormuz. This would cause a devastating disruption of world trade, driving the world into a recession.
We are in a perilous moment now. Please be thankful that you are not anywhere near Israel, Iran, Yemen, Ukraine, or Russia now.
Saturday, April 13, 2024
The Economist Magazine Cover For 04/13/2024: THe Housing Market Is In Peril Due To Global Warming
The Economist
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APRIL 13TH 2024
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How we chose this week’s image
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Zanny Minton Beddoes
Editor-in-chief
We have two covers this week. In most of the world we warn that global warming is coming for your home and ask who will pay for the damage. In Britain we look at the case for assisted dying, which has a chance of soon becoming law.
About a tenth of the world’s residential property by value is under threat from global warming—including many houses that are nowhere near the coast. From tornadoes battering Midwestern American suburbs to tennis-ball-size hailstones smashing the roofs of Italian villas, the severe weather brought about by greenhouse-gas emissions is shaking the foundations of the world’s most important asset class.
Many of our covers are about world events, but this one is close up and personal.
In this, there is contrast between the words and the picture. Our leader depends for its effect on aggregating harms. By one estimate, climate change and the fight against it could wipe out 9% of the value of the world’s housing by 2050—which amounts to $25trn, not much less than America’s annual GDP. The combined exposure of state-backed “insurers of last resort” in wildfire-prone California and hurricane-prone Florida has exploded from $160bn in 2017 to $633bn today.
Our cover, however, depends on breaking down the aggregate and getting readers to feel that this issue is about the particular house they call their own.
We started with a plush, three-storey family home sinking into the ground–a fate awaiting some London houses that are built on clay which now swells and shrinks with the seasons like a subterranean squeezebox.
Or, better, how about putting the house under a towering stormcloud? It is an apt metaphor for the huge bill hanging over the global financial system. This bill has three parts: paying for repairs, investing in protection and modifying houses to limit climate change. There is sure to be an almighty fight over who should pay up.
To underline the theme of global warming, we could convert our house into a home for a lonesome polar bear. But we preferred this sketch of the house as a stranded asset. Today’s property markets do not seem to reflect the costs of global warming. In Miami, the subject of much worrying about rising sea levels, house prices have increased by four-fifths this decade, much more than the American average. The evidence shows that house prices react to climate risks only after disaster has struck, when it is too late for preventive investments. Inertia is therefore likely to lead to nasty surprises.
This is half-way there. Our designers have gone for a grainy style. Some of us thought that the low-slung horizon, however atmospheric, was a distraction, because the extra detail tended to make this house more like someone else’s. In the final cover, therefore, we washed away the peninsular backdrop to leave a seascape of wind and waves.
Housing is too important an asset to be mispriced across the economy—not least because it is so vital to the financial system. The $25trn bill will pose problems. But doing nothing today will only make tomorrow more painful.
Over two-thirds of Britons support changing the law to let someone help in the suicide of a person with a terminal illness. Assisted dying has a good chance of getting on the country’s statute book. Bills are already in progress on the Isle of Man, in Jersey and in Scotland. Sir Keir Starmer, the Labour leader, is sympathetic and has promised a free vote among MPs if his party wins the next general election.
The case for allowing assisted dying is, at its core, one of individual freedom. People should have the right to choose the manner and timing of their death. Our first ideas, accordingly, focused on control.
These black-and-white roughs have an off switch that features a patient in a bed. But the metaphor breaks down, because this is also an on switch and the one thing about assisted dying is that it is irreversible. The other image is of someone pulling at the knot that ties together the trace on an electrocardiogram. Some of us thought this was too cheerful, because it conjured up a bow on a present.
The argument for individual freedom is a natural position for a liberal newspaper like The Economist and we first used our cover to argue for it in 2015, the year that I became editor-in-chief. Back then, our design was a just-extinguished candle and we thought about bringing back that image, this time as a sort of visual pun.
The candle doubles up as a door that leads out of this life and into…Suddenly, we were flummoxed. Our argument does not turn on the existence of an afterlife. If anything, people of faith tend to see the choice to end your days as sinful.
We wanted a liminal image because the end of life really is the ultimate transition. But we could not have an image that featured a threshold to anywhere.
Here is where we came down. This woman gazing into the light says that, for some people, crossing from life to death is a calm and rational choice.
Critics retort that no regime of assisted death could ever fully protect the vulnerable from relatives looking to claim an inheritance, or indeed from a state seeking to cut health-care costs. Yet the evidence suggests that cases of coercion are extremely rare. The state should help people live well, but if it cannot, those who truly wish to die should not be obliged to suffer.
One fear is an overly lax law that creates a slippery slope. Just as much of a worry is a law drafted so tightly that adults enduring endless suffering are still prevented from choosing their own fate.
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Friday, April 12, 2024
Why Hasn't Iran Retaliated Aginst Israel for the April 2 Attack On The Iranian Embassy in Damascus?
When it comes to a possible Iranian retaliatory strike against Israel for the attack on the Iranian Embassy in Damascus that killed 7 senior military officers on April 2, the U.S. security services have issued dire warnings. We are 10 days after the attack and the retaliation has not materialized. What is going on?
I do not have access to classified documents or senior military and intelligence officers willing to talk on condition of confidentiality. I have been a serious student of Iran's military capabilities and actions for over a decade. Iran has the largest military in the Middle East. Here is a summary:
Iranian Armed Forces are the largest in the Middle East in terms of active troops. Iran's military forces are made up of approximately 587,000 active-duty personnel plus 200,000 reserve and trained personnel that can be mobilized when needed, bringing the country's military manpower to about 787,000 total personnel.
Israel has a formidable military machine:
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Israel has one of the world's most powerful militaries, according to Al Jazeera, with a large arsenal of equipment including:
• Land power: 2,200 tanks and 530 artillery
• Airpower: 339 combat capable aircraft, including 196 F-16 jets, 83 F-15 jets, 30 F-35 jets, 142 helicopters, and 43 Apache attack helicopters
• Naval power: 5 submarines and 49 patrol and coastal combatants
Al Jazeera
How big is Israel’s military and how much funding does it get from the US? | Israel-Palestine conflict News | Al Jazeera
Oct 11, 2023
The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) also has armored personnel carriers, missiles, drones, and warships. The IDF has an annual military budget of over $20 billion and access to some of the most advanced U.S. military hardware. The U.S. has provided about $130 billion in military aid to Israel since its founding.
Israel also has an estimated nuclear arsenal of 200 warheads hidden at sea. I would compare its nuclear weapons capabilities to those of Pakistan.
Why hasn't Iran made a move so far? My theory is that the first problem is the great political instability in Iran. The 80 million-plus Iranian people are unhappy about inflation, corruption, and the bad economic lives they suffer every day. A major new war might be "the tipping point" that leads to an uprising that topples the Mullahs and Iranian Revolutionary Guard from power.
The second problem that Iran has is its ally and major oil customer China. Disruptions of Iranian oil deliveries to China would drive the Chinese economy into a deep recession and create more great problems for the Chinese leadership.
The third problem that Iran faces now is Vladimir Putin. He is a man with great fondness for Jewish people. His personal fortune is in the hands of Jewish associates in Russia. Putin and President Netanyahu of Israel are close personal friends. It is alleged that after the October 7 attack, the first phone call Netanyahu made was not to President Biden. It was to Vladimir Putin.
How would Israel retaliate if Iran launched a major retaliatory attack? Conventional wisdom is that they would hit Iran's nuclear facilities. I doubt this. Israel would need tactical nuclear weapons to destroy these well-designed and well-defended facilities. Israel military planners would take note of the great success that Ukraine has had attacking Russian oil and gas processing facilities. They would attack the four Iranian oil refining facilities below:
New facilities
Refinery Location Estimated costs
Anahita refinery Kermanshah Province 1.3 billion euros
Hormoz refinery Bandar Abbas $4.3 billion
Caspian refinery Gorgan, Golestan Province $4 billion
Pars refinery Shiraz 800 million euros
The reasoning would be that Iran's economy would collapse with oil sales disrupted. Of course, such a move would take down the rest of the world economy.
We live in a world that is deeply interconnected, but dangerous.
Thursday, April 11, 2024
What Really Happened When Israel Attacked The Iranian Embassy In Dmascus?
Stuck in Celestial Hades
SYRIA
Residents of the upscale Mazzeh neighborhood in the Syrian capital of Damascus were stunned when an airstrike recently reduced the Iranian consulate to rubble. Thirteen people, including two generals and five others in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards, perished in the attack.
Israeli forces who have been carrying out strikes against Iranian positions in Syria for years were widely believed to have conducted the bombing. These attacks have intensified, however, since Hamas staged its attacks on Israel on Oct. 7, eliciting a devastating response that has caused a humanitarian disaster for Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip, wrote CNN.
As international observers ponder whether Iran might attack Israel in response, potentially widening the fighting that is now happening in the Gaza Strip and beyond, the air strike led many Syrians to recall the fighting that they have experienced in their country’s ongoing civil war.
“When I moved to Damascus in 2022, I thought the war was over,” Rasha Saleh, 33, an NGO worker who formerly lived in Aleppo, a northern Syrian city where extreme combat occurred between Syrian rebels and central government forces loyal to dictator President Bashar al-Assad, told Agence France-Presse. “But it seems that’s not the case.”
While the worst fighting ended some years ago, the Syrian civil war recently passed its 14th anniversary, noted Voice of America. As many as 500,000 people died and 13 million were displaced in the war that started in 2011 as civil unrest against Assad’s regime.
A major earthquake, the proliferation of disease, and the failure of the state to educate millions of children have also destabilized the country, according to Crux. Around 16.7 million people in Syria are in desperate need of humanitarian aid, the United Nations added recently.
Today, Syrian forces and their Russian and Iranian allies are still fighting the anti-government rebels in northwest Syria, where they and Turkish-backed forces still control ground. In northeastern Syria, US-supported Kurds control territory they won from the Islamic State.
A car bomb recently exploded in Azaz near Aleppo, for instance, killing at least seven people. A Turkish-backed militia that opposes Assad’s government runs the town. It’s not clear who carried out the attack, the BBC wrote.
Protests, meanwhile, still break out against the government occasionally. In August, demonstrators marched against the high inflation rate and deteriorating economic conditions, and demanded the government step down. In December, people commemorated the revolution and said it wasn’t over.
And in a twist, protesters have been taking to the streets over the past month across Syria’s rebel-held northwest against its jihadi rulers, demonstrations sparked after a rebel fighter died in rebel custody, VOA reported. About half of Idlib province and parts of Hama, Aleppo and Latakia are controlled by former al-Qaida affiliate Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, led by Abu Mohamed al-Jolani.
“Our demands are clear: Overthrow Jolani, free the prisoners, put an end to the security grip they have on us,” one protester told VOA. “Down with Jolani” is a common refrain, echoing the chants that were used against Assad, the Economist wrote.
As residents of rebel-held areas chafe under the harsh rule of their upstart leaders, Assad these days is no longer the pariah he once was in the Arab world. The Arab League reinstated Syria in 2023, for example, the Brookings Institution noted.
The world is waiting to see how the civil war will end, concluded World Politics Review. Will Assad, who is 58 years old, ever step down or face being ousted? Will the rebels finally cave for good? Who will finance the country’s reconstruction when the war ends? Will Iran, Russia, Turkey, or the US choose to cede their influence in Syria so that the country can reclaim its sovereignty?
Although analysts believe it might take years to receive answers to those questions, the country is trying to move forward in one respect: Tourism. Over the past two years, travel agencies in Turkey, the Gulf, Russia, Pakistan, Iran and China, have booked trips to the country that continues to struggle to rebuild from the war. Some Western visitors trickle in, too.
According to the Syrian state news agency, two million people visited last year.
Wednesday, April 10, 2024
Tuesday, April 9, 2024
Belgium Breweres Are Using A.I. To Improve The Flavor Of Their Beers
DISCOVERIES
Artificial Enhancers
Scientists recently employed artificial intelligence (AI) to refine the flavors of Belgian beers and enhance their quality, the Guardian reported, attempting to dissect the intricate relationships that motivate human aroma perception.
In their paper, lead researcher Kevin Verstrepen and his team analyzed the chemical composition of 250 Belgian beers spanning 22 styles, including lagers, fruit beers and non-alcoholic brews.
This analysis included properties, such as alcohol content, pH levels, sugar concentration, and more than 200 flavor compounds. A tasting panel of 16 participants then evaluated the brews for 50 attributes over a three-year period. At the same time, the team also collected 180,000 online consumer reviews of different beers.
Using machine learning, the researchers constructed models to predict beer taste and appreciation based on its composition. These models were then utilized to improve commercial beers by incorporating substances identified as key predictors of appreciation, such as lactic acid and glycerol.
Results from the tasting panel indicated an improvement in ratings across various metrics for both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beers, including sweetness, body, and overall appreciation.
Although the AI models have limitations and were based on datasets of high-quality commercial brews, the authors suggested that their application could significantly benefit non-alcoholic beers.
Meanwhile, Verstrepen emphasized that while AI can predict chemical changes to optimize beer, it would not threaten rich traditions in beer making, emphasizing that the expertise of brewers is essential.
“The AI models predict the chemical changes that could optimize a beer, but it is still up to brewers to make that happen, starting from the recipe and brewing methods,” he said.
Monday, April 8, 2024
Sunday, April 7, 2024
I Want The House Not My Spouse
I Want the House, Not My Spouse
Dividing the marital home in divorce can be a financially and emotionally fraught experience.
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CreditCredit...Mariaelena Caputi
Ronda Kaysen
By Ronda Kaysen
Ronda Kaysen corresponded with 88 people about how they divided the marital home in a divorce.
Published March 8, 2024
Updated April 4, 2024
As soon as she knew her husband wasn’t coming back, Terri Martin logged onto Facebook Marketplace and bought a 1949 General Electric refrigerator for $5. Her marriage might be over, she thought, but her relationship with her home certainly wasn’t.
“I started to realize that even without him, I still loved the house,” said Ms. Martin, 37, a knitwear designer in Cincinnati.
With her husband, Tim Larson, 37, out of the picture, Ms. Martin would no longer have to sell him on her vision of a retro kitchen that would embrace the historic character of the 1916 American Foursquare, a house the couple bought in 2021 for $180,000. She was now free to rip out the generic yellow oak cabinets and install open shelving, replace the vinyl floors with linoleum, and swap the run-of-the-mill stainless steel refrigerator for the vintage Facebook find. “It is exciting to think about doing the entire kitchen now and not having to compromise,” Ms. Martin said on Feb. 1, hours after filing for a dissolution of marriage.
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A woman standing in a kitchen looking out a window.
Ms. Martin decided she wanted to keep her house in Cincinnati and make it her own after her marriage ended.Credit...Madeleine Hordinski for The New York Times
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A man in a cream colored sweater standing outside.
Mr. Larson sees the house as a “moot point” now that his marriage to Ms. Martin has ended.Credit...Madeleine Hordinski for The New York Times
Mr. Larson, a prosthetic limb designer who has been rotating through Airbnbs since he moved out last spring, said he found renovating the fixer upper more of a chore than a joy. With the marriage over, he sees no reason to keep the house. “The house is just kind of a moot point to me,” he said. “She can have it.”
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The marriage was dissolved on March 6.
ImageA yellow brick house with a porch.
Ms. Martin and Mr. Larson bought the American Foursquare in 2021 with plans to renovate it.Credit...Madeleine Hordinski for The New York Times
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A living room with a green sofa, pink chair and white coffee table.
The living room of the house Ms. Martin and Mr. Larson bought had charming details like original molding.Credit...Madeleine Hordinski for The New York Times
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A kitchen with cabinets, a counter, a sink and a stovetop.
Ms. Martin plans to replace the cheap oak cabinets with open shelves and restore the historic character of the space.Credit...Madeleine Hordinski for The New York Times
Few objects signify a marriage quite like the home a couple shares. It’s the place where life unfolds in scenes writ large and small, from lazy Sundays curled up on the sofa to formal Thanksgiving gatherings with extended family. It’s usually a couple’s most valuable asset, so dividing it can be financially and emotionally fraught — even if you don’t end up like Michael Douglas and Kathleen Turner, battling to the death in “The War of the Roses.”
In interviews and correspondence with 88 people who said they’d been through a divorce, the home was often described as another character in the relationship, taking on a life of its own as a marriage disintegrated. For some, holding onto the property became a point of pride — proof that they could make it on their own. For others, shedding the space where a life fell apart felt like a metamorphosis. Sometimes, the house became the center of a protracted dispute, a cudgel to exact revenge. Some blamed the house itself — maybe one that was too expensive or needed too much work — for the collapse of a fragile union.
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“It’s either a womb or a tomb,” said Katherine Woodward Thomas, a marriage and family therapist who coined the term “conscious uncoupling,” and later wrote a book about how to do it.
It’s also not cheap. If one person wants to hold onto the house, that usually means ponying up a significant amount of cash to buy their former partner out. Moving at a time when rents, interest rates and home prices are sky high is not an easy proposition, either, adding more tension to an already difficult situation.
An overwhelming majority — 82 percent in 2022 — of married couples own a home, according to the National Center for Family & Marriage Research, which found that in 2022 there were just shy of one million divorces. The center also found that, in 2020, the median length of first marriages that end in divorce was 13 years.
Increasingly, children are staying in the house while their estranged parents cycle in and out, an arrangement called nesting that can create its own complicated feelings about what a house means and who it’s for. However you slice it, the house is not an easy possession to parse.
“The thing that you lose most in a divorce is your sense of home,” said Lori Gottlieb, a psychotherapist and the author of the book, “Maybe You Should Talk to Someone.”
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While clinging to the house can be a way to lessen the blow, many experts urge their clients to consider packing up and moving on. “There is something about the freshness of hanging pictures on the wall, getting new sheets, for God’s sake, getting rid of the marital bed,” said Jessica Ashley, a divorce coach in Chicago.
When her own marriage ended, Ms. Ashley took her then 3-year-old son through every room of their old home and wrote thank you notes in chalk on the walls for all that it had given them. Then they walked into their new apartment and thanked it for what was to come. “We had that ritual together and it prepared us for the next space,” she said.
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A woman in jeans and a beige sweater sitting on a sofa looking at a small white dog on the floor.
Sara Touijer, 47, in her two-bedroom apartment in Harrison, N.Y. Credit...Tony Cenicola/The New York Times
By the time her marriage was over, Sara Touijer, an interior designer, wanted nothing to do with the home she and her husband shared for nine years. She had decorated every corner of the five-bedroom house in Rye, N.Y., selecting the fabrics, art and furnishings to give the space a contemporary, Moroccan vibe. But the place where she’d poured her creative energy and raised her two children had become “so toxic,” she said, that by the time she left for good in December 2022, she had divorced herself from even the concept of a house as a home.
“A home is not a physical structure for me,” said Ms. Touijer, 47, who now lives in a two-bedroom apartment in Harrison, N.Y. “I’ve completely let go of things.”
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A two-story red brick apartment building with white banisters.
The apartment complex where Ms. Touijer now lives. Credit...Tony Cenicola/The New York Times
The divorce was finalized in July 2023 and the house is in contract for sale, expected to close in June.
Ms. Touijer still designs interiors for her clients, often helping married couples create their dream homes. Her advice is more nuanced than it once was. “I have this clarity and consciousness of being in the moment,” she said. “I lead with my heart now, and I didn’t before.”
She urges her clients to select items and styles they love, regardless of current trends or potential resale value. “I tell them, ‘don’t get tied to something,’” she said. “Know that life is always changing. Nothing is permanent.”
Ms. Touijer’s ex-husband declined to comment.
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A woman sitting on a sofa with a dog in a living room with a colorful painting behind her.
Ryder Sollmann Wyatt, 69, at her home in Bedminster, N.J.Credit...Tony Cenicola/The New York Times
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But when Ryder Sollmann Wyatt’s 30-year marriage collapsed, she knew one thing for certain: she wanted to keep the home that had been in her family for generations. Ms. Wyatt’s grandfather, who owned a toy manufacturing company, bought the 18th-century farmhouse on 300 acres in Bedminster, N.J., in the early 1940s, moved there from Montclair with his family, and eventually sold off all but 30 acres. Five decades later, Ms. Wyatt and her husband were living in Manhattan with their young daughter when they bought the estate from Ms. Wyatt’s family for $850,000. They moved to the country to raise their daughter.
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A white house with black shutters and pillars with a green lawn in front of it.
Ms. Wyatt’s grandfather bought the 18th-century house on 300 acres about 80 years ago.Credit...Tony Cenicola/The New York Times
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A dining room with a wooden table and chairs and a blue and white rug.
Ms. Wyatt could not imagine selling the estate that had been in her family for generations and was full of family heirlooms.Credit...Tony Cenicola/The New York Times
By 2020, Ms. Wyatt’s husband wanted a divorce and suggested selling the estate to dissolve the marital assets. But Ms. Wyatt, who, as a child, had lived in a cottage on the property with her parents until she was 12, could not imagine a world without the family farm. “How do you put a price on that?” said Ms. Wyatt, 69, a writer.
The price, in fact, was appraised at around $2.25 million for a tract that includes 10 outbuildings, nearly all of it on preserved farmland. The house was filled with generations of family furniture and the grounds were full of flowers, shrubs, trees and vegetation Ms. Wyatt had spent years nurturing. “My plants are like my children,” she said.
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But Ms. Wyatt knew that her share of the couple’s divided assets would not provide her with enough cash to buy her husband out and properly maintain the estate. “A house, to me, is a living breathing thing and you have take care of it. You have to keep it going,” she said. “It’s like a person.”
Ms. Wyatt said her husband eventually conceded and let her keep the house and half of the remaining marital assets, keeping the dispute out of court. The divorce was finalized in 2021. Ms. Wyatt’s ex-husband declined to comment.
It wasn’t until about a year after her divorce that Ms. Wyatt realized that for the first time in her life the family homestead was hers, an heirloom she could one day pass on to her daughter, who is grown. “I was walking back from the pool one day, and I stood back and thought, ‘Oh my God, this is mine,’” she said.
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A correction was made on March 14, 2024: An earlier version of this article incorrectly described 2022 divorce data. There were nearly one million divorces in 2022, not nearly one million people that were divorced.
When we learn of a mistake, we acknowledge it with a correction. If you spot an error, please let us know at nytnews@nytimes.com.Learn more
Ronda Kaysen is a real estate reporter for The Times, covering the housing market and home design trends. More about Ronda Kaysen
A version of this article appears in print on March 10, 2024, Section RE, Page 1 of the New York edition with the headline: I Want The House, Not My Spouse. Order Reprints | Today’s Paper | Subscribe
Saturday, April 6, 2024
The Economist Magazine Cover FOr 04/06/2024
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APRIL 6TH 2024
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How we chose this week’s image
The Economist
Zanny Minton Beddoes
Editor-in-chief
This week we had one worldwide cover. China’s famously industrious workforce is shrinking, its property boom has ended and the system of free trade that helped it grow rich is disintegrating.
However, Xi Jinping, China’s president, has a master plan. Branded “new productive forces”, this sets out to boost advanced manufacturing, in order to create high-productivity jobs, make China self-sufficient and put it beyond reach of American sanctions. There’s just one problem. It won’t work.
Here we illustrate two sides to Mr Xi’s cunning plan. At its best it’s a high-tech vision of the future, full of robots, AI and advanced materials. That’s why we have a pair of android hands creating a viewfinder, as if they belonged to a fancy film director.
Less charitably, China’s president is pulling a rabbit out of a hat—and here the hats are being stacked to make a millinery pagoda.
In reality, Mr Xi’s thinking is both visionary and magical, so we combined them in a single image
Mr Xi’s plan is hardly short of ambition. Annual investment in new productive forces is $1.6trn—double what it was five years ago and equivalent to 43% of all business investment in America in 2023. Factory capacity in some industries could rise by more than 75% by 2030. Some of this will be made by world-class firms keen to create value, but much will be prompted by subsidies and state direction.
Many of us liked this design, but others worried about the cover’s unresolved contradiction. Are new productive forces a reality or a conjuring trick?
Anyway, our timing was out. We would be featuring a bunny in the week after Easter. We tried another tack.
A problem with the master plan is that much new Chinese production will have to be exported. However, China already accounts for 31% of global manufacturing. How much higher can that figure go? America will surely block advanced imports from China, or those made by Chinese firms elsewhere. Europe is already in a panic about fleets of Chinese vehicles wiping out its carmakers. Emerging countries will not want their own industrial development to be stymied by a new “China shock”. The world has moved on from the free-trading 2000s—partly because of China’s own mercantilism.
Those thoughts led us to containers and the ships that carry them. The Great Wall of containers summons up the idea that this strategy is not just about economic growth, but also about China’s security. Relations with America are steadier than they were a year ago, but they remain fragile. Chinese officials are convinced that America will restrict more Chinese imports and penalise more Chinese firms, whoever wins the White House in November. The ship, loaded up with gambling chips, takes us back to the riskiness of Mr Xi’s strategy. (Fortuitously, our drawing of the ship also conveys Mr Xi’s wishful thinking: physics says that its bow should be dipping into the waves.)
Again, here is a version that combines these two sketches. The container ships have become an armada; seen from above, they look like a fleet of ballistic missiles.
The aggression is apt. China’s lopsided growth model could wreck international trade, ratcheting geopolitical tensions even higher. If it failed, China could stagnate. That thought may comfort America and its allies, who fear an onrush of Chinese goods. It should not: discontented, China may be even more bellicose than if it were thriving.
Many of us liked this cover, but some felt that containers are an old-tech way of representing a high-tech revolution. What’s more, this design fails to get across how the new productive forces are Mr Xi’s creation.
Those thoughts led us to a third set of ideas.
Mr Xi’s master plan rejects the conventional cure for a slowdown—a big consumer stimulus to reflate the economy. Instead he is going for a 21st-century industrial revolution. Not only will China escape dependence on Western technology, but it will control much of the key intellectual property in new industries and charge rents accordingly. Multinationals will come to China to learn, not teach.
Accordingly, we have him pressing the reset-button—as if he were voting in the National People’s Congress. We also have him parading in front of a Communist Party logo adapted to look like a computer’s on-switch. And once again, we combined these two ideas, this time into what was to be our final cover design.
We wanted the focus on Mr Xi because the new productive forces are ideological as well as economic. In recent decades China’s technocrats have had a mandate to study global best practice. Today, by contrast, they have been marginalised. Feedback has turned into flattery. Instead, China has come under Mr Xi’s centralising rule.
China’s president rejects the idea of bailing out speculative property firms or giving handouts to citizens as the kind of ruse the decadent West resorts to. Young people should be less pampered and willing to “eat bitterness”, he said last year. Equally, national security now takes precedence over prosperity. China must be prepared for the struggle ahead with America, even if there is a price to pay. The ill effects will be felt in China and around the world.
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→ Xi Jinping’s misguided plan to escape economic stagnation (Leader)
→ How Xi Jinping plans to overtake America (Finance and economics)
→ The mind-bending new rules for doing business in China (Business)
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