Can you Outpace a Penguin in your Speedos? Talking to HR about #workingfromhome, and from Coal Miner’s kid to White House wonk

Grüezi! I’m Adrian Monck – welcome to this World Economic Forum newsletter!

Also this week – Shepherds, are they evil? Band aids from fruit, and make your own movies.

Need an excuse to reach out? –?Share this newsletter!

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1???Could you Outpace a Penguin in your Speedos? #climate

Lewis Pugh could. Still, there are easier ways to prepare for #COP26.

You don’t have to swim where brass monkeys fear to bathe, to get up to speed on what’s got Lewis into cold water.

There are basically three ways to deal with the world getting hotter. Let’s start with the weirdest and scariest.

1. Block out the sun. Chem-trail-style geo-engineering which would:

Cool the planet, stop the melting of sea ice and land-based glaciers, slow sea level rise, and increase the terrestrial carbon sink...

But would also

produce regional drought, ozone depletion, less sunlight for solar power, and make skies less blue ... do nothing to stop ocean acidification, and present many ethical and moral issues.

Probably not a great idea.

2. Build stuff to deal with the consequences. Sea walls, etc. Floods and forest fires are already here, so in some ways we might not have a choice. ‘Adaptation’ is very expensive, takes a long while, and ... even then may only buy us a little time.

3. Stop spewing out stuff that makes the atmosphere warmer. CO2, methane, etc. It is slow, complicated, and faces a well-funded climate change denial lobby. This is what governments and some leading global businesses – and us here at the World Economic Forum – are spending time figuring out. This is called mitigation.

Daron Acemoglu reckons we also need to change economics.

Also if cold water swimming isn’t your thing, your garden might help the planet.

??What else could help: the booming market in next gen green tech.

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2?? Why are Shepherds so Evil? #economy

Yes sheeple, forget quietly minding flocks – herders are hateful!

Why are societies based on herding mean, vengeful, violent and warlike? Economists think they have an answer, and their research is published in the prestigious National Bureau of Economic Research:

• “Relative to farmers, herders are more vulnerable to exploitation and theft because their livestock is a valuable and mobile asset. In such an environment, it can be useful to develop a reputation for being violent and willing to take revenge.”
• In folklore “traditional herding is strongly correlated with the frequency of motifs related to violence, punishment, and retaliation.”
• “Populations that historically relied on herding to a greater extent have more conflicts today. This is true for all types of conflict... state conflicts, non-state conflicts, and localized conflicts, which involve one-sided aggression by armed groups.

“Groups whose ancestors relied more strongly on herding don’t just have more conflict events, they also see more deaths and spend longer periods in conflict.”

Makes farmers really seem nice.

??A nature-positive economy is possible — 8 business leaders show the way.

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3?? The Coal Miner’s Daughter Who Went to the White House #inequality

But does Harvard PhD Fiona Hill think she could still do that today?

Pretty much that. Fiona Hill, unlikely advisor to Donald Trump, was first in her family to go to university, ended up at Harvard, and then became an advisor to presidents.

She still has the accent of the English working class town she hails from, and – amazingly, absurdly – in the 21C that is still a problem: “the discrimination of accents … there’s still that kind of sense that you’re in another world.”

Education was her route out. Now she fears that path is closed.

• “A lot of people are making educational decisions based on what they can afford … So many people are discouraged from going on to higher education.”

“This is the new marker of class, both in the US and in the UK. People say it’s culture or values – it’s education.”

And that’s not just a hand-wringing problem for liberal policymakers, it’s becoming an issue in Hill’s wheelhouse, national security:

“It’s this lack of social mobility, all this grievance, that feeds into populism and it becomes a national security crisis over time ... because all of this can be exploited.”

Hill also has an interesting essay out in Foreign Affairs:

• “One thing U.S. leaders should avoid in seeking to foster domestic unity is attempting to mobilize Americans around the idea of a common enemy, such as China.
• “Doing so risks backfiring by stirring up xenophobic anger toward Americans and immigrants of Asian heritage and thus fueling more divisions at home.”

??12 innovators transforming the future of education.

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4???Intelligent Automation #innovation

Using computing power to make lives a little better.

??What would it take to make artificial intelligence greener?

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5?? Fix Cuts and Scrapes with Plasters Made from Grapes* #circulareconomy

Taking recycling to the family medicine cabinet.

??Why recycling alone can’t solve the plastic waste crisis.

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6?? Talking to HR about #workingfromHome

Truth from TikTok. Click below.

??At home or on site, here’s where green jobs are growing the fastest.

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7?? Make Your Own Stop Motion Movie #creativity

If you need a project this weekend...

This is how you do it.

??We also make our own entertainment – Radio Davos.

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If you enjoy this newsletter – please recommend it!

Best,

Adrian

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Thanks to everyone for the help and encouragement.