Support for extremism among military veterans is similar to U.S. public

Rate is lower that what researchers had expected

Peer-Reviewed Publication

RAND CORPORATION

Support among military veterans for extremist groups and extremist ideals appears similar to or less than levels seen among the U.S. public in general, despite fears that it could be higher, according to a new RAND Corporation report.

Surveying a nationally representative group of military veterans, researchers found that support for extremist groups such the Proud Boys and Antifa was generally lower than rates derived from previous representative surveys of the general U.S. population.

Assessing support among veterans for extremist beliefs, researchers found results that were more mixed. Support for QAnon was lower than the public at large, while support for political violence and the Great Replacement theory appeared similar to that of the general population.

The survey found that veterans of the Marine Corps expressed the highest support for extremist groups and beliefs among the different branches of military.

“We found no evidence to support the notion that the veteran community, as a whole, exhibits higher rates of support for violent extremist groups or extremist beliefs than the American public,” said Todd C. Helmus, the study’s lead author and a senior behavioral scientist at RAND, a nonprofit research organization. “However, our findings do suggest work still may be needed to make sure veterans are not susceptible to being recruited by those with extremist ideologies.”

Concern that the veteran community is at increased risk of radicalization to violent extremism has increased since reports that a significant proportion of the people who attacked the U.S. Capital on Jan. 6, 2021, were currently or had been affiliated with the U.S. military.

Several factors are assumed to underpin radicalization of veterans and why some extremist groups have sought to target both active-duty and military veterans. Veterans are considered significant additions to violent extremist groups, given their past weapon training and their logistic and leadership skills. They also lend a sense of legitimacy to militant groups that can further aid recruitment.

In addition, the veteran population is more male and more White than the overall U.S. population, demographic factors that are associated with right-wing (and to some degree left-wing) extremism in the United States, according to researchers.

To better understand the issue, RAND researchers conducted the first nationally representative survey of veterans’ views about extremism and extremist groups.

Researchers surveyed a group of veterans from the NORC AmeriSpeak panel, analyzing responses from 989 people who reported that they previously served on active duty, but were not currently doing so.

Participants were asked about extremist groups such as Antifa, the Proud Boys and white supremacist groups, as well as their attitudes toward QAnon ideology, support for political violence and the xenophobic Great Replacement theory.

Considerably fewer veterans expressed support for Antifa than the overall U.S. population (5.5% versus 10%), and veterans expressed much lower support for White supremacists than the U.S. population overall (0.7% versus 7%). Vet­erans also expressed relatively less support for the Proud Boys (4.2% versus 9%) and the QAnon conspiracy theory (13.5% versus 17%). About 5% of the participants expressed support for Black nationalist groups.

Despite these encouraging findings, support for the neces­sity of political violence (17.7 versus 19%) and support for the Great Replacement theory (28.8% versus 34%) were similar to support in the U.S. popula­tion. Only a minority of the veterans who expressed support for extremist groups also endorsed the need for political violence.

Researchers found that Marine Corps veterans reported the highest levels of support for Antifa, the Proud Boys and Black nationalists, as well as the highest levels of support for political violence and the Great Replacement theory. Both Air Force and Marine Corps veterans reported stronger support for QAnon.

“Given the anecdotal information about extremist group recruitment preferences and their active targeting of veterans, we would have assumed that these reported prevalence rates would be higher,” Helmus said.

Researchers say it could be that veterans who support such groups may be more inclined to actually join them or participate in their activities than nonveteran counterparts. Hence, even a smaller prevalence rate of extremist attitudes among veterans could still represent an outsized security threat to the United States.

“It seems clear that veter­ans bring a unique and danger­ous set of capabilities to extremist groups,” said Ryan Andrew Brown, co-author of the study and a RAND senior behavioral scientist. “So even a smaller prevalence rate of extremist attitudes among veterans could still represent an outsized security threat to the United States.”

Researchers suggest that the U.S. military and veteran service organizations should continue to explore what drives some active-duty person­nel and veterans to endorse extremist beliefs and join extremist causes. Such efforts should include both additional survey work and interview-based studies that would help researchers understand the factors that drive radicalization.

Support for the study was provided by Daniel J. Epstein through the Epstein Family Founda­tion, which established the RAND Epstein Family Veterans Policy Research Institute in 2021, and the Pritzker Military Foundation on behalf of the Pritzker Military Museum and Library.

The report, “Prevalence of Veteran Support for Extremist Groups and Extremist Beliefs: Results From a Nationally Representative Survey of the U.S. Veteran Community,” is available at www.rand.org. Rajeev Ramchand also co-authored the report.

The RAND Justice Policy Program conducts research across the criminal and civil justice system on issues such as public safety, effective policing, drug policy and enforcement, corrections policy, court reform, and insurance regulation.

---

DOI

10.7249/RRA1071-2 

METHOD OF RESEARCH

Survey

SUBJECT OF RESEARCH

People

ARTICLE TITLE

Prevalence of Veteran Support for Extremist Groups and Extremist Beliefs: Results From a Nationally Representative Survey of the U.S. Veteran Community

Americans Refuse to Quit Eating Meat

Story by Jess Thomson • NEWSWEEK

May 23,2023

Despite the great strides made by the vegetarian and vegan movements over the past few decades, most Americans aren't going to give up their meat-based diets anytime soon.

An exclusive poll of 1,500 eligible U.S. voters conducted for Newsweek by Redfield and Wilton Strategies on May 17 found that a majority of Americans regularly eat meat and believe that it's a healthy choice. They also said the meat industry is not that bad for the climate.

The polling also found that 81 percent of people eat meat at least once a week, and 10 percent said that they ate it only once or twice a month. Only 4 and 3 percent of the respondents said that they rarely or never ate meat, respectively.

Other questions revealed that 35 percent of people strongly agreed with the statement that it's healthy to eat meat, with 41 percent selecting "agree" and 17 percent selecting "neither agree nor disagree." Only 4 percent said that they disagreed, and a further 1 percent said that they strongly disagreed.

But eating meat, particularly red meat and processed meat, is less than healthy for our bodies. There is a link between increased consumption of red and processed meats and a higher risk of heart disease, cancer, diabetes and premature death, according to the Harvard Health Publishing website.

The polling also showed that while 34 percent of people believe that eating less red meat would help lower global carbon emissions, 40 percent said that they did not believe this. Twenty-six percent said they weren't sure.

The meat industry, especially the cattle industry, produces a huge amount of greenhouse gases. A paper published in the online journal Nature Food found that raising cows, pigs and other animals for food is responsible for 57 percent of all food production carbon emissions, twice as high as those created by all plant-based food production. Beef alone accounts for a quarter of food production emissions.

The problem is the sheer amount of land needed to grow food for the animals, as well as the felling of trees to clear space for grazing and otherwise raising the animals. More land is used worldwide to feed livestock than to grow crops to feed people, according to the Nature Food paper. Additionally, all the transportation involved in the production process produces carbon dioxide, and the livestock themselves produce methane in their burps, a greenhouse gas with 28 times the warming power of CO2 on a 100-year scale.


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The Guardian reported in 2021 that 5.5 pounds of greenhouse gases are emitted for every 2.2 pounds of wheat produced, compared with a staggering 154 pounds of greenhouse gases per 2.2 pounds of beef.

The polling did show that younger people are more likely to agree that meat is bad for the environment. Thirty percent of 18- to 24-year-olds, 50 percent of 25- to 34-year-olds and 47 percent of 35- to 44-year-olds said so. For 55- to 64-year-olds, only 16 percent of people said the same.

One alternative to satisfy Americans' hunger for meat—outside of a vegan or vegetarian diet—is laboratory-grown meat. This is real meat tissue from animals that is grown in a lab rather than taken from the body of an animal. This would help minimize the carbon emissions produced in the meat supply chain, depending on how much the growth process generates.



Stock image of meat in a petri dish. 

Lab-grown meat was backed by President Joe Biden in an executive order last September. He said that the U.S. government is dedicated to investing in biotechnology that will advance the nation's food security, including via "cultivating alternative food sources" and "looking to improve food security and drive agricultural innovation through new technologies...[including] foods made with cultured animal cells."

However, this alternative doesn't seem to have inspired much enthusiasm among Americans.

Twenty-seven percent of those in the polling sample said they would feel safe eating lab-grown meat, with 25 percent saying they would eat it. However, 55 percent said they would not feel safe eating lab-grown meat, and 57 percent would not eat it.

Additionally, while 30 percent of people said that they believed lab-grown meat provides a realistic alternative to meat produced from animals, 51 percent said they did not. Nineteen percent said they didn't know.

The polling shows that while a large number of Americans recognize the meat industry's effects on both human health and the climate, fewer of them are willing to change their habits or diets as a result.

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Marianne Williamson: ‘You don’t even know what misogyny is until you’ve been a woman running for president’
Story by Edward Helmore • Yesterday 

Photograph: Alex Edelman/AFP/Getty Images© Provided by The Guardian

Apenthouse-gym in north-west Washington DC served as a campaign stage for the long-shot Democratic presidential candidate Marianne Williamson last week. Athleisure-clad political consultants came and went, as if typecast from a political TV drama. The Washington monument poked between buildings in the distance.

Williamson is far from an average political candidate, even in the modern era of American politics where it often feels much of what was once unthinkable has become a scary new normal. She is not a politician, but instead an author and wellness guru, whose quixotic first tilt at the White House four years ago was far from successful but saw her grace the Democratic debates and score a viral hit with her message to Donald Trump that she would “harness love” to defeat him.

This time around, Williamson is running a tougher, more grounded campaign – treading the turf as a political outsider appalled at how America’s political elites have ignored the needs of its ordinary people.

The chances that Williamson will become Democratic nominee for president next year are very slim. But there’s no doubt that her message has the power to resonate, particularly among the young and with women, and with those who feel America’s current travails cut deep and are being ignored.

“I’ve had a 40-year-career working with people whose lives are in trouble. When I started that was the exception, not the rule. The work I did then was an adequate response to the suffering I saw in front of me, but now there seems to be a ubiquitous wave of people’s lives falling apart.”

An obelisk is much more than a phallus

Williamson is also increasingly clear on some of the traditional barriers she faces. Williamson, 70, is just the second woman – the first being Republican Nikki Haley – to have thrown her name into the 2024 presidential nomination contest ring. Both have received a seemingly reflexive push-back from their respective parties and some quarters of the media.

Sexist? Quite possibly.

“An obelisk is much more than a phallus,” Williamson said at her event, observing the monument beyond. And then more directly: “You don’t even know what misogyny is until you’ve been a woman running for president.”

But Williamson was less interested in symbols of power than her political agenda. She’s never held public office, though she ran unsuccessfully for California’s 33rd congressional district in 2014, and for the Democratic party nomination in 2019, endorsing Bernie Sanders after dropping out the following year.

Among her platform positions is an increase in the minimum wage, reparations for racial injustice, a more muscular response to climate change, comprehensive educational reforms and the creation of a US Department of Peace. She talks of “soulless hyper-capitalism” which she sees as the fundamental affliction of an America run by a government “of the corporations, by the corporations and for the corporations”.

Now she’s doggedly upgrading her old messaging about personal growth and universal love, attempting to dig a channel from new age enlightenment to political power, and to turn around what she sees as an economic, environmental and social crisis engulfing America.



Williamson speaks on the first night of the second 2020 Democratic presidential debate in Detroit, Michigan, on 30 July 2019. 

Photograph: Lucas Jackson/Reuters© Provided by The Guardian

“I’m socio-economically well-travelled,” she said. “And my experience has had to do with the endurance and transformation of chaos. I’m interested in the principles of truth, and the realization that America is out of control. America is in chaos.”

The liberal, Jewish ex-lounge singer from Texas arrived in Los Angeles in the 1980s and began to gather the stars – Madonna, Michael, Liz and Warren – and Hollywood power brokers of the era around self-healing psychotherapy and applied her energy to the Aids crisis.


She set up in New York, giving a talk once a month on a Course of Miracles. Her career took off via Oprah Winfrey, and she became known as the TV star’s “spiritual adviser”. A book publishing empire followed. Almost all her titles applied “love” to whatever the title subject at hand.

After her first run for the party nomination in 2020 she moved to Washington, which she describes as a walled city, not a bubble. She’d recently gotten out to visit East Palestine, Ohio, after the toxic train derailment turned the sleepy burgh into a byword for chemical disaster at the hands of a big corporation.

“The economically oppressed in this country are being oppressed by the same forces, whether on the left or the right. The real divide is not left and right, that’s a veil of illusion, it’s between those who are suffering and those who don’t seem to have a clue. It’s about millions of people living with chronic economic insecurity,” she said.

There’s little sign that those actually arranging Democrat political power have much time for Williamson, and they have fenced her out. But she is not put off, touring the country and doing campaign stops.

“Why would I capitulate? I’m a 70-year-old woman. I’m not part of that system. I’m not coming from that place of do what they tell you and you might get on that committee or get to run in 2028,” she said.

There’s such a fear of Donald Trump, they assume the best way to go is with Joe Biden. I disagree

“There’s such a fear of Donald Trump, they assume the best way to go is with Joe Biden. I disagree. You have to be in complete denial to think that status quo, transactional politics are going to be enough to defeat the energy that he [Trump] represents.

“People are blinded by their fear of him,” Williamson continued. “They think if they attack him enough people will change their minds. But this a man who said he could shoot someone on Fifth Avenue and supporters wouldn’t care, and I think that’s probably true.

“You’ll beat him by offering the American people a better deal, and agenda for genuine economic reform, an economic U-turn.”

Integral to that, she said, would be a 21st-century economic bill of rights – universal healthcare, free tuition, free childcare, paid family leave, guaranteed housing, a livable wage and sick pay.

Last week, Williamson also announced plans for a Department of Children and Youth, arguing that children, because they have no economic agency and no vote, are “systematically neglected”.

“Public policy in America sets children up to fail. Our children are the biggest collateral damage from hyper-capitalism. So I would place a tremendous focus on children, and create a massive transformation of resources. I want every school to be a center of learning, culture and arts.”

Students go to school in fear of gun violence, a situation she says that will exacerbate mental health issues in the future. The current debate, she says, doesn’t begin to address the issue. “It’s a sophomoric question, is it cultural or is it guns? It’s both. It’s gun safety laws and the glamorization of violence that people make money off.

“Our food policies are violent, our climate policies are violent, our justice policies are violent, our economic policies are violent. The violence perpetrated against women on TV blows my mind – and the emotional violence on social media. We’ve sexualized violence, and we will have a violent society until we chose to become non-violent.”

But her message of love and equity could be marred by other reports of the author behind the scenes. Shortly after she announced her run, Politico ran an article claiming she had episodes of “foaming, spitting, uncontrollable rage” during her 2020 White House run. Williamson later called the accusations a “hit piece”.

“I raised my voice in the office. They said I threw a phone but I’ve never thrown a phone at anyone. If people feel I’ve been disrespectful to them, of course, I’m very sorry,” she says.

Some also detect a political hand. Williamson has claimed the Democratic National Committee is “rigging” the party’s primaries in favor of Biden by ruling out a debate – “candidate suppression if a form of voter suppression,” she says – and the White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, responded to questions about Williamson’s candidacy with jokes about auras and crystal balls.

“Of course they call me an unserious candidate because they don’t want to be called to the carpet for being so unserious about the things that matter most,” she hit back.

“Of course they would see me and those like me as dangerous, because from the perch they’re on I am dangerous.”

Politicians love to talk, but none possibly as much as Oprah-trained spiritual gurus turned politicians. And Williamson is now on a tear. Over the past month, 38 videos have gleaned 4m views and more than 600,000 “likes” on Gen-Z popular TikTok.

But this may be where Williamson likes to be – firing salvoes, getting her voice out there, offering the damned salvation, slipping on occasion into what sounds like life-coaching.

And after the traumatic four-year experiment of allowing a political outsider from the far right to enter the walled city of US politics without knowledge of or care to learn how the levers of political power operate, resistance to another outsider on a political quest is unquestionably elevated.

“I can see that it would be an extremely difficult job, and I can’t imagine that it would be fun every day,” Williamson says of the prospect of the presidency.

“I would simply try to be as good a person as I can be. I’m not claiming to be what I’m not. I’m running for president, not sainthood. I am a decent woman who has, I feel, some insights about this country and some insights about what is happening that could be of value.”

Two small businesses added to Sandia National Laboratories’ Mentor-Protégé program

Working to grow with Sandia’s guidance and knowledge

Business Announcement

DOE/SANDIA NATIONAL LABORATORIES

 

IMAGE: AN ELECTRONICS TECHNICIAN AT COMPUNETICS TESTS A HIGH-SPEED CABLE USED IN AN AEROSPACE APPLICATION. (PHOTO COURTESY OF COMPUNETICS) view more 

CREDIT: COMPUNETICS

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Sandia National Laboratories grew its Mentor-Protégé program from three companies to five with the addition of Dynamic Structures and Materials, LLC of Franklin, Tennessee, and Compunetics Inc., of Monroeville, Pennsylvania. The program not only helps small businesses develop and grow, but also helps foster long-term relationships that help Sandia achieve its mission.

As one of 17 DOE national laboratories, Sandia’s mission includes: anticipating and resolving emerging national security challenges and innovating and discovering new technologies.

“I am being asked by my customers to do things faster, better and cheaper,” said Norm Padilla, senior manager of interconnects at Sandia. “We already work with a lot of vendors, protégés are different, we are partners. We are going to be working with them for years, figuring out how to meet that goal.”

As part of the program, DSM and Compunetics get on-site visits from Sandia’s experts, gap analysis, workshops, outreach events and other one-on-one guidance. Another benefit is their ability to secure noncompetitive subcontracts from Sandia and DOE Federal agencies up to $7 million.

The DSM team welcomes the Mentor-Protégé team from Sandia National Laboratories during a site visit in March.

CREDIT

Robert Thompson/Sandia National Labs

Dynamic Structures and Materials, LLC

DSM, which builds precision motion systems for extreme or unique environments, has worked with Sandia before. They’ve also worked with the aerospace industry, military, and the US ITER Project, an international collaboration of scientists and engineers to build a reactor-scale burning plasma device that can demonstrate the feasibility of fusion power. “With magnetic fields and radiation in the reactor, the environment is not suitable for normal process valves, so we are making a custom valve that can survive and operate in that environment,” said DSM Director of Mechanical Engineering, Patrick McGirt.  The company is currently working to develop nonmagnetic robotic components for heart surgeries that can perform tiny motions using very little weight and power.

While it might seem like DSM is already a success story, with only 15 employees, it’s still a very small company. Leadership sees the Mentor-Protégé program as a potential boost. “We are excited to work with Sandia because it provides a level of manufacturing that will improve our company; we will be able to get to the next level,” said DSM Chief Financial Officer Jim Bickmore.

Compunetics Inc.

Compunetics is a leading manufacturer of rigid and flexible printed circuit boards and assemblies. They have been used in applications like nuclear control systems, guided missiles and secure communication systems. Compunetics also produces electronics for transportation and medical equipment.

Started in 1968, Compunetics was the vision of Dr. Giorgio Coraluppi, or Dr. C., the same man who developed teleconferencing technology, still widely used today. As an employee-controlled company, Compunetics continues to carry on Dr. C’s vision of innovative cutting-edge technology.

Compunetics sees the Mentor-Protégé program as a potential boost. “We are one of those hidden niches that people don’t know about; being a small company, we don’t have huge resources like Sandia,” said John Gralewski, director of sales. “Our goal is to continue to challenge ourselves and leverage the vast knowledge at Sandia.”

Sandia is currently working with Compunetics to build a flexible cable within 12 months that can fit in a small, contorted space while meeting specific standards. That’s no small feat. “A system won’t work without cables, plain and simple. They are important and need to be done correctly,” Padilla said. “What we do at Sandia is vital. Working with protégés helps them understand why it’s so important.”

The Compunetics team includes Sam Bain, left, Joe Nativio, Mike Pilyih, Joe Kasunich, Chicco Vigano, Erika Choltko, James Tripp. Compunetics is participating in Sandia National Laboratories’ Mentor-Protégé program.

CREDIT

compunetics

The Sandians behind the success

The Mentor-Protégé program has become a big success in its short existence. Started in 2019 with three mentors, it has grown to 127, with the credit going to the many Sandians who dedicate their time to it. That includes program lead Royina Lopez, leadership, mentors and support personnel.

“The mentors are key; they are the ones establishing personal connections with these small businesses. They are the ones who explain what we do and how we do it, in turn making sure these businesses are successful,” said Maria Galaviz, senior manager of product delivery value streams. Galaviz engages protégés and mentors on the production side of the house. She says this program is helping Sandia address the supply chain challenges affecting the country. “We need to have suppliers that can meet our schedule, quality and reliability requirements. It’s a perfect example of a partnership in design, supply chain and production. It’s a win-win-win situation,” added Galaviz.

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METHOD OF RESEARCH

News article

PROFIT SHARING IS NOT EMPLOYEE OWNERSHIP
Frank Stronach: Profit sharing would be a boon to the working class and spur economic activity

Opinion by Frank Stronach • 1h ago

Frank Stronach: Profit sharing would be a boon to the working class and spur economic activity© Provided by National Post

Do employees have the right to share in the profits they help produce? I believe they do, and I further believe that the government should require all large companies in Canada with more than 300 employees to share their profits with their workers.

Profit sharing is one of seven core principles I outlined in a recent column that spelled out how we could invigorate our economy and improve the living standards of all Canadians. It is a winning formula for economic prosperity.

When a company is small, its owner is much closer to its employees. The owner has to treat the employees well and pay them fairly or they’ll end up leaving. That’s what I did when I started Magna International. I always showed my workers how much money we had in the bank, and I created an informal sort of profit-sharing system.

Basically, I instituted a bonus system to help retain and motivate my employees. If we had a big order and got it done ahead of schedule, everyone pocketed some extra cash. But it was all very informal and ad hoc.

As my company got larger and I was more removed from the day-to-day operations and our growing workforce, I realized that I needed something more formal. That’s when we made profit sharing a core principle of our “corporate constitution.”

We made every employee a partner in profitability and required Magna to share 10 per cent of its annual profits with employees. After we formalized the right to profit sharing within the company’s constitution, I was amazed at the huge gains we made in both productivity and profits.

The reason why is simple: our employees were on the front lines of the factory floor and knew our products and production processes better than anyone else; they knew how to create greater efficiencies and how to work smarter.

Because they knew they would get a slice of the profits we generated, they put their hearts and souls into making quality products at competitive prices. In fact, it became our mantra at Magna: make a better product for a better price.

With profit sharing in place, profits soared. In hindsight, if I could do it all over again, I would have shared 20 per cent of our profits with employees instead of 10, though it was still a sizable chunk.

When a business is small, profit sharing should be left up to the discretion of the owner, who has to worry about reinvesting profits in product development and other issues related to getting the business up and running.

But when companies are making billions of dollars a year, they should have to share some of those profits with their employees. A company can’t make a profit without the hard work and ingenuity of its workers.

The truth of the matter is that although every businessperson wants fewer regulations, restrictions and government oversight, companies also have to realize that government has a higher duty to ensure the overall well-being of society.

Government also has the right to address the growing income inequality in our society. It can do so by imposing higher taxes and redistributing the income from those taxes in the form of social assistance payments and benefits. But in that case, no one wins in the long run because of the stifling effect that increased taxation has on productivity and economic growth.

Another — and I would argue, far better — way government can address income disparity is by requiring large companies to share profits. Under this scenario, everyone wins.

Sharing profits with workers would benefit companies, employees and governments. Companies would see an increase in productivity and profits. Employees would get more income. And governments would gain enhanced tax revenue due to the growth spurred by higher consumer spending.

But if we fail to allow workers to participate in wealth creation, and if the gap between the wealthy and the workers grows wider and wider, society will inevitably drift toward socialism, with growing cries to take from the rich and give to the poor.

Essentially, profit sharing is a philosophy that recognizes that a successful business is driven by three forces — managers, workers and investors — and that all three have a moral right to share in the success of the business.

If a national citizens’ movement adopted profit sharing as a key principle in the effort to restore Canada’s economic health, it would be a policy that millions of Canadians would likely support.

National Post
fstronachpost@gmail.com

Frank Stronach is the founder of Magna International Inc., one of Canada’s largest global companies, and an inductee in the Automotive Hall of Fame.

Frank Stronach: Fixing capitalism by mandating profit sharing

SHARHOLDING WITHOUT OWNERSHIP 

IS CAPITALIST REFORMISM

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Mar 15, 2023 ... An employee stock ownership plan (ESOP) enables employees to gain an ownership interest in their employer in the form of shares of company ...

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How Well Is Employee Ownership Working? 

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EMPLOYEE OWNERSHIP IS STILL CAPITALIST REFORMISM
ONLY WORKERS SELF MANAGEMENT
IS SOCIALISM; ECONOMIC DEMOCRACY

Global temperature rise could see billions live in places where human life doesn’t flourish, study says

Story by Tara Subramaniam • CNN

May 23.2023

If the current pace of global warming goes unchecked, it will push billions of people outside the “climate niche,” the temperatures where humans can flourish, and expose them to dangerously hot conditions, according to a new study published Monday.

The study, published in the journal Nature Sustainability, evaluated the impact on humans if the world continues on its projected trajectory and warms 2.7 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, compared to pre-industrial temperatures.

Factoring in both the expected global warming and population growth, the study found that by 2030 around two billion people will be outside the climate niche, facing average temperatures of 29 degrees Celsius (84 degrees Fahrenheit) or higher, with around 3.7 billion living outside the niche by 2090.

Timothy Lenton, one of the study’s two lead authors, said that one third of the global population could find themselves living in climate conditions that don’t support “human flourishing.”

“That’s a profound reshaping of the habitability of the surface of the planet and it could lead potentially to large scale reorganization of where people live,” Lenton, director of the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter, said in a video shared by the institute.

According to the report, the niche consists of places where the annual average temperature spans from 13 degrees Celsius (55 degrees Fahrenheit) to around 27 degrees Celsius (81 degrees Celsius). Outside this window, conditions tend to be too hot, too cold or too dry.

The study determined that while less than 1% of the global population is currently exposed to dangerous heat, with average temperatures of 29 degrees Celsius or higher, climate change has already put more than 600 million people outside the niche.

“Most of these people lived near the cooler 13 degree Celsius peak of the niche and are now in the ‘middle ground’ between the two peaks. While not dangerously hot, these conditions tend to be much drier and have not historically supported dense human populations,” said study co-author Chi Xu, a professor at Nanjing University.

If the Earth warms 2.7 degrees Celsius, India, Nigeria, Indonesia, the Philippines and Pakistan would be the top five countries with the most population exposed to dangerous heat levels, the study found.

The entire population of some countries, such as Burkina Faso and Mali, as well as small islands already at risk from rising sea levels, would face unprecedented high temperatures.

In the worst case scenarios, if the Earth warms up by 3.6 or even 4.4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, half of the world’s population would be outside the climate niche, constituting what the report calls “an existential risk.”


The last eight years have been the warmest on record. 

- Samsul Said/Bloomberg/Getty Images

According to the report, living outside the niche could lead to increased mortality rates, as exposure to temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius could be lethal, especially if humidity is so high the body can no longer cool itself to a temperature that can maintain normal functions.

Extreme heat is also predicted to decrease crop yields, and increase conflict and the spread of disease.

Scientists have long warned that warming beyond 1.5 degrees Celsius would result in catastrophic and potentially irreversible changes. As the areas within the climate niche shrink as global temperatures rise, a larger swath of the population will also be more frequently exposed to extreme weather events including droughts, storms, wildfires and heatwaves.

Experts say there is still time to slow the pace of global warming by moving away from burning oil, coal and gas and toward clean energy, but the window is closing.

Every fraction of a degree will make a difference, Lenton said. “For every 0.1 degrees Celsius of warming above present levels, about 140 million more people will be exposed to dangerous heat.”

Earlier this month, the World Meteorological Organization announced that within the next five years, there is a 66% chance that the planet’s temperature will be more than 1.5 degrees Celsius warmer than pre-industrial levels for at least one year.

“We’ve left it so late to tackle climate change properly that we’re now at a point that to achieve the rate of change we need, means something like a five times speeding up of the reduction in greenhouse gas emissions or the decarbonization of the global economy,” Lenton said.

 CNN.com

Current climate policy to ‘leave two billion exposed to dangerous heat by 2100’


Rebecca Speare-Cole, PA sustainability reporter
Mon, May 22, 2023 

Current climate policies will leave more than a fifth of humanity exposed to dangerously hot temperatures by 2100, unprecedented new research suggests.

The paper, published on Monday and co-authored by academics from around the world, examines the “human climate niche” – the temperature range in which humans have lived and flourished throughout history – and how warming could see billions of people falling outside of it.

The researchers from University of Exeter’s Global Systems Institute, alongside the Earth Commission and Nanjing University, argue that current legally binding climate policies are estimated to produce an average temperature rise of 2.7C by 2100.

They said this could leave two billion people – 22% of the projected end-of-century population – exposed to dangerous heat, defined as an average annual temperature of 29°C or higher.

Forecasts show areas of the world where humans could be exposed to dangerous heat by 2100.

At these high temperatures, water resources could become strained, mortality could increase, economic productivity could decrease, animals and crops could no longer flourish, and large numbers of people may migrate.

However, the forecasts also show that limiting warming to 1.5C in line with the Paris Climate Agreement would leave just 5% outside the niche by 2100, highlighting “the importance of decisive action” to limit the human costs and inequities of climate change.

Professor Tim Lenton, director of the Global Systems Institute, said that many areas of the world will “go up to unprecedented temperatures that nobody experienced in the historical climate” when warming hits 2.7C.

More than 600 million people in India and 300 million people in Nigeria could be exposed to dangerous temperatures by 2100, as well as areas of Indonesia, Brazil, the Philippines, Australia, and almost 100% of Burkina Faso and Mali.

The research found that under the worst-case scenarios of 3.6C or even 4.4C global warming, half of the world’s population could be left outside the climate niche, posing an “existential risk”.

Prof Lenton said limiting warming to 1.5C makes a “profound difference” to forecasts, with those exposed to dangerous heat decreasing from more than two billion people to a little over 400 million people.

“The costs of global warming are often expressed in financial terms, but our study highlights the phenomenal human cost of failing to tackle the climate emergency,” he said.

“For every 0.1C of warming above present levels, about 140 million more people will be exposed to dangerous heat.

“This reveals both the scale of the problem and the importance of decisive action to reduce carbon emissions.

“Limiting global warming to 1.5C rather than 2.7C would mean five times fewer people in 2100 being exposed to dangerous heat.”

The researchers said their paper highlights the inequity of climate crisis as the people least responsible for greenhouse emissions could face the most the exposure to dangerous heat.

They also found that the lifetime emissions of 3.5 average global citizens today – or just 1.2 US citizens – expose one future person to dangerous heat.

“We were triggered by the fact that the economic costs of carbon emissions hardly reflect the impact on human wellbeing,” said Professor Marten Scheffer, of Wageningen University, who co-authored the report.

“Our calculations now help bridging this gap and should stimulate asking new, unorthodox questions about justice.”

Prof Scheffer said that migration would be a “very natural adaptation” to the changing world.

He said: “It’s not like the earth is becoming unliveable, it’s just the best place on earth for humans is changing and that is a thing that happens to other species and a normal response to that is to move to the better places.”

But he added that migration will be part of the “human cost” of climate change. “No one wants to move away from the place they are born and it will be a cost for everyone in the world because it has to be accommodated in some way,” he said.

“It opens up a whole discussion about what is the best way for humanity to go ahead.

“One is to put the breaks on global warming but as you can see from the results, it is likely we will have to reaccommodate people on the globe.”

Catch-22: Canada's attempts to phase out fossil fuel might result in it paying the polluters

Kyla Tienhaara, Canada Research Chair in Economy and Environment, Queen's University, Ontario
Mon, May 22, 2023 

US$20 billion: That’s how much American investors think Canadian taxpayers should fork over to compensate them for their failed bid to develop a liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility in Québec.

That’s almost a fifth of the province’s total budget for this year.

Ruby River Capital LLC, the U.S.-based owner of GNL Québec Inc., filed a claim against Canada under the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) after its Énergie Saguenay project failed to pass a federal environmental impact assessment.

The proposed LNG terminal had already been rejected by the Québec government over concerns that it would increase greenhouse gas emissions and negatively impact First Nations and marine mammals.

Canada faces a no-win situation — a catch-22. If the government does not rapidly phase out fossil fuels, it will fail to meet its commitments under the Paris Agreement to address the climate crisis. But when it takes steps to do so, foreign investors invoke international trade and investment agreements like NAFTA and threaten to drain public coffers.

Paying the polluters

Unlike environmental treaties, trade and investment agreements have teeth. They are enforceable through a system known as Investor-State Dispute Settlement (ISDS) that allows foreign investors to bypass local courts and bring claims for monetary compensation to a panel of three arbitrators. More than 1,200 ISDS cases have been launched against governments around the world in the last 25 years.

Read more: World Bank ruling against Pakistan shows global economic governance is broken

Between 1996 and 2018, Canada was sued more than 40 times by American investors through the investment chapter in NAFTA. To date, Canada has lost or settled (with compensation) 10 claims. Canadian governments have paid out more than $263 million in damages and settlements.

When NAFTA was replaced in 2018 with the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA), it did not include an ISDS mechanism between Canada and the U.S. Chrystia Freeland, the then-deputy prime minister of Canada, noted at the time that the removal of ISDS “strengthened our government’s right to regulate in the public interest, to protect public health and the environment.”

Ruby River was only able to launch its case because USMCA allowed firms that had made investments before NAFTA’s termination — on July 1, 2020, — to continue to bring ISDS claims for three years — until June 30, 2023.

Importantly, Ruby River spent only about CDN$165 million on the Énergie Saguenay project proposal. However, the firm is permitted within the ISDS system to seek “lost future profits” based on speculation about the performance of notoriously volatile oil and gas markets.

Risks to climate policy

Québec is a member of the global Beyond Oil and Gas Alliance and is the first jurisdiction in the world to ban all oil and gas production. The province is being sued over this ban by several fossil fuel firms — seeking more compensation than was offered — in Québec’s Superior Court.

Had these companies been foreign, and thereby qualified for the protection of an investment treaty, they likely would have chosen ISDS instead. This is because ISDS generally provides broader scope for claims — and larger awards — than domestic courts.




Other jurisdictions need to follow Québec’s lead. The global carbon budget has no room for new coal, oil or gas developments. Construction of new fossil fuel infrastructure also needs to be limited, as it would lock in continued extraction long into the future.

Despite clear messages to this effect from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and the International Energy Agency, investors continue to propose new fossil fuel projects. They do so in full knowledge that governments need to act to curb emissions in line with their international commitments and that future climate policies may negatively impact their investments.

Allowing these companies to demand billions in compensation creates moral hazard and could dampen necessary policy action.

Read more: A secretive legal system lets fossil fuel investors sue countries over policies to keep oil and gas in the ground – podcast

Governments are increasingly aware of this risk and many are taking action. The European Union is seeking to withdraw from the Energy Charter Treaty, the largest investment treaty in the world, because it “is not aligned with the Paris Agreement, the EU Climate Law or the objectives of the European Green Deal.”

The Biden administration is committed to not signing up to new agreements with ISDS and a number of Democrats are calling for the removal of the mechanism from existing deals. Other countries such as Australia and New Zealand have worked to exclude ISDS from some of their trade agreements.

Future threats

Canada will soon escape from the legacy of NAFTA. However, the government remains exposed to the threat of ISDS through other trade agreements such as the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP), as well as dozens of bilateral investment treaties.

When the U.K. officially joins the CPTPP, the risk of ISDS claims from fossil fuel firms will increase dramatically.

The idea that public finance, desperately needed for the energy transition and climate adaptation, will be redirected to compensate fossil fuel firms currently making record profits is offensive.

In light of the increasing body of evidence that documents how the industry has actively obstructed climate action and helped to spread disinformation about climate science, it is communities impacted by climate change that should be compensated by fossil fuel firms, not the other way around.

The Canadian government should adopt a consistent approach to ISDS. The exclusion of ISDS from USMCA should be emulated in any future agreements, and Canada should work with treaty partners to remove access to the system in all current ones.

This article is republished from The Conversation, an independent nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. The Conversation has a variety of fascinating free newsletters.

It was written by: Kyla Tienhaara, Queen's University, Ontario.

Read more:


Coastal GasLink and Canada’s pension fund colonialism


A bridge to nowhere: Natural gas will not lead Canada to a sustainable energy future

Kyla Tienhaara receives funding from the Canada Research Chairs Program and SSHRC (Government of Canada). She collaborates with and provides pro bono advice for a number of non-profit organizations working on climate and investment issues.