Blue crab invasion spells doom for Albanian fishermen

by Briseida Mema

In the marshy coastal area near the Karavasta Lagoon, the blue crab clogs nets and weirs

The blue crab may be pretty but it is a menace along Albania's coast.

A source of daily anguish for Balkan fishermen struggling to make ends meet, the invasive species is upsetting the region's ecosystems.

Native to the Atlantic, the crustacean started emerging in Albania's Adriatic waters over a decade ago, aided by warming sea temperatures.

In the marshy coastal area near the Karavasta Lagoon, the crab clogs nets and weirs, panicking fishermen who say the native marine fauna they rely on for a living are increasingly hard to find.

The crab "takes our daily bread and even the fish in the nets... there is nothing to sell," says Besmir Hoxha, 44, pulling one crab's blue pincers off a small fish crushed in his net.

His 40-year-old colleague Stilian Kisha holds up a hand streaked with cuts from his own battles.

"They are very aggressive and clever, a real curse," he says.

"This year we are seeing the crab everywhere, on the coast, offshore but also in inland waters, rivers and lagoons. The damage is enormous".

Some days the men collect up to 300 kilogrammes (650 pounds) of blue crab—compared with only five to six kilos of the fish they sell on the market.

The female lays millions of eggs

Stocks of local sea bass, red mullets and eel are disappearing, they say, as the foreign invader disrupts the delicate balance of underwater life.

"It's a daily challenge with the crab, who will be the first to catch the fish—this morning the crabs won again," Stilian said.

Millions of eggs

Fishermen are right to be worried about a species whose females each lay millions of eggs, Sajmir Beqiraj, a professor of hydrobiology at the University of Tirana, told AFP.

Callinectes sapidus, native to the Gulf of Mexico where it thrives, has spread around the world via ballast water from ships and is now among the top 100 invasive species in the Mediterranean.

"Global warming is creating conditions for the presence of exotic species in places where these conditions, especially temperatures, were not favourable a few years ago," Beqiraj said.

The blue crab "has already disrupted the natural balance of native populations, leading to the decline or even extinction of some species, especially local crabs."


The crustacean is also damaging underwater seagrass beds that serve as nurseries for local fish, devouring the mussels and snails they feed on.

"The damage to fish populations is considerable," Beqiraj said.

Local fishermen are left with boatloads of seafood they can't sell—one kilogramme of crab is worth 40 euro cents compared to 14 euros ($16) for red mullets

'No market'

Although the crab's flesh is considered a delicacy by some, it is not widely eaten in Albania.

That leaves local fishermen with boatloads of seafood they can't sell. One kilogramme of crab is worth 40 euro cents compared to 14 euros ($16) for red mullets.

"There is no market for crabs," says Hoxha, who has a family of five to feed.

A ban on unfrozen exports to the European Union also limits the possibility of turning a profit elsewhere.

The fishermen see no choice but to leave the crabs out in the scorching sun to die.

"It's their breeding time and to prevent them from moving out to sea to lay their eggs, we throw them away," says Adrian Kola, a 27-year-old fisherman, emptying a large bucket of scuttling crabs onto the land.

"We must act quickly to find solutions, otherwise tomorrow it will be as difficult to control this invasion as it is to control the coronavirus".


Explore furtherTunisia fishermen turn tide to cash in on blue crab menace

Mexico cave with evidence of early humans closed to visitors

Dr Juan I. Macías-Quintero, Martín Martínez-Riojas, Prof. Eske Willerslev and Dr Mikkel Winther Pedersen (from left to right), collecting samples for ancient DNA analyses at Chiquihuite Cave, 2019. Credit: Devin A. Gandy

Tourists or locals visiting a cave in north-central Mexico could endanger what is purported to be some of the earliest evidence of human presence in North America, archaeological authorities said Thursday.


Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History said the remote Chiquihuite cave in Zacatecas state has been declared off-limits to visitors.

Scientists "are looking for the DNA of ancient humans in the sediments (of the cave floor), thus human presence could contaminate strata that has been preserved intact for thousands of years," the institute said.

The cave is located on a hilltop near the town of Concepción del Oro, Zacatecas. Unlike some other famous ice-age caves, there are no clearly visible signs of human habitation like rock paintings, hearths or butchered animal bones at Chiquihuite.

According to an article published earlier this month in the journal Nature, stone tools found in the cave suggest that people were living in North America as early as about 26,500 years ago, about 10,000 years earlier than most scientists accept.

Ciprian Ardelean of the Autonomous University of Zacatecas and others say they found stone tools and debris from tool-making, and said he believed people probably used the cave as a winter shelter for short periods of time. His team has so far been unable to recover any human DNA from the cave.


Explore further Earliest humans stayed at the Americas 'oldest hotel' in Mexican cave

Journal information: Nature


© 2020 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.

French forest fire consumes home, forces evacuations

The fire rages in the Chiberta forest, in the southwestern French municipality of Anglet

A wildfire fanned by soaring temperatures tore through a pine forest in southwestern France on Thursday, burning down at least one house and forcing dozens to flee their homes.

"At the end of my street the flames were approaching the homes and they were very strong—we all jumped in our cars," a resident of the coastal Anglet municipality near tourism hotspot Biarritz told AFP.

Around 100 firefighters and two water bombers tried to beat back the fire, which consumed one home and around 40 hectares (100 acres) of the Chiberta forest by 10:30pm, the local prefecture said.

"We evacuated all the residences on both sides of the fire," Angelet mayor Claude Olive told AFP.

A young woman evacuated from her boyfriend's apartment said everything was fine at 8 pm.

"Then at 8.30 pm we were told 'Everyone come out! The tide has turned'," she recalled in tears.

"I had the flames 10 metres (33 feet) away!" said a resident who lives on the edge of the forest, adding that "usually there is never stong wind here".

Strong winds and thunderstorms were forecast for overnight.

The southwest of France experienced particularly hot weather on Thursday, with the nearby town of Saint-Jean-de-Luz setting its new temperature record of 41.9 degrees Celsius (107 Fahrenheit).

Around a hundred firefighters tried to beat back the fire

Fierce wildfire halted in southern France

North Atlantic climate far more predictable following major scientific breakthrough

by CMCC Foundation - Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

A team of scientists led by UK Met Office has achieved a scientific breakthrough allowing the longer-term prediction of North Atlantic pressure patterns, the key driving force behind winter weather in Europe and eastern North America. CMCC scientists Panos Athanasiadis, Alessio Bellucci, Dario Nicolì and Paolo Ruggieri from CSP—Climate Simulation and Prediction Division were also involved in this study.


Published in Nature, the study analyzed six decades of climate model data and suggests decadal variations in North Atlantic atmospheric pressure patterns (known as the North Atlantic Oscillation) are highly predictable, enabling advanced warning of whether winters in the coming decade are likely to be stormy, warm and wet or calm, cold and dry.

However, the study revealed that this predictable signal is much smaller than it should be in current climate models. Hence 100 times more ensemble members are required to extract it, and additional steps are needed to balance the effects of winds and greenhouse gasses. The team showed that, by taking these deficiencies into account, skillful predictions of extreme European winter decades are possible.

Lead author Dr. Doug Smith, who heads decadal climate prediction research and development at the Met Office Hadley Center, said: "The message from this study is double-edged: climate is much more predictable than we previously thought, but there is a clear need to improve how models simulate regional changes."

Advance warning of severe winter weather is imperative to those who make risk-based decisions over longer timescales.For example, better forecasts can help the Environment Agency plan water management and flood defenses, insurance companies plan for the changing risks, the energy sector to mitigate against potential blackouts and surges, and airports plan for potential disruption.

Improving model simulations will enhance the countries' response, resilience and security against the effects of extreme weather and climate change—influencing future policy decisions to protect people's lives, property and infrastructure.


Explore further The Atlantic Ocean's fingerprint on the climate of the Middle East 

More information: D. M. Smith et al, North Atlantic climate far more predictable than models imply, Nature (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2525-0

Journal information: Nature

Provided by CMCC Foundation - Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change

New smartphone game lets you solve real-world ecological puzzles

by Imperial College London

EcoBuilder, which is downloadable now on smartphones and tablets, teaches players how ecosystems work and aims to crowdsource solutions to unsolved ecological puzzles.

Ecosystem research looks at how animals and plants interact with each other and their environment. Climate change and other human interventions pose ongoing threats to how ecosystems function, resulting in changes to carbon flows and even extinctions of certain species.

EcoBuilder lets players build their own ecosystem of plants and animals. They throw together a bunch of species of different shapes and sizes, decide who eats who within the confines of the game, and depending on their decisions species will either survive or go extinct.

The in-game processes that decide extinction and survival are modelled using the same equations used by scientists to study real world ecosystems. This means that natural phenomena can be reproduced inside the game, creating ecosystems that behave in realistic ways to provide real-world answers.

Therefore, players' successful game strategies could make their way into the research literature and expand our understanding of ecology, potentially helping conservationists to save endangered species and conserve biodiversity.

Jonathan Zheng, who developed the game as part of his Ph.D. in the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Imperial, said: "This game presents a fun opportunity to contribute to real research that could change policy and affect our natural world. Players will learn about various ecological phenomena along the way, and their solutions could help real researchers to understand ecosystems better."

Canine inspiration

The game's designers took inspiration from a project to save the habitat of Yellowstone National Park in the U.S.. In 1926, wolves were declared extinct in the park due to a lack of hunting regulations. The lack of wolves meant that the population of elk boomed. The elk in their vast numbers ate too much vegetation and, in turn, caused smaller animals such as beavers and fish to struggle and eventually go extinct as well.

Following failed attempts to control the elk population by hunting and moving them, ecologists reintroduced 14 wolves into the park from Canada in 1995.


The new wolves suppressed the elk, triggering a chain of effects rippling through the ecosystem. Fewer elk meant plants could grow bigger and taller; more plants meant beavers could return and build dams again; the dams drew fish and more water back into the rivers and lakes. Thus, the ecosystem was saved.

However, the Yellowstone ecosystem still hasn't recovered to pre-1926 levels—a conundrum the researchers say highlights how complex and sensitive to human intervention these communities are.

In EcoBuilder, players can make the same sorts of decisions that ecologists made in Yellowstone.

Project co-supervisor Dr. Dan Goodman, also of the Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering at Imperial, said: "Since scientific understanding informs governmental policy, perhaps one day the strategies designed by players may influence decisions made by real conservationists, just like those made to reintroduce wolves back to Yellowstone park."

The game

EcoBuilder is divided into two 'Worlds'.

The first world, 'Learning World', gradually teaches players how different sizes and biomasses of animals and plants interact with one another, using colourful graphics and characters. In the scenarios presented, the researchers already know the 'answers', or the best ways to preserve the ecosystem without extinctions.

Once players master the Learning World they move on to the Research World, which presents ecological puzzles to which the researchers are unsure of the answers, making decisions about which species to introduce and seeing who survives and who goes extinct.

The research team collects data on players' solutions within both Worlds, but hope that players in the Research World might help solve real-world ecological puzzles that are reflected in the game.

Project co-supervisor Dr. Samraat Pawar, of the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial, said: "As well as crowdsourcing the intellectual power of the general public, the game has a powerful capacity for outreach and teaching purposes, as players learn how ecosystems function and why they may collapse from even small changes to their structure."

The researchers hope players will find interesting and unique strategies that lead to the healthiest ecosystems, which researchers can learn from—a form of 'citizen science'.

Jonathan added: "Raising awareness for environmental issues is as important as ever, especially given the fragility of many ecosystems around the world because of global warming."

What Jenga can teach us about wildlife conservation before it's too late

Provided by Imperial College London

Post-pandemic brave new world of agriculture
Robots working in abattoirs, sky-high vertical farms, more gene-edited foods in our supermarkets and automated farming systems could all help guarantee food supply in the next pandemic.

by University of Queensland

Robert Henry is a Professor of Innovation at the University of Queensland, Australia, and Director of the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI). Credit: QAAFI

University of Queensland Professor Robert Henry said the technologies had all been in various stages of planning prior to COVID-19, but food producers would now be moving much faster to prepare for the next pandemic.

"Food processing facilities like meat works have had to close due to a staff member being infected with the coronavirus, and all food processing industries where you have workers in small confined spaces are similarly at risk," Professor Henry said.

Professor Henry, who is the Director of the Queensland Alliance for Agriculture and Food Innovation (QAAFI), said roboticized abattoirs and automated harvesting and production facilities would also reduce the risk of transmission of pathogens among workers but also the spread of viruses via the food itself.

"COVID does not seem to be transmissible from an infected human touching food but a future pandemic virus might be transmitted this way, so automating the food supply chain reduces this risk.

"It also minimizes reliance on human workers that are not available due to migration restrictions and border closures."

Professor Henry said protected cropping, including vertical farms—or growing food in vertically stacked layers similar to a skyscraper building—would optimize plant growth and enable control over climate variations, chemical inputs and water resources.

"There will have to be policies that drive consumer acceptance of gene edited foods, which some consumers consider as GMOs.

"Advanced technologies need to be adopted globally, in each region, to deliver local food production capability that could provide secure sources of food in future pandemics.

"We will need to design crops to suit automated systems—for example for fruit to grow in places where it can be harvested robotically."

Professor Henry said the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic made it difficult to fully assess the impact on agriculture and food supply.

He said despite growing stocks of foods such as cereals, it was estimated the number of people facing a food crisis will grow from 135 million to 265 million by the end of 2020.

"It may seem to those of us in Western countries that the only impact on food supply has been a rush on pasta and rice in the supermarket and home-baking but the loss of income caused by the pandemic has hit some countries in Africa hard.

'We are in a situation where we have food surpluses while there has been a doubling in the number of people who can't afford to eat—and the situation is likely to get worse."Professor Henry said increased investment in agricultural research and development would support enhanced food security.

Ensuring global food security during COVID-19

More information: Robert Henry, Innovations in Agriculture and Food Supply in Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic, Molecular Plant (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.molp.2020.07.011

Journal information: Molecular Plant 

Provided by University of Queensland

Perceived 'whiteness' of Middle Eastern Americans correlates with discrimination
by Rutgers University

A new Rutgers-led study examined discriminatory attitudes toward Middle Eastern and North African Americans. Credit: Rutgers University

The perceived 'whiteness' of Americans of Middle Eastern and North African descent is indirectly tied to discrimination against them, and may feed a "negative cycle" in which public awareness of discrimination leads to more discrimination, according to a Rutgers-led study.

The study, published in Social Psychological and Personality Science, points out a tension between the fact that Middle Eastern and North African Americans are instructed to select "white" on U.S. Census forms, although they are culturally perceived as not being white.

"Middle Eastern and North African Americans are left in a precarious position of not being legally classified as a racial minority group, while at the same time not being able to fully occupy the white racial category," said study co-author Kimberly Chaney, a doctoral graduate student in social psychology at Rutgers University-New Brunswick's School of Arts and Sciences.

The researchers reviewed the extent to which discriminatory attitudes toward Middle Eastern and North African Americans is tied to the perception of them as white or not white.

A group of white adults were asked whether they supported discriminatory policies such as "America would be safer if we prevent Middle Easterners from entering the country" or "America would be safer if there was a registry of Middle Easterners." Then they were shown faces with a range of complexions, and asked to indicate which one most represented Middle Eastern Americans.

Those who saw Middle Eastern Americans as typically white were less likely to support discriminatory practices against them. Those who viewed Middle Eastern Americans as less typically white were more likely to support discriminatory policies.

The researchers also examined whether highlighting the discrimination faced by Middle Eastern and North African Americans would shift perceptions of them. After reading an article about discrimination against Middle Easterners in the United States, a group of white adults were more likely to perceive Middle Eastern Americans as not being white. But the researchers noted that if awareness of discrimination leads white Americans to see Middle Easterners as "less white," this perception may, in turn, lead to more discrimination.

"It is a negative cycle of exclusion and discrimination," said Diana Sanchez, a professor of psychology.
The next step for the research would involve examining Middle Eastern and North African Americans' own experiences and self-identities, the researchers said.Racial discrimination may adversely impact cognition in African Americans

More information: Kimberly E. Chaney et al, White Categorical Ambiguity: Exclusion of Middle Eastern Americans From the White Racial Category, Social Psychological and Personality Science (2020). DOI: 10.1177/1948550620930546

Journal information: Social Psychological and Personality Science Provided by Rutgers University

Study examines stay-at-home worker productivity potential 

by David Bradley, Inderscience JULY 31, 2020

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain

Working from home has become part of the so-called "new normal" for many people during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, there has been a move underway towards increased telecommuting for many years. Writing in the Global Business and Economics Review a research team from Portugal has set out to explore the potential of telecommuting in terms of productivity and quality of life gains, cost savings for workers and employers, and perhaps even environmental improvements through reduced transport pollution.

Commuting generates enormous economic, social, and environmental costs, although it has been the conventional approach to "going out to work" since the industrial revolution if not before. There are some benefits, of course, but largely these are often outweighed by infrastructure and transport requirements and ultimately increased use of energy and resources and an increase in pollution and carbon emissions. However, with a big shift to online services and the increased use of information technology in this so-called digital age many traditional jobs can readily be performed from the home at least some of the time if not the whole of the working week. Obviously, some jobs, such as construction and manual factory work, farming, and healthcare can rarely be reduced to the working from home paradigm.

Deveani Babu, Nelson Ramalho, and Pedro Falcao of the University Institute of Lisbon suggest that increasing the level of telecommuting across various sectors is entirely feasible. Moreover, given the global pandemic that emerged since the time of their review, it is likely that we will garner more evidence for the personal and societal benefits of this form of working. Our unwitting experiment caused by the pandemic might also offer insights into previously unknown problems with telecommuting too.Remote work worsens inequality by mostly helping high-income earners

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More information: Deveani Babu et al. Telecommuting potential analysis, Global Business and Economics Review (2020). DOI: 10.1504/GBER.2020.108396

Provided by Inderscience 

One-size does not fit all for post-disaster recovery, study finds

by Portland State University

Residents in Kashigaun used work exchange to build and renovate homes according to the new building codes at 2.5 years after the earthquakes. Because of the high building costs, they are being forced to construct very small houses to code in order to get funds through the government reconstruction program. Credit: Jeremy Spoon / Portland State University

When a natural disaster strikes, it often takes years for vulnerable communities to recover, long after the news coverage fades and the rest of the world seems to move on. A new Portland State University study that followed 400 households after the 2015 Nepal earthquakes provides insight into better understanding the factors that contribute to resilience and change in short-term rural natural disaster recovery.


"Recovery is a dynamic process with multiple dimensions which means that government and outside aid programs cannot be one size fits all," said Jeremy Spoon, the lead researcher and an associate professor of anthropology at PSU.

Spoon's team conducted surveys with 400 households in four communities both nine months and 1.5 years after the April and May 2015 earthquakes. The team also returned at 2.5 years for research workshops to connect the results to the participant experiences and perspectives. They used a novel methodology to document and analyze recovery as a multidimensional phenomenon with more than 30 recovery indicators, from rebuilding of homes and access to electricity to impacts on herding, farming, and wage labor.

Researchers found substantial geographic variation in recovery across the sites but were also able to identify several common patterns in recovery.

The households that appeared the most resilient nine months after the earthquakes were those that had less herding and farming-based livelihoods, more market connections to shops and tourism, and easier access to rebuilding funds from the government and through loans.

The results suggest that a settlement's proximity to the road and access to outside aid and government services may be negatively or marginally benefitting recovery in certain situations.

In Gatlang, a cluster of two settlements in northern Nepal, their growing dependence on outside aid and a more tourism-centric economy as a result of being close to the road actually impeded their recovery. For most households, their circumstances were getting worse a year and a half after the earthquakes. Only 8% of households had returned to their homes from temporary shelters and they were experiencing greater impacts to their herding, farming, and forest product collection.

The study suggests that access may be a trap, where individuals receiving assistance adapted to waiting for help rather than helping themselves. The aid received was also not enough to help the residents recover to a point that was comparable to where they were before the earthquakes and contained generic rebuilding solutions that did not take into account local knowledge or perspectives.

By contrast, in Kashigaun, a cluster of three settlements that is a two- to three-day walk from the road with very few aid organizations serving the area, households pooled their resources and collectively worked together to rebuild their community through work exchange. A year and a half after the earthquakes, 92% of households returned to their homes from temporary shelters; however, few, if any, were rebuilt to code. The earthquakes helped to revive and reinforce communal traditions of work exchange, which served as a safety net for the poorest and most marginal.

Spoon said the lessons learned can help evaluate relief and reconstruction interventions where outside expert knowledge ignores cultural diversity and place-specific dynamics, such as the roles of local knowledge and institutions.

"We feel that governments and aid organizations can use our approach to capture some of the most important facets of recovery in a variety of contexts over the short- and long-term, especially if they use participatory methods and outreach to develop appropriate recovery indicators," Spoon said. "Better understanding recovery dynamics then leads to improved natural disaster response."

Spoon, along with Drew Gerkey from Oregon State University, and their team received another grant from the National Science Foundation to continue their work in Nepal and collect data from the same 400 households in years six through nine. The study was published in the journal World Development. Its co-authors include Alisa Rai and Umesh Basnet from PSU; Gerkey from OSU; and Ram Bahadur Chhetri from Tribhuvan University in Nepal. Additional publications from this study are forthcoming.Volunteer tourism can aid disaster recovery

More information: Jeremy Spoon et al, Navigating multidimensional household recoveries following the 2015 Nepal earthquakes, World Development (2020). 

DOI: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2020.105041

We urgently need new tools to measure economic recovery after coronavirus
by Ala'a Shehabi, The Conversation

Economic recovery: a Nike swoosh? Credit: Thomas Serer/Unsplash, FAL

Economies across the world are on course to face the worst fall in GDP figures since 2008. In the UK, GDP fell by 10.4% in the first three months of 2020, and a whopping 20.4% in the month of April, the largest fall since records began in 1997. The Bank of England predicts that GDP will fall by 14% this year, probably more. The IMF has revised downward its forecast for global economic growth from -3% to -4.9% this year.


This is scary. But these GDP figures also hide the deep inequalities that our economic system produces. It confuses the growth of markets and prices with prosperity and value. It is assumed that if we make, consume and sell more things, our welfare and life quality improves. Is this true?

Governments all over the world still mostly rely on the use of GDP for economic planning and to set monetary and fiscal policy. Companies, meanwhile, use it to make investment decisions: choosing who to hire, what to build, borrowing ability, interest rates. Whatever the economy's recovery looks like—U, a V, W or Nike swoosh – GDP is the main metric that will be tracked, reported and acted on, with enormous implication for our lives.

GDP was itself borne in times of crisis, just after the first world war. Even its inventor, the progressive economist Stephen Kuznets, understood its severe limitations. When tasked with finding a way of measuring total national income, he said: "The welfare of a nation can … scarcely be inferred from a measurement of national income." Since then, the case against GDP has been made over and over again, particularly after the 2007 financial crash, which demonstrated that macroeconomic data and models failed to reflect the reality of the economy. So why do we still use it?

An unhelpful gage

Recessions cannot be fully captured by GDP—it understates costs on health, the environment, society, community, and trust. This tells us that economic welfare is probably much worse than it is: the models that we use systematically underestimate decreases in wealth and hide widening income disparities that fuel political resentment.

Millions of pounds has gone into research to upgrade these economic models through multiple projects, but they still seem to be failing us.


A recent poll published on behalf of Positive Money showed that 80% of people in the UK believe that health and wellbeing should be prioritized over economic growth. Just 12% opted for economic growth over health and wellbeing. Government targets should reflect this. Some are pushing to get rid of GDP altogether. What is certain is that the compounded crises we face today in health, climate and racial inequality require economic reconfiguration.

GDP is insufficient, distortive, and requires replacement. It ignores social value and the worst tendencies our economic system has produced: inequality and the climate emergency. Because GDP ignores the depreciation of physical and environmental capital goods, we will continue running down our human and natural assets, even if GDP begins to rise.

And what about the pandemic? GDP may not have created coronavirus, but it has certainly determined our capacity to respond to it—just consider how many resources have been misdirected over the years through policies of austerity that used GDP-based metrics to justify reducing government spending.

The alternatives

So how do we measure economic recovery in a way that reflects what matters to us? There are several alternatives. The difficulty is in balancing useful but reductive simplicity versus the complicated reality of what makes a "good life." Left, liberal and right leaning organizations have all waded in with alternatives.

The main alternative approach that has emerged is to move away from a single metric to a bunch of indicators on a dashboard, such as housing, health, and the environment. This would reflect the multi-dimensionality of prosperity and quality of life. Examples of this include the OECD Better Life Index, UN Human Development Index and its environmentally-inclusive version, the Sustainable Development Index.

A subset of this approach are those that measure prosperity at more local levels, such as the Thriving Places Index. Another approach is to directly ask people about what matters to them. The results include the Happy Planet Index and my own department's Prosperity Index. These focus on people's wellbeing and quality of life as they see it.

Another suggestion is to use other single metrics to GDP, like the Genuine Progress Indicator. This includes financial estimates of unpaid household labor, environmental damage and income inequality.

The next step is to embed these metrics into policy, as targets. In 2019, New Zealand did so, launching its "wellbeing budgets," which include 43 indicators across 12 wellbeing areas such as housing, environment, and social connection. More countries and cities may follow their lead in their pandemic recovery, with Amsterdam leading the way.

Views from the ground

At UCL's Institute for Global Prosperity, we have been asking people what a good life means for them as the basis of constructing a citizen-led prosperity index. We work with local councils and community groups in several countries to understand what metrics should be used to reflect community needs. These metrics differ from community to community and what gets measured nationally might not be the same as what should get measured locally. Knowing which inequalities exist across given groups can help redistribute resources across and within households.

For example, our data shows that in the area of Hackney Wick in London, childhood development is particularly concerning residents, while in Coventry Cross, housing affordability is of acute concern.

As we recover from the current crisis and reconstruct our economic systems, we need to have a conversation about what we value in life and begin to measure the things that matter. I am not calling for the abandonment of growth, only to abandon the concept of growth that is defined by GDP.

New metrics will force states not to seek to restore GDP without also restoring social equity and ecological equilibrium.


Explore further New framework will help to make 'net zero' a reality
Provided by The Conversation

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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