Some people tell me that I should take a break from creating dank memes, get off my phone, and just look at the world around me. And keep on trying to tell them, seeing is for meming. So if you haven't watched this thunk episode on populism, it's about seven solid minutes of interesting analysis on a global political phenomenon and its implications. And it ends with this throwaway line that I didn't even write into the script.  Given how much of the discussion about that episode thus far has been a response to that question alone, I've figured that we should talk about it in earnest. The question is a snarky reference to the on-camera punching of white nationalist and advocate for racial purity, Richard Spencer, as he was attributing President Trump's victory in the election to the campaign work of his merry band of racists. Spencer has claimed not to be a Nazi, but if it looks like a duck, hiles like a duck, and advocates for racial cleansing like a duck. The event has become a serious talking point with vehement opinions on all sides of the issue. Tribalism, politics, PC culture, free speech, morality, racism. This was practically engineered in a lab to go viral, which is actually part of what I wanted to talk about. You've probably heard the word mean before, most frequently used to refer to these dank images, which are posted and reposted all over the internet. Funny or nonsensical pictures, which all express a common pattern or theme. However, the word mean, as originally coined by Richard Dawkins in his 1976 book, The Selfish Gene, has a much broader definition than just silly internet picture, one which is based on Dawkins' innovative way of thinking about evolutionary genetics. We're used to looking at individual creatures as sort of the base level unit of consideration in biology, like a tree or a dog.  Look inside one and you have the organs of a dog or the cells and DNA of a dog. Dawkins suggested that we might instead use a different base level unit of consideration, that of genes. In this view, individual creatures are really just vehicles for DNA to drive around and all the myriad interactions between life on earth are really just different ways of genes competing evolutionarily. So you have gene A and gene B. They both rat themselves in cells, organize those cells into organs, organize those organs into creatures, maybe organize those creatures into groups and when everything is said and done, you have a pride of lions fighting a pack of hyenas. Of course, the individual creature's view is still a valid way of looking at things. But in the selfish gene view, this is just an instance of the continuous competition for limited resources between A and B. They're both just self-replicating genetic patterns shaped by their environment and by each other. But if A's better at getting those resources than B, then B dies out and A gets to replicate further. That's super cool by itself. But Dawkins applied a similar model to the interactions between concepts or ideas, treating them as self-replicating patterns of thought competing for mental resources. Normally, we think of humans as individual creatures, arguing for their beliefs or sharing pictures that they think are funny. But in the selfish meme view, humans are just vehicles for competing ideas. From this perspective, concepts, including Scumbag Steve and Philoseraptor, use humans to spread themselves, harnessing brains and language in the internet to replicate and command the greatest share of mental resources that they can. But it's not just internet memes that can be viewed this way. The same basic thing happens with ideologies, worldviews, cultures, superstitions, politics, religions, anything and everything that people think about or believe. They're all in some sense competing for a limited amount of brain space. The mechanisms of that competition include things like advertising, media, and conversation. But also, every single ideologically motivated conflict in the entire history of the world, from the Cold War to the Holocaust to the Crusades to the war on terrorism, can all be chalked up to the same phenomenon. Memes competing at the group level. When you consider that many people are willing to give their lives to ensure the survival of certain ideas against other ones, like capitalism versus communism or one religion over another, it's a compelling way to look at the world. Sometimes that struggle is just posting funny pictures on Facebook. Sometimes it involves tanks and bombs. But here's the rub. For many people, regardless of how inane or potentially harmful Spencer's ideas are, there's something categorically wrong about attacking those ideas by attacking him. In this view, he can call for oppressive racist political policies or racial cleansing all day long. He might even motivate others to perform physically harmful activities. But so long as he hasn't punched anyone himself, he shouldn't get punched. This position implicitly treats memes and their preferred vehicles, like speech or media, as being somehow fundamentally different than physical acts, specifically physical acts of violence. The suggestion is that there's some sort of indisputable boundary between words and ideas and behavior. Memes can motivate people to do certain things, sure, but they're never to be regarded as agents of any sort of real change by themselves. This is a popular view, especially in the US where the American cultural narrative is saturated with the importance of freedom of speech and freedom of the press, which were both severely restricted by the British government in the colonies. In fact, the very first right granted in the Bill of Rights is the freedom for citizens to engage in various forms of meme expression, unmolested by any sort of legal interference. But funnily enough, if you look at the legal history of the First Amendment, as early as 1796, it becomes self-evident that the relationship between memes, expression, and behavior was never really that straightforward. Supreme Court opinions have gone back and forth over the years, but the flowchart today for whether certain speech is or isn't protected is definitely more nuanced than is it speech, yes, no. There are several good reasons that we've qualified the First Amendment legally. Part of that evolution has been due to new forms of technology and communication, but part of it is due to a more nuanced understanding that, as much as we'd like to believe so, concepts aren't harmless or inert. For example, most people agree that defamation laws are necessary legal defenses against the use of memes to cause someone harm. We recognize that it's totally possible to seriously damage someone's reputation or their business by deliberately spreading untrue claims about them. The statements themselves are just words and ideas, right? It's not like the person who's inventing and disseminating them is the one who's firing that person for something they didn't do or shunning them or lynching them or whatever other negative consequences happen. But we still appreciate that by creating and expressing those ideas, the author is willfully inflicting harm on their target with them. The same principle holds for pretty much any reasonable limitation of speech, incitement to violence, shouting fire in a crowded theater, intellectual property rights. If ideas and expression of them couldn't affect anything by themselves, none of these laws would be necessary, but they are. And telling me, you may be arrested and jailed for breaking those laws. The government may exercise force over your person for wielding memes in a harmful or irresponsible way. The legal history of the First Amendment is just a convenient way of illustrating what I'm getting at here. The authors of the US Constitution recognize that there's something important about being able to express ideas that might be unpopular or damaging to those in power. That principle is still totally valid. It's important for new ideas, even unpopular or offensive ones, to be heard and debated and considered. That's the only way that we can improve the landscape of available memes so the best ones can prosper. But, as our understanding has evolved over time, we've realized that concepts and speech can't be totally isolated from their effects, and spreading them isn't a totally innocent activity. If you think about it, there's no shortage of evidence that ideas are more than powerless abstractions. I mean, if your heart rate has ever gone up just because someone you're attracted to has shown some interest, you've felt the power that pure concepts have to affect the physical world. Now, to be absolutely clear, none of this means that you should punch Nazis, or that the guy who punched Spencer was in the right. None of this implies that freedoms of speech and expression aren't important. They're definitely important. But naive or simplistic positions like anyone should be able to say anything in any context without consequence don't account for the complicated effects that ideas can have just by existing. Or that, at least for human beings, memes have real power and that at some point physical retaliation against them might well be called for. At least that's the meme that's pulling my strings right now. What about you? Do you think that Dawkins' meme view has merit? When do you think an idea becomes a substantial enough threat to warrant a physical response? Please leave a comment below and let me know what you think. Thank you very much for watching. Don't forget to ball up, subscribe, and don't stop thunking.


Welcome back to the channel. I've been doing a plugin that I'm going to eventually use on exporting to our personalized namespace on my API. So what I want to do actually is I want to restrict this only to work in Classic Press or to work only in WordPress. Let's say if I decided to add some stuff that is in Kootenbag, so I could probably restrict some of those files from working under Classic Press. Now when Classic Press Version 1 was released, it came with a couple of new functions in it, like Classic Press Version, is Dev install, Dev Version info and some things that would help with cash bursting like Classic Press Asset Version. So we'll see this when we use it with our style and JavaScript. But while this is available, I'm just going to use this particular function which is a Classic Press Version and it is a recommended way for you to use on a plugin. So right here I have a little plugin that I use that when I activate, it actually gives me a couple of new post types that I am able to leverage to put information into this particular install. However, what I'm going to do is that I'm going to restrict this information, this plugin from working if I check for the Classic Press Version. Since this is a Classic Press install, what I'm going to do is that I'm going to use this function to make sure that this plugin doesn't run if it finds out that this is Classic Press. So for example, if I reload this page, we'll see that all our little custom post types that we had made here through that plugin are no longer existing. However, if we actually say if this particular functional does not exist and we reload right here, we actually see that this is actually working for us. So we get back our information. Remember that we are actually in a Classic Press, so we're able to detect the version. So I'm just going to VADAMP and see what we get when we get this information. So I'll quickly VADAMP this and I'll choose die for that to continue. So if I actually go back and reload here, we actually see that this is the information we get. We get our value over the Classic Press version that we are using. So this is quite helpful in a number of ways. You could use it to restrict the kind of your plugin to maybe work on the Classic Press or with the WordPress because the reverse is true. However, you could also use it to detect what version of Classic Press you're building for since version 2, 3, 4 going forward might have a lot of breaking changes. So you might want to deprecator a couple of functionalities or you might want to stop functionality for particular versions of your plugin. So the power is in your hands. Use it wisely. And if you enjoy this video, please share it with your friends. Let people know that they can use Classic Press right now. And you can also give a thumbs up or you can subscribe to the channel if you're not yet. Enjoy your coding and bye-bye.


You ready? Pay attention! No one gets hurt! Go!  Come on! In the back! Hands right your back! Come on, Mr. Wood! Give me everything you want! Don't even think about it! Sit tight! I'll handle the blast egg!  Pay attention! Well, let's go! M!  Hey! Leave us alone!  I said the closet! Get them in there! Come on! What is the problem? Why are they still out here? You were meant to lock them down! In the back! All set! Phone it in! I'm making the call! Steady T, slow and steady. All to enjoy. Depends on how you look at it. On your face, I'll remember you! You get a thousand things every day. How about you make sure this is one of them? I've seen these eyes! I'm setting the charges! They're on a timer! Hit the shutters with... Pricks who called you out here! What took you so long?  And drive! This basic is the glass! You guys alright? Fuck! Come on! Ditch the car, alright? We can go this way to the chopper! No! Hey! Stick to the plan! What?!  Come on! Where the fuck's the chopper? Fuck! Alright! Brad's gonna be fine!  Jesus! T, you gotta get outta here! I'm gonna leave you, Mikey! I'm standing here! Finish me!


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Hi, it's the police. How are you? Nice to have a quick word with you. You missed the turn, but you're on the wrong side of the road, driving into oncoming traffic. Just reminding cyclists today, if you're going to be on the road, we've got to make sure we're playing by the rules of the road. Unfortunately, you didn't stop over the stop sign, which is required. We're just reminding cyclists today. We're reminding cyclists today that you have to follow the rules of the road. The part that wasn't predictable and that wasn't safe is that you weren't stopping. Hi, excuse me. So please, can I have a quick word with you? We're down here doing some education, reminding people on two-wheeled, three-wheeled, that we've got to play by the rules of the road. So it's really important that you stop for the stop sign, that you're using the bike lanes and stuff. We're having a lot of close encounters down here, so it's the only reason we're down here. We're not picking on anybody day to day. We're crossing the road here almost every day. Thanks for being here. You're welcome. I really appreciate it. Hi there. Hi, it's the police. Can I get you to stop, please? Hey, how are you? Good. Do you understand why I'm stopping you? Oh, a couple of things.


The speaker is going to speak English. The mystic statement. As you know, maybe you heard that the atomic scientists, but in 2016, they issue what they call the Doomsday Clock. And in 2016, they said that we were at three minutes before midnight, meaning that we are on the verge of the extinction of the human species. And they work the clock according to the dangers, and the main danger that today human beings are and the human species is facing are two, nuclear war and climate change. Well, nuclear war, we have a way to stop it. It's a miracle that nothing happened and hopefully nothing will happen. Climate change is much more dangerous, because climate change, if there is a point of non-return where we will have nothing to do. So we have to preempt, we have to start doing things. And if we look at what's happening, what has been happening in the few... the information that we got recently from many centres of science, we have seen that, for instance, the National Snow and the ice data centre for the Arctic said a few months ago that there was less ice than ever before. And the mean temperature was, in 2017, was 23 degrees above normal. Gulf of Mexico, the sea surface has never gone below 72 degrees. And it was the warmest winter in all the cities around the Gulf of Mexico. So it's dangerous, very dangerous. And I believe that what happened in Paris is that people, countries, governments and also non-state directors reached that conclusion and decided to sign finally the Paris Agreement after 21 years of negotiations. We in Morocco, we decided, we believe that this danger is for the world, is real. And under the leadership of King Mohammed VI, who has always been very highly concerned by the need to protect the environment, since he led the Moroccan delegation to the Rio Conference in 1992, we have been doing a lot. For instance, if we look at renewable energy, well, by 2020, 42% of our energy will come from renewable energy. And we have looked at the numbers and probably it will be 46%. By 2030, it will be 52%, coming from renewables. So this is what we're doing and we have, of course, a very ambitious NDC that will cost around $50 billion, among which half of it is conditional and half of it is not conditional. That's only for mitigation, that's only for mitigation, but for adaptation it's another $30 billion. So we're doing things here in Morocco in terms of environment, protection of environment and also on mitigation and also on adaptation. There is a second thing that we have done is host COPS, two COPS, COP7 in 2001 and COP22 last year. COP7 was a historic COP because it was a breakthrough for the implementation because we set at COP7 the rulebook for the Kyoto Protocol. And COP22 was also a very important COP because it was the first one after the Paris Agreement, meaning that we had Paris Agreement, we took 21 years to implement, to sign an agreement, but COP22 was the first COP starting to implement the agreement. So it was historical also because it was immediately after the, let's say, the entry into force of the Paris Agreement. We had the first CMA, the CMA which is the conference of the parties acting as a meeting of the parties to oversee the implementation of the Paris Agreement and we had the first one in Marrakech. By the way, COP22 entered into force less than one year after its signing, which is absolutely unbelievable. It's the first time in terms of for an international agreement. If we look again about what's going on in terms of climate, we had a report from the PNU saying that if we keep only the NDCs, all the NDCs together will reach only by 2030 only one-third of the objectives of two degrees. And on the carbon budget by 2030, if we continue the way we're continuing, we will have consumed already 80% of what we can consume to reach the objective of two degrees by the end of the century. And by 2030, if we want to reach 1.5 degree, by 2030, if we continue to act as we are acting, we will have already consumed absolutely everything. So for this time being, we don't have, let's say, very good perspectives, but things are happening. So let me talk about COP22. The Moroccan Presidency had some objectives. One of them was to keep the integrity of the Paris Agreement. You know, when you sign, when countries sign an agreement at 4 o'clock in the morning, very often they don't know, I mean people have been negotiating, negotiating, and they don't know exactly what they agreed upon. So it was the difficulty was to make sure that nobody was going to reopen negotiations. And that was my goal as chief negotiator for COP22 and the goal of the Moroccan Presidency. The second was to start to work on the modalities, rules and procedures to implement the Paris Agreement. I must say that it worked because we worked pretty hard and we came out with 35 decisions, 35 important decisions. Also, we wanted to keep the mobilization of everybody and this was the Moroccan Action Proclamation for Acclimate and Sustainable Development. All the heads of states, governments, heads of delegation signed the proclamation saying that they are willing to continue to stay mobilized to address the problems of climate change. And which is also very important because COP22 was the first COP that had a second pillar, which was a pillar of the non-state actors that became, that we call the action agenda that started in Lima, continued in Paris, but at COP22 in Marrakech became a real part of the COPs. And today every next COP will have the action of non-state actors will be crucial and absolutely fundamental. So what were the priorities of the Moroccan Presidency during this, not only towards COP22 but also during 2017? One of the most important action was on climate finance. Why climate finance? Well, because if you look at the NDCs, a lot of the NDCs are conditioned. Not all the countries have the means to implement their NDCs. So we have to talk about finance. Where is the finance coming from? All these projects will be financed in terms of mitigation but also in terms of adaptation. Well, it's a main issue. Of course we had the $100 billion roadmap that was announced by the developed countries at COP22 but $100 billion is nothing. It's a drop in the bucket because we're talking about trillions. So the big question is where is the money coming? Where will be the money coming from? Of course it will be public money but public money will never be enough. And the idea is to how we can leverage private money to implement the NDCs. We had what we call the CAPE which is an initiative that was launched by Morocco and the World Bank. It's a meeting between stakeholders and especially ministers of finance to exchange information and see how we can work together to implement the Paris Agreement. There is an initiative also, a very important initiative that was launched in Morocco as well as the NDC partnership. What is the NDC partnership? And I believe that it is probably one of the most important outcomes of COP22. What is the NDC partnership? It's basically a platform that will help countries to implement their NDCs. A country like Morocco or a country like Binna, we have here, Mr. Sensu, or a country needs to implement its NDC. How is this country going to finance the NDC? By of course using the domestic finance but it has to raise finance and money from other sources. And the NDC partnership is meant to help countries see where the money is and also when you talk about finance, you talk about capacity building, how you build the governance, how you build the environment so that you can attract the finance, not only the public one but also especially the private finance. And when we talk about private finance, I will quote Christiane Figueres who used to say that there are trillions, four or five trillions out of government in number, invested at below zero interest rate. All the trillions are waiting for opportunities to have a better return on investment. And probably on climate, and especially for instance today on renewable energy, there are big opportunities and it's happening. We had another initiative, the Marrakesh Partnership to foster green capital markets in Africa, the green growth infrastructure facility for Africa, the network of financial centers for sustainability that was launched by Casablanca Finance City, the MBA for climate, launched by CGM, which is the association of companies of enterprises here in Morocco and the climate finance accelerator that we launched together with the United Kingdom. We also worked on the adaptation and we had two events on the metric of adaptation because everybody is talking about adaptation but it's not really clear how you measure the needs on adaptation. This is why we had an event in September 2016 and another one in October 2017 about the metrics of adaptation and it was really interesting events. We launched the AAA which is the adaptation of agriculture in Africa. And we have encouraged the progress of the NAPS which are the National Adaptation Plans. We also, and that was also a very important part of COP22 was mobilization and work with the non-state actors and the NGOs. The way I conducted and we conducted the negotiations was to meet with the NGOs who are doing the camps and others who work only on climate and have their views and try to figure out how their views can be translated in the negotiations between the governments. So I would sit with them, listen to them, share what their idea is with the governments and have the return from the governments and have at the end of the day an outcome that is not exactly what they wanted because they want the maximum but pretty interesting outcomes. South-South cooperation also, we had an event in New York and we are having another event in Bonn. And so many things have happened again, integrity of the Paris Agreement, starting to work on what we call the work program which means procedures, rules and modalities for the implementation of the Paris Agreement and the other pillar which is the non-state actors action. Now we're going to COP23 and I think what are we looking at COP23? Continue the work program. You know, in Paris, we had decided that the Paris Agreement would enter into force. Everybody thought that the Paris Agreement was going to enter into force by 2020 and that the rule book of the work program would be finished by 2020. Well actually, the Paris Agreement entered into force in 2016 and now we have decided, the countries have decided that the work program, rules, modalities and procedures will be finished by 2018. So we will be working hard in Bonn in the next 15 days and we will continue working during the year, especially in the session in Bonn in May and in Poland in 2018, in November 2018. There is also a very important event that is going to happen in 2018 in Poland which is what we call the, we used to call the Facility of Dialogue and today it's called the Talenoa Dialogue. Talenoa meaning conversation between parties in Fidgen. And what is this Talenoa Dialogue? Is countries sitting together and saying, trying to figure out where we are, where we want to be and how we can get there. And there will be a process that will start, that has already, that will start now in Bonn and continue during the Fidgen presidency and we will have the Facility of Dialogue, the Talenoa Dialogue in Poland at COP24. So the objectives, the priorities of the Fidgen presidency as it was said, it was advanced pre-COP in Fidgen last week is to advance the work of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change and preserve the multilateral consensus to uphold and advance the Paris Agreement, to build greater resilience for all world nations, to forge a grand coalition to accelerate climate action before 2020 and beyond between civil society, the scientific community, the private sector and all levels of government including cities and regions. And to harness innovation, to draw a strong link between the health of the world's oceans and seas, to infuse COP23 with the Fidgen-Bulles spirit of inclusiveness, friendliness and solidarity and promote the Pacific concept of Talenoa. So I started with a very pessimistic statement. I will be a little bit more optimistic. Why am I optimistic? Because what I have seen is that there is a real will by everybody, governments, non-state actors, many, I mean, especially companies that are decided to do whatever is needed to be done. Last year, you know, President Obama issued the Clean Power Act and the coal producers issued an act at the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court said, well, they have some reasons, they have some ground. And the cities, states, companies, the Association, the Edison Association, the Association Institute which is the association of the power producers in the United States said, well, the Supreme Court can say whatever they want to say, we have our program, we're doing what we have to do and we will do it. So there is a mobilization by everybody, by companies, by states, by cities, and you can see that in the United States when you go everywhere, you can see how much things are happening, California, taxes, but also in other countries, here in Morocco and everywhere else. We can see that countries have decided to go into energy efficiency and energy efficiency, and if you look at what has happened in China, it's amazing, we have a report showing that there was a dramatic drop on emissions but also a growth on jobs. Energy efficiency is so important that it represents the consumption of Japan in terms of energy. So that, and everybody is working on energy efficiency. Then the last, but not least, if you look at all the decisions taken by many countries, and especially China, for instance, but also Norway and other countries that have decided that mobility will be electric in the next 10 years. Norway, by 2020, all the cars will be electric. China, by 2025, all the cars, 25% of the cars will be electric, and this will mean a lot. And other countries that we can see a lot happening in terms of research, in terms of science, in terms of forming science into implementation. And we can see that, and this is my word of optimism to end this statement and this intervention, and thank you very much, and I'm sorry to keep you, to have kept you without eating for such a long time. We're going to take two or three questions quickly, but I will put the first one myself as a diplomat. What have you learned in this climate negotiation process? Because it is an unprecedented way of diplomacy, since it is really for the first time of human history global. So, and of course, in terms of international law and the like, there is all this discussion about the nature of the agreements, the soft law, real law, and so forth and so on. Well, first of all, what I've learned is that it's terribly complicated. Terribly complicated. And these negotiators have been negotiating the same negotiators. Many of them have been negotiating for 20 years. So, you know, only the acronyms. It took me, Casablanca, Washington, Washington, Beijing, Wajid Beijing, Casablanca, to learn the acronym. So, it's very complicated. And the concepts and the topics are really, really complicated. At the point that the head negotiators, you know, the chief negotiators, have their own experts for each item. So, it's really complicated because it has implications. Implications on the economy of the countries, implications on what's happening. So, it's a very difficult process, and it was very difficult. And I must say that it's amazing that we reached an agreement in Paris. In a nutshell. Okay. Well, thank you very much. Je peux prendre donc Denis Badré. Bertrand. Bertrand, oui, ça. Je confonds toujours le père et le fils. Il ne me manque que le Saint-Esprit. Bon. Et j'ai vu une autre main, là. Qui? Voilà. Alors, Bertrand. Mr. Ambassador, thank you very much for your words. And congratulations from Morocco for the world you played in maintaining the integrity of the Paris Agreement. I'm not a diplomat. I'm a man of finance. And I know that everything we discuss will cost money. And you rightly said, I mean, public money available is in the billions, and needs are in the trillions. At the same time, we all wonder why you have so much money left with zero rate all over the world. The main issue is how can we... It's not going to happen overnight that this money will say, oh, climate change is a great opportunity. We move there. It's not happening. So how can we push decisively beyond, I would say, the circles of diplomats and politicians to really in the next two, three, four, five cops in that way? How can we really change the financial system so that they naturally come there? Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador. I will answer this question. It's easy. Private finance is not there for philanthropy. Private finance is there to make money. So it's basically, and how do you make money by creating conditions so that private money will make money? But you can see already, so you have to create the conditions, the environment, the regulations. First of all, to make sure that who's investing knows where he's investing and what will happen to his money in five, 10, 20 years. That's one thing. So, and this is... We had our first meeting of the scientific committee for the COP22 here in Morocco, and it was very interesting because each, you know, the renewable energy people, the agriculture people, the water people, each one was saying, well, we did this. We created this regulation. We raised this money. We created this capacity building. And at the end of three hours, I said, well, we have very good examples to attract money because most of the projects that have been financed were financed by public money, some by public money, but a lot by private money. Let me give you an example. I have a friend who set a fund, a renewable energy fund in Senegal. And she already raised something like $100 million. And the return on investment will be 16%. So, it can work. And especially because today, let's say the cost of the production of renewable energy is going down, down, down. Each time, lower and lower. For instance, I heard that the Saudis are investing, are creating a farm where the cost of the kilowatt will be 1.7, I think, cent for the kilowatt, which is amazing. So I think that it's about countries creating the regulations, the real regulations so investors can come and by little seeing that it's a good business. Look, if you go to California, if you go to Texas, Texas, 10 years ago, they didn't have one wind farm. Today, it's the number one in the United States in terms of wind energy. And why people are investing, why countries are investing, why companies are investing, because there is a good return on investment. So creating conditions. Further last. Thank you very much, Mr. Ambassador. That's almost from Japan. I'm teaching at NB school on energy and climate change. What you talked about is really thrilling to me. And also, I have one boy, students who came just from back from Japan who I told I'll be working on climate change. One question to you. You talked about the importance of non-state actors. I do agree with you. And there is many initiatives from non-state actors like Breakthrough Energy Coalition and others. But if there is any area missing from non-state actors, which would be the most critical areas, you'd like to see those initiatives taking place. Thank you. Is it a question or a statement? Where is the question exactly? There are many initiatives taken from non-state actors like Breakthrough Energy Coalition. This is technology. But if there is any areas, those initiatives are missing from your point of view, which would be the area. Where you'd like to see more non-state actors' role to play. Well, everything that has to do with all the companies, for instance, many companies, the biggest companies in France, have a carbon price, for instance. Internal carbon pricing. Now, nobody agrees for the time being on the carbon pricing and international carbon pricing, but it's happening. It's happening internally in companies, but it's happening also between, for instance, the state of California and some states in Canada. So I see more cooperation and cooperation between companies, states, cities and working together to lower the emissions of carbon. CO2 or equivalent CO2.


And let's come back from our break and start the second panel. I'd like to address the poll that we asked right before the break. Who does this audience think is the most important partner to address climate change? So I'm sharing the results with you right now. As Colonel Cameron stated, just because we compete in some ways, we have to cooperate in others. And it looks like many of you agreed with that by selecting China as the most important partner to address climate change going forward. Thanks to all for participating and sharing your thoughts. As a reminder, all conference materials are available for download at the bottom of the events page and there's a link to that in the chat. During the second panel, remember that to enter your questions in the Q&A box at any time and upvote the questions you like most to help the moderator identify the questions with the most interest. This event is being recorded and will be available to the Naval War College YouTube page after the event. On that note, I'm going to stop sharing our panel results and introduce our next moderator. Our second panel is the impacts of a changing climate on fragile states around the world. Our moderator for this panel is Dr. Annalise Bloom. She is an ACS science and technology fellow in the Office of Secretary of Defense Policy, Stability in Humanitarian Affairs. In her role, Dr. Bloom leads RECESS, the Resource Competition Environmental Security and Stability Group, which is guiding DOD strategic thinking on the national security impacts of environmental change. Dr. Bloom has led multi-disciplinary research projects focused on water security around the world. She holds a master's from the University of North Carolina and a PhD in environmental and water resources engineering from Tufts University. Please join me in welcoming Dr. Bloom as she leads our second panel today. Thank you so much, Commander Cameron. I'm delighted to moderate the second panel today focused on the impacts of a changing climate on fragile states around the world. I'll give short introductions to our three panelists, but I recommend that you read their full impressive bios in the workshop program. First, Dr. Joshua Busby is an Associate Professor of Public Affairs and Distinguished Scholar at the Robert S. Strauss Center for International Security and Law, University of Texas, Austin. Dr. Busby is also a non-resident fellow at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs and a senior research fellow at the Center for Climate and Security. He has published extensively on climate and security for academic outlets and think tanks and was a lead researcher funded by the Department of Defense on climate change and security. Next, we'll have Dr. Marcus King. He's John O. Rayken Associate Professor at George Washington University's Elliott School of International Affairs. Dr. King directs the school's master's of arts program, the largest of its kind. Previously, Dr. King held appointments at the Center for Naval Analysis and in the offices of the U.S. Secretaries of Energy and Defense where he represented the United States in the negotiation of treaties including the Kyoto Protocol. His research focuses on the security implications of environmental security. And last but not least, we'll have retired Vice Admiral Ben Beckering. He retired from the Royal Netherlands Navy in 2019 after 40 rewarding years. This culminated in three commands of a frigate and amphibious ship and one of NATO's standing naval groups. His staff jobs ashore were mostly in the field of plans and policy. Since retirement, he has advised the Netherlands Ministry of Defense and works with the Netherlands industry and research on how to position the European landscape of capability development. Thanks so much for joining us today. Now we will go to their opening remarks. And as a reminder, as you watch, please feel free to enter your questions in the Q&A box and vote for your favorite questions. So first, we'll hear from Dr. Joshua Busby about the importance of thinking about climate beyond the threat multiplier terminology and about the intersection of state exposure and fragility. I'm Josh Busby, I'm an associate professor at the LBJ School of Public Affairs and I'm delighted to be with you to talk about the next decade of climate security. I've been working on this issue for a long time since 2004 when Nigel Purvis and I were tasked by then-U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan to write a short brief. And our understanding of the issue has matured in the past 16 years so much. For much of that time, the academic community has been hung up on the question of does climate change cause violent conflict of different kinds? The policy community for its part has finessed the issue of causality by talking about climate change as a threat multiplier that conjoins with other factors to make conflict or instability more likely. And the policy community for its part cares about other security outcomes like the effects of climate change on bases or the need for military mobilization for humanitarian emergencies. What I'd like to do in my time today is talk about why we need to move beyond the language of threat multiplier in our policy discussions and how we should think about fragile states and where to focus our attention. These themes are explored in a new piece in the journal of peace research that just came out and I have expanded on them further in my book on climate security that I hope will be out from Cambridge University Press later this year. I wrote a blog post last year talking about why I think we need to move beyond the language of threat multiplier to address climate security. So maybe we should go back and think about where the idea comes from. In 2007, the CNA Corporation issued a groundbreaking report on climate security. And I think this concept has served us well in many respects. That effort was organized by Sherry Goodman, one of our conference speakers, and the authors included CNA's military advisory board of retired U.S. generals and admirals. And the language of threat multiplier is shorthand for thinking about how climate change on its own doesn't drive conflict. And it can help folks avoid the charge of privileging climate change above other causes. But saying climate change is a threat multiplier doesn't tell us where and when we should expect bad things to happen. And I think that leads us to try to identify what are some common risk factors, known risk factors for climate and conflict and instability for different kinds of hazards. And Neenavon Exfuel and co-authors had a terrific 2016 article which showed that the risks of conflict when there were rainfall deficits in the growing season were greatest in society's highly dependent on agriculture and those that had high levels of political exclusion. And I thought this was a fascinating way to think about the issue. And so in 2018, I wrote a short piece with Neenavon for foreign affairs. And we mapped which countries had high employment in agriculture or recent history of conflict and had exclusive political institutions to show chronic sources of risks. And the 20 countries that emerge are mostly in Sub-Saharan Africa but extend across the Middle East to South Asia. And we combined that with data on countries that recently experienced severe water deficits or were projected to over the next nine to ten months. And that showed just nine countries in darker blue that were facing imminent problems at the time. And I think this kind of foresight analysis would offer a productive step forward beyond threat multiplier language to help us concentrate the minds on what we should be worried about. And there may be other kinds of risk factors for different hazards. So if we're worried about cyclone risks and security, we might look to populations in cyclone prone areas, combined with data on building codes, early warning systems, cyclone shelters, and governance. And while I think that nuanced hazard specific explanations like these are useful, I also worry about a proliferation of arguments about the risk factors for conflict and instability. And we might lose sight of some common risk factors. And so in my forthcoming book, I focus on three factors that I think especially important explaining when states are likely to face negative security consequences from climate change, namely state capacity for service delivery, the degree of political inclusion, and the role of foreign assistance. And in brief, I make the case that countries with weak state capacity, highly exclusionary of political systems where groups lack political representation and where foreign assistance is lacking or delivered in a one sided manner are most likely cases for negative security outcomes. Another way to think about this problem though is thinking about multi hazard exposure to climate risk and where that intersects with state fragility. And in a 2018 report for USAID, and collaborators came up with a way of mapping those joint risks or what we think of as the double burden that states face. And this is akin to the idea of threat multiplier, but it's taking a further step away from causality to recognize that climate effects can emerge in countries already experiencing violence and stability. So we map subnational historic exposure to a variety of climate hazards, negative rainfall shocks, chronic water scarcity, cyclones, wildfires, floods and low elevation coastal zones. And we combine that with a separate national index of fragility based on USAID methodology that separates fragility into two components of effectiveness and legitimacy and each of those are composed by multiple indicators. So the map here shows a representation of the exposure of just the highest fragility states, and all other states are obscure. And the dark areas represent the pockets of high climate exposure in those most fragile states. But these maps of global maps of fragility and exposure can be a little bit deceptive. So if we look at the highest fragility states and the next category down of high fragility states, we can see that in terms of sheer numbers, there are states like India and Nigeria that have a large number of people highly exposed to climate risk. You could also have issues if you're just looking at these global maps because very small states don't show up. And so the smallest states in the international system populations of less than 500,000 also don't have fragility data. So if you look at this table, this top table, some of these island states have a high proportion of their populations facing high exposures. It's not a lot of people, but it's a proportion of their total population. It's a lot. And even less fragile states, so if you look at the bottom table like China, Bangladesh, Vietnam and the United States, they're less fragile, but they have large numbers of people who face very high exposure to climate risks. So all of this suggests that the process of mapping risk and identifying countries of concern is a complex and fraught one with different answers depending on what you think is important. And even if you've chosen some metrics to guide choices about what you think are or are likely to be hot spots of concerns, you still face questions about what to do, either to resolve ongoing problems or prevent new ones. And thus far we have little definitive evidence about what works in the climate security space. So many of the programs have a slide here of the climate security mechanism, which was created by the UN in 2018 are simply too new. It's mostly focused on just trying to build awareness within the UN, institutions about the need to mainstream climate concerns and wider peace operations. Its next task is to translate some of these ideas about risk factors into practical advice. Now, if you agree with me that state capacity and political inclusion are key risk factors for negative security outcomes, then the challenge is what can outside actors to do to build state capacity or foster political inclusion. And for some hazards like droughts and cyclones, we have some experience in countries like Ethiopia and Bangladesh, very good and successful experience in building state capacity, but trying to build sustained political inclusion over time is a real challenge as we're seeing in Ethiopia at the moment, which now may be coming apart at the seams. So where does that leave us in terms of policy advice or what's the one thing I would counsel the US government to do? So I've been heartened to see that we have a potential vehicle for addressing these concerns through the 2019 Global Fragility Act, which is intended to align development diplomacy and defense policy in fragile states and authorize some serious money for prevention, stability and for complex crises. And I think that act could be an important vehicle for incorporating climate security concerns. Unfortunately, the recently released strategy doesn't mention climate change and only mentions natural resource management and passing. So I would have the Biden administration revisit the strategy and issue an addendum or update that integrates climate and natural resource management. And I would hope that the new UN Ambassador, Linda Thomas-Greenfield and her team really engaged the climate security mechanism at the UN to see how the Global Fragility Act can complement wider multilateral mechanisms in this space. Finally, if I had one piece of advice for folks in this audience, I would encourage everyone to acknowledge that runaway climate change itself is a security threat. For many years, the climate security community is focused on climate impacts and how to adapt to them. Reducing greenhouse gases is likely seen as controversial and risk politicizing the climate security space, which is enjoying more bipartisan support. However, unless we move swiftly to clean energy and to decarbonize our energy systems, the effects of climate change will prove unmanageable and beyond the coping capacity of even rich countries like the United States. So I'll end there. I look forward to the live discussion. Thank you. Great. Thank you so much, Dr. Busby. Now we will hear from Dr. Marcus D. King, who will discuss connections between instability within states, water stress, terrorism, and migration. Good morning. I've been asked to talk to you about the connection between instability within states, climate-driven water resource scarcities, and migration. The connections are clearest in the Middle East and Africa, where states are most fragile, but also apparent in certain regions of Asia, particularly Southeast Asia, where instability within states can also be a factor. In the Middle East and North Africa region, which is principally relying on agriculture for food and employment, this says areas see low crop yields and increasingly parched farmland, which has increased migration to urban areas and triggered widespread food shortages in certain regions. Water shortages are stressed by desertification, salamization of the soil, drought, high temperatures, and also sea level rise in some areas. Significantly, these issues came to a head in Syria and Iraq as part of the Eastern Mediterranean climate system, which experienced its worst drought and instrumental record in 2007 to 2010. The desertification that resulted from this drought impacted serial harvests of wheat in Iraq and Syria, as well as the country's overall crop productions. In 2014, UNESCO reported that Iraq was losing substantial fertile land as a result of these factors. Prior to the start of the Syrian Civil War, drought that was also impacting Syria had already displaced 1.5 million people. Many Iraqis who migrated to Syria before the drought then remained in Syria with a population of 1.5 total internally displaced people. Now, all these dynamics were felt in 2011, most strongly in the northeast area of Syria, where agriculture is the predominant sector, and this sector experienced up to 75% crop failure. After 2011, the collapse of this agricultural sector pushed two to three million people into conditions of extreme poverty and created an untenable political atmosphere. The drought's impact on the sector triggered mass migrations to other areas of Syria. Internally displaced, a tide of 1.5 million people flowed from the agricultural northeast to these urban areas. The total number of displaced Syrians and Iraqi refugees peaked at three million right on the precipice of the uprising in 2011. Some environmental migrants settled in the countryside outside the smaller towns, which saw a particularly large influx of young unemployed men. These cleavages in society were also very important because not only was there unemployment, but these were largely Sunni Muslims, not the Alawite minority, which were privileged in society at that moment. So frequently it's underlying social cleavages with impacts of climate change that combine to create these situations. So Dar al was one of the cities where this happened in security forces, open fire on protesters that were originally children writing on walls against the regime, but was followed by a crackdown in a subsequent military assault on the city. So also interestingly, protesters began to direct their ire to the Assad regime itself, and the allocation of licenses regulating groundwater was another one of the one of the policies that actually favored the elite constituencies of the Alawites. So in the end, climate change is not a cause of the war in Syria. It is a perhaps necessary, but definitely not sufficient cause of the war. It's clear that the protests that did break out in Daraa and subsequently in other locations were very much centered in areas that experienced large influx of environmental refugees. So that's my point. Outside of Middle East North Africa, outside of Middle East and Northern Africa, in another part of Africa, the Lake Chad region provides an example of how these dynamics have also unfolded. Therein, water stress has created some systemic outcomes such as the stress on food supply, famine in that area, migration, which has lowered the resilience of people, and also led, among other factors, to the rise of an insurgency there by the Boko Haram extremist organization. So in October 2017, the world's most extensive and humanitarian crisis, probably since 1945, unfolded in the Lake Chad region. The situation had roots in environmental change because, again, Lake Chad, originally straddling Nigeria and Niger, Chad and Cameroon, had receded at an unprecedented rate with the surface waters reaching only 10% of the previous levels. This desiccation of the lake was accelerated by the impacts of climate change that year. So drought and related factors led to a collapse of agriculture, and the resultant famine sparked migration in Nigeria as well. Those who remained had little capacity to resist, attacked by the extremist group Boko Haram, and the government did not maintain effective control of vast areas of the north, water scarcity, but also the lack of response in the form of providing water by the government. Better water governments contributed to the popularity of Boko Haram and likely caused Boko Haram to gain more adherence. Despite their efforts, Boko Haram, despite the support that they had, Boko Haram occasionally attacked the population itself for access to water. Boko Haram also weaponized water itself in the conduct of the war, but mostly they preyed upon a population that had been displaced by water scarcity. So internally displaced people are not the biggest issue in Nigeria, but Nigerians have continued to flee to Europe in search of economic and political and educational opportunities, and Nigerians comprise the largest sub-Saharan African population of migrants to the United States and Europe at this time. I'm often asked about a scenario that would be, what keeps me up at night? What's my nightmare scenario that has to do with climate change? Well last November I joined a team from Foreign Policy Magazine's analytical group to play out a scenario in a peace game which featured the rapid environmental collapse of Egypt in the year 2030 due to a confluence of the aforementioned climate impacts, which affected the Deltaic agricultural zone. There were truly no good options for the resulting environmental migration due to the confluence of climate impacts, especially knowing that Israel was not an option for migration, especially understanding that southern Europe was also not possible due to the populist and nativist politics that existed at least at this time and possibly in the future. So this leads me directly to the second topic that I was expected to discuss this morning, and that has to do with climate refugees. The World Economic Forum estimated in 2019 that 16 million people are already displaced due to climate-related factors, but predicted by 2050 the number will jump to 150 to 200 million people. 30 million IDPs are expected in China and India, and 15 million in the Deltaic area of Bangladesh who are now putting pressure on the province of Assam in India, which is predominantly Indian. The point here is that climate refugees is a rhetorically provocative but legally meaningless term. The International Organization of Migration defines environmental migrants as people who are compelled for reasons of sudden or progressive changes in the environment that affect their life where conditions oblige them to leave their homes or choose temporary or permanent shelter within another country. In contrast, the UN Convention on the Status of Refugees of 1951 presents the authoritative definition of refugees as a person who, owing to well-founded fear of persecution for reasons of race, religion, nationality, or membership in a political group, are outside of their country and unable to or unwilling due to fear to avail themselves of protection of their own country. So under this statute, the Refugee Convention makes countries compelled to accept individuals as asylum seekers who are suffering persecution, but legal scholars have resisted including environmental degradation as a source of persecution for refugees, fearing that it would dilute the idea that refugees are actually fleeing political persecution. Therefore, environmental migrants do not have legal standing for asylum under international law the way refugees do. A practical consideration also is formal recognition of environmental refugees would overwhelm the absorptive capacity of countries to handle relocation of people even if the political will existed to do so. On a legal level, the UN's reasoning has been that migrants have the ability to seek remedies politically to environmental problems within their own countries if their governments are able to act, but I would maintain that fragile governments do not necessarily have this capacity to act. So finally, there are three mechanisms that can at least begin to address this issue. The first is United Nations action. The UN could take as a starting point the 2009 Kampala Convention by the African Union. This imposes protection measures for IDPs uprooted by man-made and natural disasters. Certain African countries are a party to this. Also, the 2018 UN Global Compact for the Safe Orderly and Regular Migration lays out a framework for safe and successful voluntary migration, including four environmental reasons. These are still a patchwork of regulations in environmental environmental conventions. Secondly would be the Nancin Initiative. The Nancin Initiative was launched in 2012 by the government of Norway and Switzerland, and it's built on a consensus agenda to protect people displaced across borders for reasons including disasters and environmental degradation. It recognizes the need for protection of cross-border displacement of people related to climate change, but I feel that rather than building an international norm, this Nancin Initiative really relies on individual countries and their individual legal systems to decide how to absorb refugees. And mostly it's only signed at this point by northern European countries, and I think it's sort of lost its steam as an initiative, frankly. Finally, there's the UNFCCC, UN Framework Convention on Climate Change process that does have an existing mechanism within the Paris Accords, which has to do with the principle of loss and damage. Climate migrants are recognized in the Paris Agreement, and large emitters would pay for damages related to their environmental mobility as they put it. Also there could be payouts to individual migrants for relocation. The small island states not surprisingly due to the fact that climate change and sea level rise represents an existential threat, and there should be, we expect there to be, a lot of migration from these AOSIS countries. They raised this in the opening of the UN General Assembly in 2016. So finally my two bottom line recommendations relate to these issues. First, crisis mitigation about climate change must be coupled with long term investments. The fact of responsibilities must balance the immediate crisis response to climate change with longer term investments by national and international organizations in the area of development to build resilience to climate change and to, before mitigation becomes necessary and problematic to stop the flow of refugees. Second, we should designate if possible a globally recognized classification for climate related migrants. Whether they are formally referred to as refugees does not matter as much. And what this would do would be to ameliorate the gap in prevention protection, which currently exists under the 1951 refugee convention and does not allow these people to seek asylum. So finally, I look forward to discussing these remedies and my entire presentation in greater detail. Thank you very much. Great. Thank you so much, Dr. King. A quick reminder to enter your questions related to this session focused on impacts of the changing climate on fragile states around the world. Our final speaker today for this panel is retired Vice Admiral Ben Beckering, who will speak to us about how the Dutch military considers climate considerations and strategy, policy and operations. A good day to you all. It's really a pleasure to be taking part in this conference, although for most of you I'm on the other side of the ocean. But let me thank first Admiral Chatfield for inviting me over and then also the Naval War College and in particular Commander Cameron for organizing this very timely and very relevant conference. What I would like to do is share with you my thoughts on how climate change and security are linked and also what the military could do to incorporate climate change considerations into their plans and policies. My own first-hand experience on what climate change means for security but also for the existential livelihood of people was when I was operating off Somalia in 2012. There the change in monsoon patterns really affected the people, not just because their crops were destroyed, their wells were silting and the fish were fleeing the waters, but also because climate change through changing monsoon patterns set off a whole chain which really affected security in the region. It aggravated an already very fragile situation and it accelerated political instability, it slowed down economic progress and it caused social unrest. And as such it triggered a large movement of people. It saw terrorist and criminal organizations zooming in on the area and even it became a playground for interstate rivalries and sometimes even conflict. Now Somalia is not the only place in the world what this happens. Also in places like the Sahel or Central Asia we see similar patterns develop that climate change in the end aggravates security or even causes insecurity to become insecure. But not even not only in those areas where we consider many deserts present we see similar patterns also in areas like the South China Sea or the Arctic are affected. Rising temperatures and rising sea levels will make land disappear, will make routes more available and will make resources more accessible. That will lead undoubtedly to discussion, debate over ownership and over who is responsible and ultimately will affect the balance of power in those regions. May even become a playground of strategic competition. So even in our wealthy nations if we feel that climate change is something that is mostly affecting unstable countries with lots of deserts and even if we consider that we have the wealth and technology to deal with the things that are hurting us and even if we ignore the increasing amount of floods, droughts and wildfires we see in our own countries then still through insecurity climate change will affect us. Therefore it becomes clear to me that we need a comprehensive integrated approach to deal with these these matters of climate change and security and thus the military has a role to play and if I may there are five areas where I feel the military could really make a difference. First is in the way we equip ourselves. For a long time the military has always been a big spender of taxpayers' money and we need to spend that money wisely so we need to embrace green technologies and by become by acting as a test vet a launching customer by adding operational experience and operational requirements to the table we may be able to direct and steer research and industry to pursue green technologies and those technologies will not only make us look better as a military but also and I'm convinced will give us operational leverage if only through a vastly reduced logistic footprint but it will also give our nations a technological edge which is something I think is much needed. So that is how we should equip act as test vet launching customer and foreign partnerships with industry and research to make sure we embrace green technologies. The second I want to mention is how we base and train in most of our countries the military in times of crisis is seen as a first responder and a last line of defense at the same time but how can we do that how can we deliver ready units if our air stations our naval bases and our barracks are being threatened by floods drought storms and wildfires in that case if we can't ensure readiness in times when it's most needed what can we do and therefore we need to make our infrastructure and our establishments more resilient and we need to better prove our training programs to make sure that we can deliver readiness when it's needed and I think we should not stop at that. I also think that by 2030 and even by 2050 there will still be lots of ships aircraft and vehicles around in our inventory and that will burn fossil fuel we need to find ways to offset that and I think by making our installations our infrastructure establishments net positive we may find ways to offset the greenhouse gases that we still exhaust. On the third point is how we operate I think our classic separate tasks of collective defense crisis response and support to civilian authorities will all come together and in any given theater our armed forces will have to deal with the effects of strategic competition they will have to counter terrorist and criminal organizations they will have to train local forces they will have to work together with other government bodies but also non-governmental organizations and all under very adverse climatic conditions and often with very little host nation on offer so our forces must be resilient they must be adaptive to being connected closely connected with a very limited logistic footprint and an information dominance only then can we guarantee the security so that other partners of us can deliver their goods. The fourth thing I want to mention is how we understand the military has a big bonus here because we most of our organizations have a military intelligence organization they're already closely monitoring what is happening in unstable regions or regions that are bound to be unstable by adding climate considerations into their assessment they should be able then to provide a comprehensive view of what is happening in a region climate wise economic wise but also security wise and I think by adding that to the table the military can play a very important role in understanding what it is that is needed in a certain region and here I would make a strong plea for a need to share and also need to know and then finally advocacy I think the military can play an important role here as well abroad and at home abroad because in a lot of countries where our tensions are high where climate change effects are noticeable strangely enough nations do not have do not see climate change as a priority yet as I mentioned before it's a global effort it needs all hands on deck and I hope through mill mill diplomacy mill mill contacts we will be able to convince also those countries that feel they have a higher priority problems on their plate to join the effort as well and it shouldn't stop just at abroad also at home I think the military by adding a pragmatic and rational approach to the issues of climate change and security will be able to what I find the very much polarized debate on climate change steered in the direction of solutions and not so much polarization that is I think what I see happening and so how to equip how to operate how to base ourselves how to understand and how to advocate now I come to the conclusion of my presentation and the organization asked me two things a piece of advice and a piece of recommendation well my recommendation would be if we have to start somewhere in the five issues I mentioned let's go for a greening our defense force I think by doing that we become an honest and a true partner in all the other fields that I've mentioned so in fact investing in that part will also act as a catalyst in the other fields and then my final bit a piece of advice who am I to advise you but I've always been a fan of the Atlantic Charter drafted by President Roosevelt and Prime Minister Churchill back in August 1941 it was a very simple one one pager eight bullets explaining how the world should look like post World War two and I think now 80 years on we need a similar simple all-encompassing one pager as well it will still have the rules based international order high on the agenda it will still seek political and economic inclusiveness it will still seek to end or prevent conflicts through our iteration but it will have climate change at the heart of it and I think such a compelling message would really be helpful that was it for me I'll be back to answer any questions you may have later on thank you for your attention great thank you so much to all of our panelists for these excellent and thought provoking opening remarks we'll now move on to Q&A first we have a question about our interconnected world the questioner writes the focus of this discussion has been overwhelmingly on local environmental stress slash climate impacts on local instability and fragility but we live in an interconnected world where markets can transmit shot shocks in one part of the system to others for example drought and wildfires in Russia leading to food export bans causing food prices to spike and contributing to the Arab Spring is this another way outside influences affect the climate security slash stability nexus let's go first to Dr. Busby this is a great question from a friend and colleague Colin Hendricks who's done terrific work in this space and absolutely these cascading risks are really important for us to keep in mind and I did a short piece for Council on Foreign Relations in an edited report with Amy Myers-Jaffee in 2019 that looked a little bit at them because we often think about countries as independent cases but really we have to think and acknowledge that they're embedded in wider regions and globally and so they can be affected by climate disruptions whether it be trans boundary rivers or supply chains or disease vectors or migration patterns or financial flows the so part of our risk analysis is a need to assess whether external climate disruptions could lead to cascading risks for other countries and where would responses to climate disruptions such as the export grain bands that Russia instituted in say 2009-2010 in the wake of drought how that can influence and radiate either regionally or globally as we saw in the lead up to the Arab Spring so you had you know export grain ban in response to a drought that then led to global food price hikes and that in turn may have increased the pressures for protest movements far away in the Middle East and so being acknowledging those cascading risk potentials and having some foresight analysis that anticipates where those risks may conjoin in places around the world is really got to be a part of our sort of threat analysis that we carry out on a regular basis to stress test the international system to see not only where the homeland may be affected by these kinds of cascading risk but where other countries that are strategically important to the United States or other countries may be affected by these cascading effects great thanks so much I just want to open it up if either of the other panelists is interested in answering this question or we can move on to the next one I'd like to weigh in on this so again I'd like to thank Colin for his leadership and scholarship in this area of political science and climate change but you know I just wanted to raise the issue that's probably most prominent on our minds right now which is the COVID pandemic as one of the global influences and so what I see that doing is reducing the societal stability and resilience in countries where the vaccine will reach them later right and so given that that unevenness countries that are slower to to get the vaccine on the one hand it's so we have the emerging disease factors but also we've got the factors related to COVID where countries are more apt to close their borders and so getting back to this issue of environmental migration we've got the COVID pandemic which is sort of feeding these nativist feelings and in reducing the capacity for migration and so this is a global trend you know sort of away from the neoliberal world order of regional organizations that are being put together in regional collaboratives that are being established to address these issues such as migration and so the legitimacy of the UN, the legitimacy of the EU as seen by the Brexit development you know it was another set of developments which called a question and the other thing I was thinking of is just related to the markets that was part of Colin's question is the idea of supply chains for multinational corporations so we found that the impacts of climate change are interrupting supply chains in countries where climate impacts have diminished the resilience there as well and so what we've seen is the tendency of countries multinational corporations and countries to sort of consolidate their operations into a single country in order to reduce their you know the length of their supply chain and so some of the impacts of that again are on developing nations that were part of the supply chain and in the economic effects you know they're in that will that will happen for these countries and some of the the fallout of those issues so looking at multinational corporations supply chains and also the spread of the COVID pandemic as two of these global forces that are that are drivers of this instability. Thanks so we have about five minutes left so that you still have a short break we'll take a second and final question that will go first to Vice Admiral Beckering the questioner asks given the underlying importance of stable states for avoiding climate conflict and displacement what are the specific ways we should be thinking differently about climate related instability compared to other kinds of political instability so as I mentioned we'll go first to Vice Admiral Beckering and then to the other panelists if they'd like to answer. Thank you very much I hope you can hear me and okay a very good question but what I was trying to bring across is that there's a whole chain of events from climate change to to insecurity in region caused by a number of factors that can take place and and therefore you can't look at it at in part it must be a holistic view a comprehensive view of a situation that is happening and just to make a link to the the previous question I honestly feel that what we should be watching out closely is that affected regions will become a playground for for for great power competition with food or other resources or commodities being used almost as a blackmailing tool and that is also the reason why I thought that not perhaps for the US China is the primary partner to go in but if you're looking at from a perspective of strategic competition as the question that Paul was earlier then I honestly feel that the 40 or maybe 50 democratic countries in the world should really get close together get their act together and form sort of a force for the good to help out those other 140 countries that are still making up their minds about the which turn they should make so I think don't look at this problem as the military's one to solve that leads us down a really problematic path that most of the instruments to deal with state fragility are ultimately going to be civilian tools of development diplomacy and so if it becomes the military's problem then lots of other things have failed and so we should keep that in mind and also you know I don't think we should hive off climate stability concerns from other kinds of concerns I think as Shari Goodman noted earlier that we need to have a full climatization of our security analysis which allows us to incorporate in our existing thinking how are the ways that we kind of conventionally do business whether it be military operations or humanitarian emergencies how are those affected by climate concerns and how do we need to sort of climate proof our our mindset and our strategy so that we're not affected by unanticipated consequences that we can't handle and I think that means mainstreaming and bringing climate security concerns centrally into how we do things and not sort of thinking thinking about how how is this going to be a separate or different category well said yeah I completely agree it looks like Dr. King did you want to respond very quickly as well no I just wanted to absolutely associate myself with Josh's remarks because that's exactly what was on my mind great well thank you thank you so much everyone keeping with time um we please join me in thanking our three panelists for these insightful remarks um and this will conclude this panel and I'll turn it back over now to Commander Cameron thanks thank you so much to Dr. Annalise Bloom, Dr. Josh Busby, Dr. Marcus King and Vice Admiral Ben Beckering this is a wonderful panel about state fragility and what militaries around the world can do for the panel you're invited to turn off your cameras now as I transition to the break before we go to the next break you have the second poll opportunity again we will launch the poll for one minute if you'd like to provide an answer after that we'll be on break until 11 20 so we'll get back on schedule so our poll question today is which of these is the most dangerous you have one minute the halfway point in the poll and I'll close the poll in 10 seconds and that concludes the second poll for today please join us at 11 20 and we'll be back on schedule for the next panel you


about 1.15 on Sunday, almost in February again. June. Is it the 18th, dear? 18th. Father's Day. We are gonna be leaving in a little bit to go have an early dinner with the kids. In the meantime, we're just hanging out at the house and chilling. I was doing some more crochet on my thrifted yarn project and Chevron pattern rainbow skirt thing. Yeah. Anyway, I'll try to put a picture here of my progress so far. And I came upstairs. I was only intending on taking out a couple things to work on a for a project I want to work on tomorrow and I ended up just making the project. Now the seam does need a little pressing because it's a bit wavy, but I know, hold on. So it's just a plain white t-shirt on top, a men's shirt. Well at least it was a t-shirt from the men's department. And then a tie-dye skirt on the bottom, which you can't really see. Hold on. Okay. So and then a skirt at the bottom. How cute is that?  It does have two layers, but I mean bike shorts, people. Bike shorts. So anyway, bike shorts and they have pockets, so we're all good. Anyway, it's super comfortable. It's gonna be one of my new favorite ways of making myself's clothing, but yeah, I'm pretty pleased. What are you up to today on Father's Day? I'd love to know. Put something down in the comments. All right, that's it for the minute. I'll be back. Headed out to go have dinner into downtown Portland. At a really great restaurant, which ought to be fabulous, but downtown Portland, which ought to be interesting. We'll find out. I'll be back. It is Monday, June 19th. June 16th, I think? 16 p.m. As you saw, I got up this morning and I was doing some painting and I did a couple of art journal pages for ROT Trio. They both came out really cool. I need to edit them now and the vlog from last week, but at the moment that little bit of noise, if you hear that in the background, yes, I'm babysitting Junior, so there's that. I also made another pair of wide-leg pants out of a cotton bedsheet and a lace tablecloth. You guys, I think they're my favorite pair of wide-leg pants yet. I was wondering if I wanted to dye them, but I think I'm gonna just leave them. They're pretty cool anyway. And then I of course had some tension issues with my serger and needed some new needles and yeah, I finally got that fixed. You know, sergers are finicky beasts. When they work great, they're wonderful, but when they don't, like, diagnosing exactly what the problem is is so challenging and sometimes, for me, it's best to just walk away. Yes. Anyway, right now I'm just trying to get little man to sleep. He doesn't really want to go to sleep, so yeah, that's the thing. All right, I'll be back. Hey guys, it is late. It is 445 p.m. Tuesday, June, June something. I don't know. Still don't know. June 20th, 21st. Oh, June the 20th. Anyway, I haven't gotten much done today because I had June knows babysitting at junior, but before he came, I did get my counseling session in and I uploaded and packaged and numbered a bunch of paintings that are for sale that are listed on my business Facebook page, which I will try to remember to link down below if I forget somebody say something. Mostly the watercolor and mixed media paintings. They're about $25 each plus shipping. They come with a plain white generic matte. They just need a frame. And I sold it before junior came. I was able to get them packaged and also I'm going to send my friends and Leslie McGraths a mail. So like I've got that done. I need to vacuum out the sewing machines again. Permanent ongoing thing. And clean floors and all of that. I want five minutes of time. That's just I'm going to drink some water and chill for like five minutes and then I'll do some cleaning and oiling the machines and all that stuff. Although I could spend my entire lifetime in the art room and never leave. Life doesn't work that way and that's not good for you. So we're headed out to go for a walk before dinner. Mr. Bob's gonna be working late because he's got stuff going on but he's got a little bit of break. So we're gonna go get some steps in and we'll go home get some chores done. Have some dinner and all that stuff. Get some fresh air. It's not too bad out. It's not rainy. It's not too hot. Yeah I like it. It's good. I'll be back. Guys it is really late. Let's see. 6.56 past dinner time. I haven't eaten yet.  I'm gonna just probably have bone broth. I'm not hungry but good. Bob went out walking without me because I was in the middle of a project and I didn't want to stop. And yes I have a band-aid on and it must have been a fun good project because I cut myself once that it has a band-aid. This one needs to be cleaned. Not sure you can even see that. And then there's one here. I started cutting out projects to work on tomorrow before journey comes because I'm babysitting and yeah that didn't happen. I got him cut out but then I decided to make one of them today. I am putting together a upcycling fashion inspiration book and I've been finding pictures all over the internet. Mostly Pinterest inspired. This is my book here. And I keep seeing capris style pants bloomers in particular but I don't at the moment think I'm a bloomers girl but I kept seeing like upcycled blue jeans made into capris and then like patchwork I'm like I saw Tracy Myers did and on YouTube. I have some of my dad's old jeans. He said here I was wondering if you could do something with these. He was gonna donate them. Guys I'm wearing my dad's old blue jeans. Hold on. They turned out so cute. I have a collection of old lace and doilies that I've had for a really long time. I'm slowly using it up. I'm gonna have to probably get more but hang on let me set up the camera and I'll get you some pictures. Guys they are... I'm too short for this. Hold on. This is why we have a footstool in the art room. I mean how cute is this? I was gonna do something different but I started playing with the doilies and I have a few of these applications. They're from Joanne's I think. So I took the purple one and I took one flower off of another one and I put them on here with the doilies. I took a little... I cut them long enough that I could fold them up about an inch. Most of it's not sewn down except for this one little pleat right here to make the legs a little narrower. But I mean how cute is this? And yes my dad and I are about the same size. So he is a 36-28. I'm a 35-30. So yeah. Anyway how cute are they? I have two more pair of his jeans. These are adorable. So anyway something you guys can do. What do you think? Alright I'll be back. It's just about 6 o'clock and I haven't vlogged yet today because it's been a little busy. I went out this morning and picked up a second baby bouncer from someone in the Buy Nothing group where I live for the kids to have at their house because little Mr. Junior likes to be bounced around. So and then I came home. I tried to have something to eat. And then Junior did show up to be babysat. And I wasn't able to get a couple of projects done. One was another t-shirt dress. I'll put a picture here. And then I made another bag I know. Another bag. Half circle bag I've been making out of pieces of the quilts that I made a blanket coat for my dad out of. I had some leftover. So I made another bag and I'm using it for my stitching. And it's a good size for that.  I can have my needlework in here. My kindle. Everything else can be up in the bin or checked. Yeah. Anyway I haven't got much else. We're gonna go grocery shopping tonight because this weekend is just gonna be insanely busy. And it's best if we just do it tonight. So we're gonna go do that when Bob's done. And you guys it is 9 16 p.m. on Friday June 23rd. And I don't think I've vlogged all day. Oops. It's been a very busy day between Aaron's chores, babysitting again. And family dinner night. It's just been a lot. And I yeah so I didn't pick up a camera. Anyway I did get a little bit of sewing done. I got another t-shirt dress done. I'll put a picture here while Junior was napping. But yeah it's been kind of crazy day. Tomorrow I don't know what tomorrow's gonna be like. Mr. Bob's working on his two cars because they're going into a car show on Sunday. I have a few chores to do including laundry. But we also I think have some sidewalk sales or those sort of things going on in the neighborhood. So I might go to one of those. I also need to go get some yarn. I forgot our neighbors having a baby. And I want to make her a blanket and maybe a pair of booties. So I need to get yarn for that because I don't have the right yarn in the right color. So yeah maybe I'll check the Lion Brand website. That might be easier than running around town. I'll think about it. I'll be back. Good morning everybody. It's 11 o'clock 1 a.m. Saturday June something 21st. I don't know. 24th. I'm only a couple of days behind. Anyway it is not quite lunchtime yet. I'm going to go to the bank first because I'm all out of cash. So I don't have any cash. And I do think we're gonna stop again at the resale shop. I really like that place. I could walk over but again I need some cash. So I gotta do that. I have my dad jeans on today. I'm loving it with this little top. It's very cute. I'm going to go to the resale shop in the bank and then later on I think I'm gonna just sit and watch some movies or some YouTube and work on my skirt, my rainbow skirt that I've been making from the thrifted yarn and plan next week's sewing projects in between other things that are going on. I did make a couple versions of this cosmetic bag recently that I'm using for art supplies and cosmetics. I'll put a picture here. I did take the pattern and enlarge it because I want to see if I can make a bigger one and what that's like. I don't really need it for anything. I'm just curious. Parts that we have try not to buy anything that we don't have to and all of that stuff. So we'll see how it works. The only thing I'm running low on is the interfacing. So I don't know if I have enough of the heavy-duty interfacing for that or not. But we'll find out. Alright, I'll be back. Hey guys, it's Saturday evening. I think it's like 7.30. I'm not sure exactly. Hold on, I need my phone stand. That's to be a busy this afternoon. I was just stuff around the house and I've been working on my rainbow crochet skirt making good progress on that but we're not done yet. To be some online shopping for some art parts for upcoming projects, our neighbor's going to be having a baby in the next month or two and a baby boy, another boy. So I am going to crochet them a blanket and rather than shopping all around looking for a blanket because I've been looking for yarn at shops. I'm enjoying getting back to needlework. I'll explain what the crunchy noise is in a minute. They just don't have a good selection. I like working with lion brand yarns generally and the baby blanket pattern I like to use is an old one of theirs that's not available online anymore. And so I'm going to make another one of those.  I ordered some fabric and things and a pattern from Etsy and I got some things in from Hobby Lobby and Michaels. There's just been parts and pieces that I want that I haven't been able to find so I also this morning saw a video for a new something I want to make and I got to see if I have d-rings. I'm sure I do. I have d-rings or something I can use. Anyway I really have been doing so much sewing of thick fabrics. Why is this taped shut so well? That and I have a lot of alls but I really just need something I can keep. Hold on. I really just need something I can keep at the art desk. I mean at the sewing desk to help me push some of the thicker fabrics through the sewing machine. So they have this really inexpensive set of sharp pointy things. So I only really need one but that's okay. Got all of them. And I had to go buy blades for my fabric cutting my rotary fabric cutting thing recently. They're so expensive. God you guys. I never had the 60 millimeter blade sharpener and they didn't have one at the store. I'm like okay I'll buy some blades right now because I need them but I really would like to just be able to sharpen them at least a couple times. So I ordered the rotary blade sharpener for the 60 millimeter. I got that and yes I saved the old dull blade so I can now sharpen it. I needed some black zipper by the yard. I really when I'm making bags and things this is more cost-effective than buying zippers at the fabric store and I can customize it to however long I need for the zipper. Once you get the hang of using it it's really great. That doesn't mean I don't buy zippers but I haven't bought one in a long time because I have a large stash of them but this is just more this is a better deal and I didn't have any in black and it comes. It's just a long strip of zipper tape with a teeth I mean with the zipper pulls on it. So it's seven yards three yards sorry three yards of black with 12 pulls and then I got also got that from Amazon. It's usually where I get it from Amazon. This particular kind I've been using works great. I wanted some of these kind of buckles. I don't remember what they're called. They're really expensive like if you go to the fabric store even if they're having a sale it's still four or five dollars just for one. I got this whole bag for like eight bucks. I never need to buy another one and I have all the colors. I also put buttons on my blanket coat recently and if you haven't seen that here's a picture here and after doing that I didn't I don't really need more buttons. I've got a big giant drawer buttons but I'm enjoying playing with the really big huge buttons of which I don't have that many left because I've used up all the ones I had. So I went online to Hobby Lobby and I know some of you don't like to shop at Hobby Lobby believe me I get why but again for me it was just a matter of being able to find the parts that I needed that I wanted and I just yeah. Anyway they had some of their big giant buttons on sale. These ones are one and a half inch and so I got six of those. Aren't they cute? Aren't they pretty? They're really cute. I got I have one more of these white ones. These are for my coat and I got I got a few more of them. I really enjoyed working on them working with them. I got some in gray because I just made a blanket coat for my dad at his request and in case he changes his mind and wants buttons on it I got some gray ones. I also got black. I got more of these and I got black. I'm gonna save my favorite one for last. Oh is it gonna buy it? I have no idea what I'll do with it but I'm it's in the middle of summer but I'm picturing making another coat once I see the right blanket or quilt. You know I'm nuts that way but anyway I got black and then you guys I don't do these kind of things often and I don't I'm not I don't like to do hauls I don't like to brag and I'm not saying you guys need to do any of this but when you're out thrifting or estate sailing for art parts if you do any sewing these are the kind of things just to keep your eyes out for if you like them because they really do kind of come in handy if you have the room to store them. I just fell in love with this one though I couldn't help myself and it's metal it's a metal button I know right can you picture these down the front of a blanket coat? Anyway so I got a lot of that I got uh garbage on the floor I got a lot of you know laundry and maintenance and stuff like that done I have some another pair of my dad's jeans downstairs and some bleach water trying to lighten up the color a little bit I want to do another pair of jeans cropped jeans like the ones I just did and I'll put a picture here in case you missed it I'm thinking maybe sunflowers on jeans so anyway I also have some things in my closet that don't make me happy but I think I'm gonna pull out and sort through and some of them might go to the charity shops but some of them might just come up here cuz yeah anyway tomorrow Bob is off to a car show with both of his cars the Barracuda and the Mitsubishi the Mitsubishi is for sale he's gonna drive the Barracuda son-in-law is gonna drive the Mitsubishi they're gonna both be in a contest and a show at the local fairgrounds and Rebecca our daughter has some real estate business to do tomorrow I think she's got an open house or house showings or something so guess what Oma is doing tomorrow babysitting I don't know for how long I don't know if I'll get much done cuz that's just been the way of things lately and he's a newborn so it's hard to get too much done in the art room and I knew when I started babysitting that that was gonna happen and there was gonna be kind of a little bit of a pause on some of the art room stuff which is fine I am feeling the need to purge and rearrange again the small bits bank there's a lot of duplicates of things I'm not using right now or anymore and I'm probably not going to use and I also want to spread out the fabric stash so and there's some stuff in the closet outside the art room packing supply stuff that I want to look at because there's some that I think I'm never gonna use so but we'll see anyway none of that to happen in tomorrow and that's for a future vlog or video anyway I really appreciate you guys sticking with my channel sticking with this vlog and I hope you've enjoyed at least part of it it's been fun I do try to come up here as many mornings as I can and sit with my coffee or bone broth in the painting window and paint like you saw earlier in the week and I really enjoyed doing that I have a lot of watercolor paintings that are for sale and they are listed on my business Facebook page well I would which I will make sure is linked down below so if you would like some of my artwork for your wall go check that page there is pinned posts at the top of the page of watercolor paintings and acrylic paintings that are currently for sale and I'll try to get pictures of stuff and list more as I can anyway patrons and supporters you know who you are your names are at the end I appreciate you so much and if you would like to be one of those they have their own private YouTube channel they have ready access to me in a private Facebook Messenger chat and so much more so check out my patreon it's also linked down below I would appreciate the support I also designed for art foemies and they are a USA mom-and-pop business I'd appreciate if you go show them some love I will include their website down down below I was gonna say downstairs it's just been a long day I have some upcoming ideas for thrifting and upcycling clothing involving our art foemies beyond bleach painting some fabric that I think might be really interesting so stay tuned that's it for today that's it for this week don't forget the most important things like share subscribe and go out and do something nice for yourself because you deserve it I'll see you later bye guys