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Page added on January 25, 2016
An age of horrors — and hope
FOR A town whose first claim to fame was as a place where people went to die — it was known for years for its tuberculosis sanatoriums — the Swiss mountain town of Davos can be a surprisingly optimistic place. The annual meeting of the World Economic Forum, which I’ve been privileged to attend for nearly 20 years, works on the seemingly crazy assumption that if you gather world leaders from business, government, and civil society, and stick them in a remote mountain valley for a few days, they will engage in dialogue that makes the world a better place. And, actually, they often do.
This year, the conceit was sorely tested. Early conversations last week centered around the horrors that seem to define our world: the refugee crisis that is forcing Europe to reassess its commitment to unity; the intractable violence that permeates parts of the Middle East; the screeching slowdown of the Chinese economy, with all that it implies for those nations that have ridden the coattails of the greatest infrastructure investment binge in history; the nervousness of financial markets, spooked by the collapse of oil prices and the slowdown in emerging markets.
Those are serious matters, but it is worth remembering that their impact is disproportionately felt by the poorest among us. Poverty is increasingly concentrated in fragile states, in areas of conflict, or where it has just ended: war zones are poor zones. And the slowdown in China is already being felt in the commodity-exporting nations of Africa, whose remarkable growth in the last 10 years — often called the “Africa rising” effect — has been linked to demand for their raw materials.
Worse, at just the moment that African countries might hope to turn that growth into sustainable middle-class jobs, technology and the sophistication of global supply chains may be conspiring to create a global glut of low-cost manufacturing locations. No nation in the world has been able to build a modern economy without a manufacturing sector to provide jobs for millions leaving rudimentary work in the countryside. Africa is unlikely to be different. Yet with its population booming, it’s easy to see how structural changes in the global economy might bring Africa’s rise to a sharp stop.
Still, with that background looming like the mountains of the Graubunden do over Davos, it’s worth remembering that we live in an age of miracles. We’ve halved the deaths of those who die before they are 5 in less than a generation, and can halve it again. Scores of millions more African children are in schools now than were 20 years ago. Polio is nearly eradicated; malaria is on the retreat. In perhaps the most astonishing figure of all, Bono, my organization’s cofounder, reminded the Davos crowd that 10 years ago, when he and others founded (RED) to engage the corporate sector in the fight against HIV/AIDS, just 700,000 people were on life-saving antiretroviral drugs. Now more than 15 million are.
The great news is that we know how to keep the miracles coming. Studies show that if we all — the rich world through aid, and the developing world using its own resources — continue to invest in health care, we’ll be laying the best possible foundation for sustained economic growth. Similarly, if we fight malnutrition, giving children vital nutrients early in life, we’ll reap an astonishing return in productive, happy lives down the line. And perhaps above all, if we focus our efforts on girls and women, we’ll be making sure that societies use all their populations’ skills and talents — not just half of them. Poverty is sexist: it’s way past time that the fight against it focused on those who have been most disempowered by its wounds.
If the Davos attendees left town for the trudge back to Zurich with those goals in mind, the optimism that lies at the heart of the forum’s annual meeting would not seem a stretch. And why should it? Remember, drugs came along that put Davos’s TB sanatoriums out of business. Two generations ago, that must have seemed like a miracle. We have more within our grasp.
Michael Elliott is president and chief executive of ONE, a global campaign to fight poverty and preventable disease.
18 Comments on "An age of horrors — and hope"
makati1 on Mon, 25th Jan 2016 7:16 pm
Another unicorn believer …
“We’ve halved the deaths of those who die before they are 5 in less than a generation, and can halve it again.”
Really? The death rate in the US is about that of Central Africa (8.15/100,000) Even the Ps is 25% lower(6.11/100,000). Longevity is contracting all over the world. Those born today will likely not live to see age 60. Maybe not even 50.
https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2066rank.html
Reality is a bitch.
Apneaman on Mon, 25th Jan 2016 7:28 pm
ONE
ONE big hopey crock of shit.
Apneaman on Mon, 25th Jan 2016 7:43 pm
Florida Drowning
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/steven-newton/florida-drowning_b_9070330.html
Apneaman on Mon, 25th Jan 2016 7:48 pm
Two Cases Suggest Zika Virus Could Be Spread Through Sex
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/health/two-cases-suggest-zika-virus-could-be-spread-through-sex.html?_r=0
Apneaman on Mon, 25th Jan 2016 7:51 pm
WHO expects Zika virus to spread
Mosquitoes with Zika present everywhere but Canada, continental
http://www.tristatehomepage.com/news/who-expects-zika-virus-to-spread-in-western-hemisphere?dpr=1
Apneaman on Mon, 25th Jan 2016 8:08 pm
CDC Chief Frieden: World must act now to stop drug-resistant TB
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/01/07/cdc-chief-frieden-world-must-act-now-to-stop-drug-resistant-tb.html
Why we’re losing the fight against antibiotic resistance
http://medicalxpress.com/news/2016-01-antibiotic-resistance.html
5 Old-Time Diseases That Are Making a Comeback
http://news.health.com/2015/12/31/5-old-diseases-that-are-making-a-comeback/
twocats on Mon, 25th Jan 2016 9:21 pm
“the World Economic Forum, which I’ve been privileged to attend for nearly 20 years, works on the seemingly crazy assumption that if you gather world leaders from business, government, and civil society, and stick them in a remote mountain valley for a few days, they will engage in dialogue that makes the world a better place. And, actually, they often do.”
aw-shucks mr. elliot, they sure really do do alota good in the world mr. elliot. enthralled beyond reason.
Apneaman on Tue, 26th Jan 2016 12:12 am
Arctic Heatwave Drives Deadly Asian Cold Snap
“In the Arctic today, there’s a warm wind howling over Siberia. It’s a wind blowing from the northwest. A wind originating from the Arctic Ocean. Siberia is warming up today because warm air blew in from the direction of the North Pole. This should strike everyone as ridiculously, insanely odd.
****
In Okinawa it snowed for the first time on record this weekend. In Taiwan, a cold snap turned deadly killing 85 as tens of thousands more huddled in homes that lacked any form of central heating. In South Korea, 500 flights were grounded due to unseasonable weather. In Hong Kong, the temperature was 3 C — the same temperature as a region near the southwestern coast of Svalbard east of Greenland and above the Arctic Circle.
What the hell is going on? In short, a global warming driven heat-up of the Arctic has punched a hole in the Jet Stream and driven chill, Arctic air all the way into portions of Southeast Asia that seldom ever see temperatures go below 60 degrees Fahrenheit (16 Celsius).
An Arctic Super-Warmed By Climate Change
Temperatures in the Arctic are just off the charts warm for this time of year. It’s the sad result for a region that now sits in the bull’s eye of rapid heat accumulation due to human greenhouse gas emissions forcing the world above 400 parts per million CO2 and 485 parts per million CO2e. CO2 levels alone that have not been seen in at least 3 million years and a ridiculous total heat forcing at the top of the atmosphere that likely hasn’t been seen for all of the past 10 million years.”
http://robertscribbler.com/2016/01/26/arctic-heatwave-drives-deadly-asian-cold-snap/
GregT on Tue, 26th Jan 2016 1:10 am
Some seriously bad news Apnea.
Davy on Tue, 26th Jan 2016 6:07 am
Hopefully this will pull us back from the cold war no one can afford at the moment. It is obvious the global system at all level is deteriorating. It is only through diplomacy and cooperation that this crisis can be reduced. Even with diplomacy and cooperation it is still uncertain whether nations can cooperate when their national interested become threatened as we know they will with the coming global economic descent. Poverty will breed conflict. At least this may be a first step in solving the immediate problems so we can focus more effort on containing what will soon be a global depression.
“Russian Entente Nears as Allies Hint at End of Ukraine Sanctions”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-25/russian-entente-nears-as-allies-hint-at-end-of-ukraine-sanctions
“There have been clear signs of a ‘pacification’ process recently,” said Simon Quijano-Evans, chief emerging markets strategist at Commerzbank AG. “It does look as though all sides are starting to push more markedly for resolutions to the current geopolitical mess.”
“Schaeuble, for one, believes a meeting of the minds with Russia is possible.”
“If I correctly understand Russia’s security interests with respect to Islamist terrorism, it rather has a problem with ambitions grounded in Sunni Islam,” Schaeuble wrote in the op-ed. “Why should we not be able to develop a joint strategy with Russia to defuse tensions between a Saudi-led Sunni coalition and an Iran-led Shia coalition?”
Apneaman on Tue, 26th Jan 2016 1:11 pm
Shit getting biblical
Argentina Scrambles to Fight Biggest Plague of Locusts in 60 Years
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/26/world/americas/argentina-scrambles-to-fight-biggest-plague-of-locusts-in-60-years.html?mtrref=undefined&_r=0
paulo1 on Tue, 26th Jan 2016 2:09 pm
I guess this author is looking for a new job with the current downturn going on in the print media. I think this is an audition and resume for some kind of brown noser position. Maybe he can work for the Clinton foundation, or write press releases for Bloomberg if runs for Pres.
BC on Tue, 26th Jan 2016 6:35 pm
http://www.one.org/us/person/bono/
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100055143/the-wheels-are-coming-off-bonos-bandwagon/
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1314543/Bonos-ONE-foundation-giving-tiny-percentage-funds-charity.html
But Bono of U2 saved lots on income taxes by supporting One, even though the organization appears more interested in reducing elite guilt, provide tax deductions, and paying non-profit crusaders well to do it than spreading the cash to the impoverished.
Who doesn’t like a tax break? If the US top 1-10% pay 40-75% of all income taxes, why not give them a tax deduction?
Better yet, why not permit a deduction for donating one’s children, mothers, aunties, and grannies into bondage for a few hundred quid a head? Is that not the essence of charity beginning at home?
Apneaman on Tue, 26th Jan 2016 6:45 pm
Run whitey run!
Residents evacuated from seaside homes teetering on the brink as California cliffs crumble into the ocean amid violent El Nino storms
http://www.transitstory.com/trending/361112-residents-evacuated-from-seaside-homes-teetering-on-the-brink-as-california-cliffs-crumble-into-the-ocean-amid-violent-el-nino-storms.html
WATCH: Pacifica Coastal Erosion Caught on Drone Video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLNxwX7r4A556lWXmx0xIIZxDElTwzerKr&v=CzrymETf9hY
bug on Tue, 26th Jan 2016 6:57 pm
Quote ” The great news is that we know how to keep the miracles coming”
JFC, who writes this crap? and more
” …….the best possible foundation for sustained economic growth”
Hahaha
BC on Tue, 26th Jan 2016 7:37 pm
Apnea, clearly the plague of locusts is righteous justice being imposed by the angry, jealous, vengeful, violent, genocidal Hebrew tribal desert sky god on Argentines for daring to refuse to concede to free-market capitalism, yes?
Serves them right for their blasphemy. 😉
BC on Tue, 26th Jan 2016 9:51 pm
Apnea, recall that the ‘Merikan poet, Robinson Jeffers, wrote nearly a century ago that the US Left Coast was the metaphorical “end of western civilization”.
Moreover, Jim Morrison of The Doors wrote, “The West is the best . . . get here and we’ll do the rest.”
Well, we did . . . and the rest will be history . . .
“The blue bus is calling us . . . “
Apneaman on Wed, 27th Jan 2016 5:20 pm
Let them eat iPhones
You say you are struggling to cover your rising expenses while your pay is stagnant? You should have become an executive at a bank. Break the economy and earn big rewards!
But don’t sweat it — you have a phone and that more than makes up for your lack of adequate wages, declining ability to access health care and lack of a pension. Just ask JPMorgan chief executive officer Jamie Dimon.
Mr. Dimon’s pay is more than 220 times that of the average employee at JPMorgan, reports Business Insider, but he says you underpaid employees shouldn’t complain — because you have iPhones! At least Marie Antoinette’s alleged belief in cake allowed France’s plebeians to eat, more than can be done with a phone. Here is what Mr. Dimon said in his latest attempt to show compassion, according to BloombergBusiness:
“ ‘It’s not right to say we’re worse off,’ Dimon said [last September 17] at an event in Detroit in response to a question about declining median income. ‘If you go back 20 years ago, cars were worse, health was worse, you didn’t live as long, the air was worse. People didn’t have iPhones.’ ”
https://systemicdisorder.wordpress.com/2016/01/27/let-them-eat-iphones/