Category: Decoder Replay

  • A week of chaos for one Alpine town

    A week of chaos for one Alpine town

    When Linda Zaugg’s baby caught a high fever in January, it took an hour and a half to walk him to the hospital — a journey that usually takes 10 minutes. But this was Davos, Switzerland during the week of the World Economic Forum (WEF). Some 3,000 politicians and business leaders from all around the world had descended on the city to discuss important political and economic issues.

    Zaugg is a member of the local parliament in Davos, a town in the Swiss Alps with a permanent population of about 11,000 people. She has been spearheading a campaign to raise awareness of the local impacts the conference has and find ways to mitigate them.

    During the forum, traffic becomes so bad, she said, that ambulances have trouble finding their way through the streets of Davos, causing response times to increase significantly.

    Traffic isn’t the only problem. During this time Davos experiences a massive influx of people, causing rent prices to explode by up to 10 times.

    “This is the real problem with the WEF,” she said. “Not the conference itself, but all the people and companies that come along with it to make money and advertise.”

    Economic effects of an economic forum

    Albert Kruker, the tourism director of Davos, warned that these price increases may cause a price spiral which would affect the town year-round.

    During the forum, local businesses go into overdrive trying to supply the politicians, journalists and other attendees with everything they require. When asked about it, the owner of a local bakery, Bäckerei Weber, said that it is one of the most profitable but also intense weeks of the year.

    “During the conference you get all these catering companies coming in and the hotels are full, so we have a lot more orders,” he told us. “During the conference we work 24 hours a day. Because of the security, we usually start delivering at two o’clock in the morning.”

    Many other business and house owners during this time either stock up on their goods or rent out their buildings for exorbitant prices. A banker living in Zurich with an apartment in Davos said that he can rent out his apartment for a single week during the conference for approximately three months’ rent.

    In an apartment block right next to the conference hall, many inhabitants move out during the week. These apartments are then rented by journalists, attendees and large companies.

    Disruption in Davos

    One resident of an apartment block told us that he is never home during the WEF. “I rent out my apartment and go on holiday during this time,” he said.

    The housing crunch during the forum is so intense that to accommodate attendees, some renters and families are forced out of their homes for the duration of the conference.

    Zaugg said that some landlords even include a clause in the renter’s agreement dictating that the renters must leave during this period. A side effect of this is that many children must live temporarily outside the city and cannot attend school.

    This problem is worsened by the fact that the streets are constantly congested and filled with drivers that aren’t used to Davos.

    These drivers often do not respect speed limits or pedestrian only zones, requiring even more attention by commuters, which is especially difficult and dangerous for children and the elderly as they aren’t used to this amount of traffic.

    Additionally, the public transportation system is bogged down during this time, once again causing confusion among society’s most vulnerable.

    Crowds and congestion

    Stephan Büchli, a local bus driver, said that there are no fixed schedules during this time as the traffic is simply too unpredictable. Additionally, they must use smaller buses, as the streets are too congested to allow the manoeuvring of the traditional ones.

    Furthermore, the new drivers often also park in restricted zones, further impacting public transport.

    “Last year I saw an old man at the local bus station during the conference. He was crying very heavily and was confused. It really made me angry,” Zaugg told us.

    The level of congestion also brings other problems with it.

    All this traffic creates substantial emissions. In 2023, the private jets attending the Forum alone generated 7,500 tons of CO2, roughly equivalent to the yearly emissions of 5,000 cars.

    Minimising the carbon footprint

    Part of the problem, Büchli said, is that limousines, trucks and taxis often leave their engines on while standing still, sometimes for upwards of half an hour. He himself has frequently witnessed cars idling with the engine running while stuck in traffic.

    As a high-profile event, the WEF requires a lot of temporary structures, internal furnishings and food to function. Every year these temporary structures are erected in late December and then taken down again afterwards. Some of them only get used once and thrown away after only one week’s use.

    The same is true for internal furniture such as carpets, shelves, computers and TV screens, as well as any leftover food. Several residents told us that after the WEF there are heaps of electronic equipment that gets thrown away.

    Still, while many residents feel the effects, many keep their irritation to themselves out of fear of being labelled a WEF hater.

    While there are several key problems with the Forum in its current form, the organisers aren’t sitting idle. Over the past few years, several steps have been taken to lessen the impact of these problems.

    The road ahead

    The most obvious of these steps is the reduction in waste. The organisers of the conference and the government of Davos have issued regulations on the number of temporary structures and their reusability. This has caused their number to noticeably decrease over the last few editions.

    Old furniture and electronic devices are sold to the local inhabitants at reduced prices and spare food is offered to the residents for free, further contributing to making the WEF more sustainable.

    To ensure that people can travel around in a manageable timeframe, the municipality has also set up extra trains that commute from one end of the town to the other. Entry into Davos by car was also restricted this year for visitors and tourists.

    One of the most impactful changes was the installation of temporary ambulance stations. These stations are scattered across Davos, allowing them to respond quickly to emergencies and save lives.

    Over the last few years, both the WEF organisation and Davos itself have taken several different measures to lessen the negative impacts of the conference. However, these issues still persist and require solutions.

    Only time will tell if the people who organize a conference meant to bring people together to improve the state of the world can improve the lives of the people who live in this small town in the Alps, for one week of the year.

    “You truly notice how the ideological part of the WEF, the bringing together of people, gets pushed into the background in favour of economic reasons,” Zaugg said.

    Questions to consider:

    1. What is the World Economic Forum?

    2. In what ways is the town of Davos negatively affected by the WEF?

    3. Is there an event that disrupts life near where you live? How do people deal with it?

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  • Decoder Replay: Isn’t all for one and one for all a good thing?

    Decoder Replay: Isn’t all for one and one for all a good thing?

    Under NATO, 32 countries have pledged to defend each other. Is the United States the glue that holds it all together?

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  • Ousting Venezuela’s leader was high on Trump’s to-do list

    Ousting Venezuela’s leader was high on Trump’s to-do list

    When a little known politician recently declared himself interim president of Venezuela and called for fresh elections, opponents of the sitting president, Nicolás Maduro, saw a bright future for a country mired in misery and hunger.

    But ousting Maduro has proved more difficult than expected. Optimistic assumptions have collided with a reality once summed up by the late Chinese leader Mao Zedong: “Political power grows out of the barrel of a gun.”

    Juan Guaidó, the youthful opposition figure who declared himself president on January 23, has been recognized as Venezuela’s legitimate leader by the United States and almost 50 other countries. But Maduro is still in power, backed by the country’s military and paramilitary forces. Maduro’s international backers include China, Russia, Turkey, Iran, Cuba, Bolivia and Nicaragua.

    What Guaidó and Washington administration officials had in mind sounded optimistic but not impossible.

    After Guaidó emerged as undisputed leader of an opposition long weakened by internal feuds, he brought out tens of thousands of demonstrators who denounced a government they blame for an economic collapse that has resulted in severe shortages of basic goods and services.

    Humanitarian aid and presidential power

    Displays of public anger week after week, or so the thinking went, would convince Maduro to step aside in favor of his 35-year-old challenger. A key test of the dueling presidents’ power — and the military’s ultimate loyalty — hinged on the delivery of humanitarian aid flown in by U.S. military planes in mid-February to the city of Cúcuta on Venezuela’s border with Colombia.

    Maduro said the aid was a precursor to a U.S. military invasion, blocked border crossings and dispatched troops to block convoys of trucks or people carrying supplies. In the scenario envisaged by Guaidó, the troops would refuse to intercept desperately needed aid and instead defect en masse.

    That did not happen.

    Instead, things have gone from bad to worse since the failed aid delivery. Tons of food, medicine and medical supplies remain boxed in warehouses on the Colombian side of the border.

    In March, a week-long power cut across all of Venezuela’s 23 states brought more hardship. With electricity out, scarce food rotted in refrigerators and water pumping stations stopped.

    No early end to the suffering

    One heart-breaking video showed people rushing to catch water in buckets and plastic bottles from a leak in a drainage pipe feeding into a sewer.

    Maduro blamed the blackout on saboteurs using cyber attacks and electromagnetic waves to cripple the power system, operations in an “electric war” waged by the United States.

    The opposition pointed to lack of maintenance and an infrastructure that has been crumbling for years.

    In the wake of the longest blackout in Venezuela’s history, Guaidó launched a second round of protests, but the crowds have been noticeably thinner than in the early stage of the contest between the rival presidents.

    Hopes for an early end of the country’s agony appear to be fading in Venezuela. Not so in Washington, judging from bullish statements by President Donald Trump and his secretary of state, Michael Pompeo. Trump told an enthusiastic crowd of Venezuelan exiles and Cuban-Americans in Miami last month that what he called “the ugly alliance” between the Maduro government and Cuba was coming to a rapid end.

    Soon after, Pompeo told a television interviewer he was confident that Maduro’s “days are numbered.”

    Bullish statements from Washington

    When huge crowds jammed the streets of Caracas and other cities to cheer Guaidó, some U.S. administration officials thought Maduro would soon be on the way out. That he has managed to hang on despite popular anger, international condemnation and painful American sanctions has come as a surprise to many.

    Now, the bullish statements from Trump and Pompeo bring to mind American predictions during Barack Obama’s administration concerning Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad when he faced mass demonstrations, international condemnation and U.S. sanctions.

    In Syria, peaceful protests morphed into civil war in the summer of 2011, and the Obama team’s point man on the Middle Eastern country described Assad as “a dead man walking.” Eight years later, having prevailed in the war with the help of Russia and Iran, Syria lies in ruins, but Assad looks secure in power.

    Shortly before taking office, Trump promised that he would avoid intervention in foreign conflicts and “stop racing to topple foreign regimes.” He has largely stuck to that pledge but is making Venezuela an exception, with repeated assertions that “all options are on the table” — a Washington euphemism for military action.

    There’s no single explanation for Trump’s untypical focus on Venezuela. But it is worth noting that he made his toughest speech on the subject in Florida and that he is running for re-election in 2020. Hawkish rhetoric on Venezuela and Cuba plays well with the large Venezuelan-American and Cuban-American communities in that state.

    Florida, the country’s third most populous state, is of key importance in presidential elections. It is a so-called swing state that can go to either of the presidential candidates, often by very narrow margins.

     

    QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:

    1. Can you think of a country where a long-entrenched leader recently bowed to the demands of demonstrators?

    2. Why do you think China, Russia and several other countries are standing by Maduro?

    3. The United States has a history of intervention in Latin America. Can you name some cases?

     

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  • Decoder Replay: Can Taiwan fend off China forever?

    Decoder Replay: Can Taiwan fend off China forever?

    But since 1949, Taiwan has functioned with de facto independence; it has its own government, military and currency. Yet the People’s Republic of China has always insisted that Taiwan is a part of the PRC.

    China also insists that other countries respect its “One China” principle. Thus, only 12 countries recognise Taiwan as an independent country. They have diplomatic relations with Taiwan rather than the People’s Republic of China. These are mainly small nations in Latin America and the Pacific Islands.

    Not surprisingly, the status of Taiwan has become a focal point for the great power rivalry between China and the United States.

    Most Western countries, in contrast, have diplomatic relations with Beijing, and maintain representative offices in Taipei. The United States maintains unofficial relations with the people of Taiwan through the American Institute in Taiwan, a private nonprofit corporation, which performs U.S. citizen and consular services similar to those at embassies.

    A diplomatic dance

    Back in 1992, representatives of both Taiwan and China met and ironed out some conditions that could allow for relations across the Taiwan Strait. This became known as the 1992 Consensus. While it broadly committed both to the principle of “One China,” each interprets that differently; The People’s Republic sees Taiwan as a renegade state that must return at some point in the future, while Taiwan values its own autonomy.

    Much to the chagrin of Beijing, the DPP does not accept the “1992 Consensus.”

    Thus, there has been a dramatic deterioration in relations in recent years, especially since President Tsai’s presidency overlapped with that of the very assertive Chinese leader, Xi Jinping.

    Many commentators now argue that the Taiwan Strait is the most dangerous region in the world.

    China believes Taiwan must be unified with the mainland under the banner of its “One China” principle, and China’s claims to Taiwan are only intensifying in tandem with its growing economic power. The impatience of Xi Jinping was palpable in 2021 when he said that the “Taiwan issue cannot be passed on from generation to generation.”

    Autonomy versus subjugation

    Needless to say, Xi’s upping the ante has only exacerbated tensions across the Taiwan Strait — as have Beijing’s interference in the affairs of Hong Kong and the consequent deterioration in its freedom and human rights.

    Hong Kong’s system of “one country, two systems” was once considered to be a possible model for Taiwan. But this is no longer the case.

    Today, less than 10% of the Taiwanese people are in favor of unification with China. The majority prefer to keep the status quo. While feelings for independence are strong, the Taiwanese people are concerned that any move to independence would provoke Beijing — hence the widespread support for the status quo.

    For its part, the United States has “acknowledged” (but not supported) the “One China” positions of both Beijing and Taipei. But the United States does not recognize Beijing’s sovereignty over Taiwan.

    Nor does it recognise Taiwan as a sovereign country. According to official U.S. policy, Taiwan’s status is unsettled, and must be solved peacefully.

    The United States stands by.

    Back in 1979 when the United States recognised the People’s Republic of China and established diplomatic relations with it as the sole legitimate government of China, it also implemented the Taiwan Relations Act.

    This requires the United States to have a policy “to provide Taiwan with arms of a defensive character” and “to maintain the capacity of the United States to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan.”

    When Chiang Kai-shek and his KMT retreated to Taiwan in 1949, Taiwan was poorer than virtually all of the provinces of mainland China. But the Taiwanese economy would grow dramatically thanks to U.S. support, an increasingly well-educated and industrious workforce, a strong entrepreneurial spirit and the legacy of infrastructure and institutions from Japan’s colonisation of the island.

    Today, Taiwan’s successful democratic capitalism is a strategic asset of the West. Its economy is a lynchpin in the global economy’s high-tech supply chains. In a world where democracy seems increasingly under threat, it is a beacon of democratic hope and inspiration. Taiwan also offers proof that democracy is not inconsistent with Chinese culture.

    Taiwan’s position in the so-called “first island chain,” geographically located between U.S. allies Japan and the Philippines, is crucial to Washington’s foreign policy in the region at a time when China is trying to evict the United States from East Asia and behaving aggressively in the South China Sea.

    China casts a big shadow.

    The loss of Taiwan would undermine the credibility of the United States as an ally of Japan, Korea, the Philippines and Australia. If China took control of Taiwan, it could be freer to project power in the western Pacific and rival the United States.

    While U.S. official policy toward Taiwan has remained unchanged over the years, the United States has been deepening its partnership with Taiwan in tandem with Xi Jinping’s assertive attitude over the past decade, thereby provoking Beijing’s anger. This has included increased arms sales and military training, and the visits of high-level U.S. Congress representatives, which Beijing interprets as conferring political recognition on Taiwan.

    U.S. President Joe Biden has indicated four times that he would use the military to defend Taiwan if China ever attacked the island. The U.S. Congress has a strong resistance to the idea of sacrificing democratic Taiwan to the increasingly authoritarian Beijing.

    And as recently as 20 April 2024 it passed a series of foreign aid bills that allocated $8 billion for Taiwan and other Indo-Pacific allies, along with much larger sums for Ukraine and Israel.

    There is much speculation about the future of China-Taiwan relations by geopolitical analysts.

    According to one school of thought, China faces a narrow window of opportunity, in light of its deteriorating economic prospects, to subjugate Taiwan. Thus many are alert to the possibility of China placing extreme pressure on Taiwan, including through a possible invasion over the coming years.

    Others argue that Russia’s invasion and never-ending war with Ukraine make China hesitant to contemplate a similar operation in Taiwan. Taiwan’s mountainous geography and relatively shallow seas on the west coast would make an invasion much more challenging.

    Is invasion a possibility?

    The close location of U.S. forces in Japan and the Philippines mean that China would inevitably bump into the United States. And because China’s economy is so tightly integrated into Western-led supply chains, the cost of Western sanctions on China would be much greater than the sanctions on Russia.

    The most likely scenario is that China will seek to subjugate Taiwan without overt military action, notably by cyber attacks, coercion, information warfare, harassment and threats. All things considered, with or without an invasion or direct military attacks, the Taiwan Straits will likely remain Asia’s biggest hot spot and occupy the attention of strategic planners for many years to come.

    So are the Taiwan Straits the most dangerous region in the world?

    Having recently spent 10 days visiting Taiwan with the Australian Institute of International Affairs, my answer is a resounding no. Taiwan and the Taiwanese people have a calm, relaxed and polite air. They seem immune to the bellicose, megaphone diplomacy of mainland China.

    And as they continue to strengthen their economy and deepen their international friendships, their destiny would seem increasingly secure, although they need to invest much more in their military capabilities. But there will never be grounds for complacency — as the case of Hong Kong demonstrates, things can change virtually overnight.

    Three questions to consider:

    1. What autonomy does Taiwan currently have?

    2. Why is Taiwan’s independence seen as important to other democratic nations in the region?

    3. Do you think the United States should provide Taiwan military support to protect its autonomy?

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  • Decoder Replay: Can we prepare for unpredictable weather?

    Decoder Replay: Can we prepare for unpredictable weather?

    There’s no denying climate change when a tornado rips through your town or a blizzard buries you in snow. So why blame the people who raise weather alarms?

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  • What role do diplomats play?

    What role do diplomats play?

    “There is a perception that diplomats lead a comfortable life throwing dinner parties in fancy homes. Let me tell you about some of my reality. It has not always been easy. I have moved 13 times and served in seven different countries, five of them hardship posts. My first tour was Mogadishu, Somalia.”

    So said Marie Yovanovitch, a veteran U.S. diplomat who was the first witness in a congressional inquiry held to find out whether President Donald Trump abused his power as president by extorting a foreign president into investigating a Trump rival, former Vice President Joe Biden, in the race for the 2020 U.S. elections.

    The congressional hearings, only the third in the nation’s 243-year history to target a president for impeachment, have dominated the U.S. political debate for weeks and will continue making headlines for months both in the United States and elsewhere.

    It is a case that highlights, among other issues, widespread perceptions that diplomats have cushy jobs and play a lesser role in implementing foreign policy than soldiers.

    Yovanovitch, who was recalled from her post as ambassador to Ukraine for reasons that are at the heart of the impeachment proceedings, went on to tell a hushed meeting chamber: “The State Department as a tool of foreign policy often doesn’t get the same attention and respect as the military might of the Pentagon does, but we are — as they say — ‘the pointy end of the spear.’”

    “If we lose our edge, the U.S. will inevitably have to use other tools, even more often than it does today. And those other tools are blunter, more expensive and not universally effective.”

    Exhibit A is Cuba.

    Those tools include military force and economic sanctions, the latter being Trump’s favourite method to try to bend antagonistic governments to his will. The limits of military force are particularly obvious in Afghanistan and Iraq, where American troops have been waging war for 18 and 15 years, respectively.

    Exhibit A for the limits of economic sanctions is Cuba, which withstood an American embargo for more than 50 years. More recently, “maximum pressure” to cripple Iran’s economy has yet to persuade the government there to drop its nuclear ambitions, curb its quest for regional supremacy or curb support for groups hostile to the United States and Israel.

    The impeachment hearings have brought into focus the interplay between diplomacy and military strength.

    According to a parade of witnesses, all of whom except one were professional diplomats or career civil servants, Trump made the release of $391 million in military aid to Ukraine contingent on its president, Volodymyr Zelenski, launching an investigation into Biden and his son Hunter, who worked for a Ukrainian energy company while his father was the point person for Ukraine in the administration of ex-President Barack Obama.

    For the past five years, Ukraine has been fighting Russian-backed separatists in a low-intensity war in the east of the country. It needs the American aid, including anti-tank missiles, to keep control of its territory.

    According to administration witnesses in the impeachment hearings, Trump had ordered a freeze on the aid — which had been allocated by Congress — as a lever, thus using public funds for personal advantage.

    Big military spender

    The main conduit for the request for an investigation was President Trump’s personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, who is a private citizen, rather than the U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, the State Department or the National Security Council.

    Giuliani saw Yovanovitch as an obstacle for the aid-for-investigations deal and he spread false rumours about her being a Trump critic. The end result: she received a middle-of-the-night call telling her to leave her post and take the next flight to Washington.

    Ivanovitch’s testimony at the impeachment hearing echoed complaints, voiced mostly in private, from foreign service diplomats almost as soon as Trump assumed office. Now, she said, there is “a crisis in the State Department as the policy process is visibly unraveling, leadership vacancies go unfilled and senior and mid-level officers ponder an uncertain future and head for the doors.”

    By word and by tweet, Trump has made clear his disdain for the institutions of state, from the State Department to the Central Intelligence Agency, the FBI and the Justice Department. This year, for the third year in a row, the administration is cutting the budget for the State Department while increasing the Pentagon’s.

    The United States already spends as much on its military as the next eight countries combined. It tops the list of global arms sellers. U.S. armed forces outnumber the diplomatic service and its major foreign aid agency by a ratio of around 180:1, vastly higher than other Western democracies.

    Beyond military solutions

    Curiously, the imbalance between the size of the U.S. armed forces and the civilian agencies that make up “soft power” — chiefly the foreign service and the United States Agency for International Development — have long been a matter of concern for military leaders.

    Often used in academic discourse, the term “soft power” was coined in the 1980s by Harvard political scientist Joseph Nye. It embraces diplomacy and assistance to foreign countries as well as cultural and exchange programs meant to improve the image of the United States. Hard power, in contrast, includes guns, tanks, war planes and soldiers.

    Last year, budget cuts for diplomacy and development so alarmed the military that 151 retired generals and admirals wrote to congressional leaders to plead for greater emphasis on civilian foreign policy and security agencies. “Today’s crises do not have military solutions alone,” the officers’ letter said.

    It quoted an observation by General James Mattis, the Trump administration’s first Defense secretary: “America’s got two fundamental powers, the power of intimidation and the power of inspiration.”

    Soon after taking office in January 2017, Trump promised “one of the greatest military buildups in military history” and put forward an “America First budget. It is not a soft power budget, it is a hard power budget.”

    There were not then, nor are there now, provisions to boost the power of inspiration.

     

    THREE QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER:

    1. In what ways are economic sanctions limited?

    2. What is “soft power”?

    3. How might you use a form of diplomacy to bring them together two people angry at each other?

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  • Disinformation and the decline of democracy

    Disinformation and the decline of democracy

    The unprecedented mob assault on the U.S. Capitol on January 6 represents perhaps the most stunning collision yet between the world of online disinformation and reality.

    The supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump who broke into Congress did so in the belief that the U.S. election was stolen from them after weeks of consuming unproven narratives about “ballot dumps,” manipulated voting machines and Democrat big-city corruption. Some — including the woman who was shot dead — were driven by the discredited QAnon conspiracy theory that represents Democratic Party elites as a pedophile ring and Trump as the savior.

    It’s tempting to hope that disinformation and its corrosive effects on democracy may have reached a high-water mark with the events of January 6 and the end of Trump’s presidency. But trends in technology and society’s increasing separation into social media echo chambers suggest that worse may be to come.

    Imagine for a moment if video of the Capitol riot had been manipulated to replace the faces of Trump supporters with those of known protestors for antifa, a left-wing, anti-fascist and anti-racist political movement. This would have bolstered the unproven story that has emerged about a “false flag” operation. Or imagine if thousands of different stories written by artificial intelligence software and pedaling that version of events had flooded social media and been picked up by news organizations in the hours after the assault.

    That technology not only exists. It’s getting more sophisticated and easier to access by the day.

    Trust in democracy is eroding.

    Deepfake, or synthetic, videos are starting to seep from pornography — where they’ve mostly been concentrated — into the world of politics. A deepfake of former President Barack Obama using an expletive to describe Trump has garnered over eight million views on YouTube since it was released in 2018.

    Most anyone familiar with Obama’s appearance and speaking style can tell there’s something amiss with that video. But two years is an eternity in AI-driven technology and many experts believe it will soon be impossible for the human eye and ear to spot the best deepfakes.

    A deepfake specialist was hailed early last year for using freely available software to “de-age” Robert DeNiro and Joe Pesci in the movie “The Irishman,” producing a result that many critics considered superior to the work of the visual-effects supervisor in the actual film.

    In recent years, the sense of shared, objective reality and trust in institutions have already come under strain as social media bubbles hasten the spread of fake news and conspiracy theories. The worry is that deepfakes and other AI-generated content will supercharge this trend in coming years.

    “This is disastrous to any liberal democratic model because in a world where anything can be faked, everyone becomes a target,” Nina Schick, the author of “Deepfakes — The Coming Infopocalypse,” told U.S. author Sam Harris in a recent podcast.

    “But even more than that, if anything can be faked … everything can also be denied. So the very basis of what is reality starts to become corroded.”

    Governments must do more to combat disinformation.

    Illustrating her point is reaction to Trump’s video statement released a day after the storming of Congress. While some of his followers online saw it as a betrayal, others reassured themselves by saying it was a deepfake.

    On the text side, the advent of GPT-3 — an AI program that can produce articles indistinguishable from those written by humans — has potentially powerful implications for disinformation. Writing bots could be programmed to produce fake articles or spew political and racial hatred at a volume that could overwhelm text based on facts and moderation.

    Society has been grappling with written fake news for years and photographs have long been easily manipulated through software. But convincingly faked videos and AI-generated stories seem to many to represent a deeper, more viral threat to reality-based discourse.

    It’s clear that there’s no silver-bullet solution to the disinformation problem. Social media platforms like Facebook have a major role to play and are developing their own AI technology to better detect fake content. While fakers are likely to keep evolving to stay ahead, stricter policing and quicker action by online platforms can at least limit the impact of false videos and stories.

    Governments are coming under pressure to push Big Tech into taking a harder line against fake news, including through regulation. Authorities can devote more funding to digital media literacy programs in schools and elsewhere to help individuals become more alert and proficient in identifying suspect content.

    When it comes down to it, the real power of fake news hinges on those who believe it and spread it.

    Questions to consider:

    1. How can technology be used to spread fake news?

    2. Why is disinformation potentially harmful to democracy?

    3. How do you think the rise of AI technology will affect the type of information people consume?

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  • Why so much confusion over climate change?

    Why so much confusion over climate change?

    Bwambale estimates that less than 1% of the global population truly grasps the implications of climate change. “Even worse are Ugandans,” he said.

    Gerison pointed out that much of the population of Uganda is young. “With 80% below the age of 25, many haven’t witnessed the full extent of climate changes,” he said.

    A diminishing crop is easily understood.

    Janet Ndagire, Bwambale’s colleague, said it is difficult for Ugandan natives to connect with climate campaigns. They often perceive them as obstacles to survival rather than crucial interventions.

    “Imagine telling someone who relies on charcoal burning for survival that cutting down a tree could be hazardous!” Ndagire said. “It doesn’t make sense to them, especially when the tree is on their plot of land.”

    Reflecting on personal experiences, Ndagire recalled childhood days of going to sleep fully covered. Nowadays it is too hot to do that, he said.

    Ssiragaba Edison Tubonyintwari, a seasoned bus driver originally from western Uganda but currently driving with the United Nations, recounts the challenges of driving between 5 and 9 AM in the Albertine rift eco-region especially around the Ecuya forest reserve.

    “It would be covered in mist,” said Tubonyintwari. “We’d ask two people to stand in front, one on either side of the bus, signalling for you to drive forward, or else, you couldn’t see two metres away. Currently, people drive all day and night!”

    Irish potatoes in the African wetlands

    What happened? Tubonyintwari pointed to unauthorised tree cutting in the reserve, residential constructions and the cultivation of tea alongside Irish potatoes in the wetlands. The result was rising temperatures.

    His account supplements a Global Forest Watch report which puts commodity-driven deforestation above urbanisation.

    It’s notable that Tubonyintwari didn’t explicitly use the term “climate change,” yet the sexagenarian can effectively explain the underlying concept through his detailed description of altered environmental conditions.

    Global Forest Watch reports alarming deforestation trends, with 5.8 million hectares lost globally in 2022. In Uganda, more than 6,000 deforestation alerts were recorded between 22 and 29 November this year.

    The consequences of such environmental degradation are dire. Ndagire emphasised that those who once wielded axes and chainsaws for firewood are now the very individuals facing reduced crop yields due to extreme weather conditions.

    Even as Uganda grapples with the aftermath of a sudden surge in heavy rains from last October, Bwambale questions the country’s meteorological department, highlighting the failure to provide precise explanations and climate-aware preparations.

    These interconnected narratives emphasise the need for accessible climate campaigns and community-driven solutions. As COP28 gathers elites, the call for a simplified narrative gains prominence, mirroring successful communication models seen during the Covid-19 pandemic; else it’s the same old throwing of good money after bad.

    Questions to consider:

    1. Why does deforestation continue in places like Uganda when people know about its long-term consequences?

    2. In what ways are high level discussions about climate change disconnected from people’s everyday experiences?

    3. In what way do you think scientists and environmentalists need to change the climate change narrative?

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  • Can journalists coexist with AI?

    Can journalists coexist with AI?

    But then the same thing could be happening now to the heads of news organizations who then subsequently pull back their journalists from various news beats. Since those news organizations are the ones who report news, would we ever know that was happening?

    The reality is that artificial intelligence could kill journalism without replacing it, leaving people without information they can rely on. When there are no reliable, credible sources of news, rumors spread and take on a life of their own. People panic and riot and revolt based on fears born from misinformation. Lawlessness prevails.

    Do algorithms have all the answers?

    Right now, entire news organizations are disappearing. The Brookings report found that last year some 2.5 local news outlets folded every week in the United States. Data collected by researcher Amy Watson in August 2023 found that in the UK, each year over a 10-year period ending 2022, more news outlets closed than were launched.

    CNN reported in June 2023 that Germany’s biggest news organization, Bild, was laying off 20% of its employees, replacing them with artificial intelligence.

    But ChatGPT had this to say: “ Rather than viewing AI as a threat, journalists can leverage technology to enhance their work. Automated tools can assist with tasks such as data analysis, fact-checking and content distribution, freeing up time for reporters to focus on more complex and impactful storytelling.”

    One of News Decoder’s many human correspondents, Tom Heneghan, spoke to students on this topic in November and expressed some optimism.

    “It will take away a lot of the drudge work, the donkey work that journalists have to do,” Heneghan said. “It’s amazing how much work is done by somebody at a much higher level than what is actually needed.”

    Working with artificial intelligence

    Once those tasks are automated, the journalist can pursue more substantive stories, Heneghan said. Plus the evolving sophistication of things like deep fake technology will make tasks like fact-checking and verification more important. “

    That’s going to come up more and more,” Heneghan said. “What artificial intelligence takes away may actually create some other jobs.”

    So here’s the thing: We wouldn’t have to fear AI eliminating the crucial role of journalism — informing the public with accurate information, reporting from multiple perspectives so that minority voices are heard and uncovering corruption, exploitation and oppression — if the businesses that controlled the purse strings of journalism were committed to its public service functions.

    I then asked ChatGPT this question: Are media corporations driven solely by money?

    It concluded: “While financial considerations undoubtedly influence the actions of media corporations, they are not the sole driving force behind their decisions.” It went on: “A complex interplay of financial goals, societal responsibilities and individual values shapes the behavior of these entities.

    Understanding this multifaceted nature is essential for accurately assessing the role and impact of media corporations in modern society.” I found that reassuring, until I glanced at the disclaimer at the bottom of the AI’s page:

    ChatGPT can make mistakes. Consider checking important information.

    Questions to consider:

    1. What is an essential role of journalism in society?

    2. What did both the ChatGPT app and the human correspondent seem to agree on in this article?

    3. What, if anything, worries you about artifiical intelligence and how you get your information?

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  • Why do people worry about inflation?

    Why do people worry about inflation?

    That’s why central banks have gone to extraordinary lengths in the past decade to banish the specter of deflation. They’ve succeeded. Indeed, stock markets have been rattled by evidence that inflation is stirring in the United States, which might prompt the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates more rapidly than previously thought.

    (On Wednesday, the U.S. government reported that consumer prices rose by 0.5 percent in January, more than expected. “Core” prices excluding volatile food and energy costs marked the biggest monthly gain in a year.)

    But the chances of inflation getting out of control are small.

    First, companies operate globally, so if manufacturing costs rise too high in the United States, they will shift production to cheaper locations overseas.

    Second, there is still slack in the U.S. jobs market because many people who gave up looking for work after the crisis could be lured back into employment, capping wages.

    Third, there is no reason to believe the Fed — or financial markets for that matter — would allow the money supply to spiral out of control.

    The United States is no Venezuela.

    Prices rise and fall all the time in response to factors such as changing consumer tastes and technological innovation. Medical care costs a lot more than in the past, computers a lot less. But a generalized rise in prices across the economy — which is the definition of inflation — is possible only if a country’s central bank prints too much money.

    That’s what’s happened in Venezuela, where the money supply has increased by 4,000 percent in the past two years. The result is hyperinflation, forecast by the International Monetary Fund to reach 13,000 percent this year. Goldilocks’s oatmeal is nearly doubling in price every month. Poverty is rife because wages lag price rises. The economy is on its knees.

    The United States is no Venezuela. Evidence of a pick-up in wages is good news in fact, considering that workers have been taking home less and less of the economic pie in recent years, while the suppliers of capital have benefited handsomely.

    It’s possible that the recently enacted package of U.S. tax cuts and spending increases will cause the economy to run a bit too hot, pushing up prices a bit. But of the many problems facing the U.S. economy, runaway inflation is not one of them.

    In 1981, then Fed Chairman Paul Volcker had to raise short-term U.S. interest rates to 20 percent to crush inflation. History will not need to repeat itself.

    Questions to consider:

    1. What “ripple effect” could a rise in consumer prices cause?

    2. How can inflation be good?

    3. When prices go up significantly, what might you or your family not buy?

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