Juha I. Uitto's Blog, page 2

People on the Move - Climate Refugees

 

Environmental degradation and climate change add to migration pressures, which need to be addressed internationally for a more sustainable future.

Migration of people, driven by multifaceted crises, continues to surge, affecting millions globally. By mid-2022, 281 million people lived outside their birth country, some 40% of them forcibly displaced by the year's end due to conflict, persecution, or environmental degradation. Migration is not a singular event but a fluid process involving ongoing adaptation, often encompassing return or circular movements.

Most of displacement takes place within and between conflict-impacted countries in the global South, although most of the attention is given to those attempting to come to Europe and North America. According to the International Organization for Migration, there were 117 million displaced people at the end of 2022. Of these, 71.2 million were internally displaced.

The simple reason for this is that when people escape their own country, they usually end up in the neighboring one. Consequently, the biggest host country over the past seven years has been Türkiye (Turkey), because of the civil war in Syria (now that the situation there has calmed down, at least temporarily, many of the Syrian refugees are returning). For the same reason, Afghanistan’s neighbors—Pakistan and Iran—are also at the top of the list. The only Western country that makes it to the top-5 host countries is Germany. (If we don’t only count refugees, the busiest country-to-country migration corridor is between Mexico and the United States.) [These data come from the 2024 World Migration Report by the International Organization for Migration.]

Conflict remains a primary driver for people seeking refuge, with armed violence displacing millions, as seen in Ukraine and Gaza. Civilians disproportionately bear the brunt of modern warfare, with limited protections despite international conventions. Environmental factors, including floods, droughts, and rising sea levels, exacerbate migration pressures, with projections estimating over 100 million annual climate migrants by 2050. Climatic hazards should be divided into two categories: sudden-onset and slow-onset. The former refer to disastrous events, such as the 2022 floods in Pakistan, which forced a large number of people to flee, but many of whom returned afterwards. The slow-onset hazards consist of gradual but more or less permanent changes, like the drying up of Guatemala’s agricultural lands.

Closely associated with climate change as a driver of migration is increasing food insecurity. As we show in our book Migrant Health and Resilience published some months ago, health vulnerabilities, including exposure to disease and inadequate care, compound the challenges migrants face. Women, children, and displaced populations are particularly at risk, underscoring the need for targeted social and healthcare interventions.

Environmental refugees (or climate refugees) is a relatively new term used for people who move because of environmental pressures or because climate change has rendered their livelihoods untenable. In fact, international law does not yet recognize this category. The only legally binding treaties pertaining to refugees are the 1951 Convention Relating to the Status of Refugees and its 1967 Protocol. The Convention defines refugees as people fleeing their country of origin due to a credible fear of persecution based on race, religion, national origin, or membership in a particular political or social group. That does not cover climate refugees for the obvious reason that at the time when this treaty was created, few people had any notion of climate change. Legal scholars, like Caitlan Sussman, argue that there should be an expanded international framework for protecting climate refugees, and that the strongest solution would be to amend the 1951 Convention.

Should these people be classified as climate refugees if their decision to migrate has been triggered by worsened environmental conditions making it hard for them to eke out a living in their places of origin? This determination is a tough one and there probably isn’t a one-size-fits-all definition.

It is notoriously difficult to parse together the motivations of people to move away from their home areas. Most people move to improve their opportunities to a decent living, some even for mere survival. The vast majority of people move within the borders of their own country. The great urbanization that the world has experienced over the past several decades has been driven by this process. More than half of us now live in cities. People from the countryside moved to the cities in search for employment opportunities, giving rise to vast shanties often on the outskirts of the largest urban areas in the country. In many cases, people still kept their homesteads in the countryside and often left their wives and families to tend to them.

The biggest shanty towns can be found around Karachi (Pakistan), Mexico City, Mumbai (India), Nairobi (Kenya) and Cape Town (South Africa). These five settlements have a combined population of some 5.7 million people. Their hazardous geographical locations often render them particularly vulnerable to natural hazards from storms and floods to landslides.

Others move across national borders, many, as we know, seeking refuge in Europe or in North America, creating the politically explosive situation in which we currently live. The rapid increase in the number of migrants from the South has led to calls for border closings and the rise of anti-immigrant sentiment in the global West.

The 16th Conference of Parties (COP16) of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) finished earlier this month in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The Conference President, the Saudi Minister of Environment, Water and Agriculture, Abderrahman Al-Fadhli, emphasized how drought, land degradation, and resource loss are causing migration and fueling conflict. According to UNCCD, up to 40% of the world’s agricultural lands are already degraded and this trend continues unabated. Of course, not all of this degradation is due to climate change. Much of it is simple overuse or utilization of poor agricultural practices, but often climate change is at least part of the picture. In the past, it was possible for farmers and herders to move when one area became depleted, but today places are too densely populated to allow for opening up new land when old becomes exhausted.

One of the worst affected areas is the Sahel, the arid belt between the Sahara desert and wetter and more fertile areas further south in Africa. The transboundary Lake Chad, straddling the Central and West African countries of Cameroon, Chad, Niger and Nigeria, has lost nine-tenths of its area in just a few decades starting in the early 1970s, leading to food shortages, population displacement and conflict. At the COP16, Nigeria’s Minister of Environment, Balarabe Abbas Lawal, placed this ecological fact at the center of the rise of Boko Haram, the violent fundamentalist Islamic terrorist organization. Again, it’s hard to tell exactly how much of this dramatic shrinkage has been due to human-induced climate change. Paleoclimate research shows that the lake has experienced wet and dry periods for thousands of years. Human factors, such as extraction of water for irrigation have also contributed. Recent research published in Nature suggests that climatic fluctuations are indeed the main reason for Lake Chad’s loss of water but that the lake is not disappearing; in fact the southern pool has been rather stable and even slightly increasing in recent years following local rainfall and river discharge. The fact remains, that the availability of water and the interannual variability of rainfall, combined with growing human population, continues to cause increasing pressure on natural resources and conflict.

While COP16 was meeting in Riyadh in early-December 2024, the Syrian opposition forces led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani overran the country’s capital, Damascus, sending the dictator Bashar al-Assad fleeing to Moscow (birds of a feather flock together). Syria is a large country at a strategic crossroads in the Middle East. It has a complex ethnic and religious makeup, and many actors in the region and beyond (from Turkey and Iran to Russia and Israel) meddling in its affairs. Its geography matters. Rising temperatures, decreased rainfall and water scarcity, combined with environmental pollution has made farming difficult. It drove large numbers of people from the countryside into cities causing conflicts, acting as an accelerator to the bloody 13-year civil war.

On the Western hemisphere, climate change and environmental degradation play a role in the immigration crisis on the US southern border. Missing rains and subsequent land degradation in Central America, especially Guatemala and Honduras, has rendered farming increasingly precarious decimating rural livelihoods. Jobs in the cities of these countries are hard to come by, the political situation is oppressive, and violent criminal gangs prey on people making life dangerous. Consequently, many people make the decision to try their luck and make the hazardous trek to reach the rich North.

All these cases demonstrate how climate interacts with human and political factors in creating fragility, conflict and violence—and consequent pressures to migrate.

In other parts of the world the issue is too much water. This is particularly true for low-lying coastal regions subject to sea-level rise and coastal storms. How countries and cities cope with these calamities depends very much on the resources available to them and how stable their decision-making structures are. Much of the Netherlands is below sea level but the country has been able to thrive under these conditions for centuries, while poorer countries from Bangladesh to Nigeria are hard pressed to deal with the increasing coastal hazards.

Island nations and especially small island developing states (SIDS) are an extreme case where climate-related environmental changes may pose an existential threat. Many of us have seen pictures of the foreign minister of Tuvalu, a tiny Pacific Island nation, delivering a message to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change COP26 in 2023 standing knee-deep in water. Tuvalu has also launched plans to become the world’s first entirely digital nation, so that it can preserve key aspects of its culture and national identity even if the islands will be covered by waves.

Migration reshapes social and economic landscapes both in the countries of origin and in receiving countries, straining resources and labor markets while fostering cultural and demographic shifts. Sustainable responses demand addressing migration drivers as well as improved resettlement systems. Irrespective of legal recognition, addressing climate-induced migration requires proactive strategies and recognition of shared global responsibilities. Ultimately, promoting harmonious integration and wellbeing for both migrants and host communities remains a critical challenge in an era of unprecedented human displacement.

[Originally published at: https://juhauitto.substack.com/p/peop...]

People on the move - Coping with immigration

 Immigration was the central issue for one in seven of (likely) voters in the US presidential election of 2024, second only to inflation and high prices, and played a decisive role for many people in deciding whom to vote for.

Likewise in Europe, immigration has dominated much of the public discourse over the past years. Immigration from outside to the European Union (EU) and the United States has increased significantly over the past several decades. In the US, there are now 46.2 million foreign-born persons (yours truly included) or about 13.9% of the total population. In the EU, 42.4 million people, or 9% of the population, were born outside of the Union’s borders. Whether the share of immigrants in Western countries is high or low is open for debate—and it has indeed dominated public discourse almost everywhere.

A 2022 Eurobarometer survey found that almost seven out of ten Europeans overestimate the share of immigrants in their countries. Furthermore, the largest source countries for immigrants tend to be elsewhere in Europe and what we broadly call the West, the list topped by Switzerland, Australia, Iceland, Israel, Norway, the US, and Turkey (Türkiye).

Japan is still an exception among the rich and ageing countries of the Global West. While it maintains its more restrictive immigration policy, the number of foreigners there, too, has grown significantly. According to the Ministry of Justice, there were 2.76 million foreigners living in Japan in 2022 (excluding those there illegally and long-staying tourists) constituting about 2.3% of the total population.

The largest groups of immigrants to Japan come from other Asian countries—China, Korea, Vietnam and the Philippines—as well as Brazil, which has a significant population of ethnic Japanese (with about half a million Japanese residing in and around São Paulo). These same are among the top source countries in the US as well. Following Mexico, the largest groups of immigrants to the States come from India, China, Philippines and Vietnam.

Attitudes towards foreigners vary significantly depending on the kind of migrant and how they arrived in the destination countries. To put it bluntly, few EU citizens are upset about the Swiss or the Norwegians living amongst them (some are more critical of the Americans, although those who want to live in Europe tend to be less provincial in outlook than their average compatriots).

Most of the debate on immigration is concerned with immigrants from poor and conflict-affected countries, and is driven by fears that the importation of cheap unskilled labor from the Global South will undercut salaries and take away jobs in general. There is some truth to this argument: the availability of ample labor for low-paying jobs can reduce the pressure on employers to increase pay in step with rising prices.

However, immigrants often do jobs that natives in rich countries would not take, including in agriculture and the numerous restaurant kitchens everywhere around us.  Without immigrants from Mexico, elsewhere in Central America, and China, consumer prices in the US would certainly go up and many fields would suffer from labor shortages.

Another complaint pertains to social and cultural issues. Some immigrants are seen as holding on to their old ways and often not integrating into their new host countries. In this respect, the US has a better track record than Europe, which has suffered several (and increasing) terrorist attacks by foreigners, several of whom have arrived among legitimate refugees.

Issues such as women’s rights, domestic violence (even honor killings), female genital mutilation, and other persistent features appall the Western hosts. Incoming President Trump has famously fanned the flames of fear of immigrants, claiming i.a. that Mexican immigrants to the US are rapists and murderers, and that immigrants from Haiti eat the pets of Americans. There is no evidence of this and, in fact, native-born Americans are more likely to commit crimes than immigrants.

The issue of illegal immigration is obviously a complicated one. The “crisis on the southern border” was a major theme in the 2024 US election, which concerned Americans of all races and walks of life. Even people who feel positively towards immigration (after all, the country was built upon immigration) tend to think that the situation is out of control and that it would be important to have an orderly process.

Many immigrants who have come to the country through a legal route also see it as unfair that you can enter the country just by showing up at a border post, declaring yourself a refugee facing persecution at home; then get in to wait for their case to pass through the legal process (which takes years) and in the meantime disappear into the country and find illegal work.

The economics of immigration are clear. Immigration overall is correlated with increased productivity and long-term economic development. Multiculturalism also tends to be associated with a richer tapestry of life. No-one can seriously argue that the cuisine of the USA, UK, Germany or Finland has not improved thanks to foreigners coming to live in our countries. However, it is equally clear that extremely rapid movement of people can be disruptive and irrevocably change the nature of communities.

There are also great differences between different groups of immigrants. At one end you have the highly educated professionals, including those who arrived for higher education, who tend to integrate and quickly enrich their new home countries. In the US, where according to the Census Bureau the current median household income is about $80,000 per year, this figure is over $112,000 for Asians, as compared with $85,000 for whites, $65,000 for Hispanics, $61,000 for Native Americans (including Alaskans), and $57,000 for Blacks. The Indian, Persian, Chinese, Japanese and other Asian doctors, engineers and other professionals clearly are doing well in America. It’s also worth noting that immigrants from Nigeria and elsewhere in West Africa are on the average earning more than Americans, including whites.

Which brings us to the differing policies between countries. Canada is well known for its system where higher education and wealth bring points to potential immigrants to move up the queue. Japan has also opened its doors to highly educated foreigners who can help the country stay at the forefront of advanced research: When you enter the campus of any top research university in the country you can’t avoid seeing many un-Japanese faces, mostly from India and elsewhere in South Asia.

In the USA, there are currently more than 1.5 million foreign students (the top countries being India, China and South Korea) and they tend towards STEM majors, such as computer and information sciences and engineering, as well as management. They also dominate graduate studies in STEM subjects. Without them, science and technological development in the US would be far less innovative.

People have always been on the move and, on the whole, this has enriched our lives. What some people these days lament as cultural appropriation has always been the norm. That’s how societies learn and develop. There is no country in the world that has not taken bits and pieces of other nations’ cultures and made them their own.

We now live in a world where, according to the International Organization for Migration (IOM), a UN body, more than 280 million people—or 3.6% of the world's population—are on the move.

People move for a variety of reasons. Many move in search of a better life and economic opportunities. These two are not necessarily the same, as for many migrant workers better economic opportunities may bring current hardships and dangers. For instance, South Asian and Filippino workers in the Gulf have little recourse against abuses by employers. Still, this does not deter migrant workers: there were 169 million of them in 2019 according to IOM. These migrants and diaspora communities sent $647 billion back to their home countries in 2022, far outpacing any official development assistance these countries receive.

Many people do not move voluntarily. The UN’s refugee organization tells that there were 82.4 million forcibly displaced persons in 2020, including 26.4 million officially recognized refugees. These are people who have fled persecution, armed conflict, or human rights violations in their home areas. Most of them are internally displaced or in neighboring countries, but many of them are also spread around the world. A new category, not yet fully recognized in international law, are the environmental or climate refugees whose livelihoods have been affected by environmental degradation, droughts and other environmental hazards (more on that in a later blog).

People from both categories—economic migrants and refugees—frequently try their luck to get into the more peaceful countries of Europe, North America and Australia. Legally or illegally.

Complicating the problem is that it is rarely the poorest people who migrate. The increase in migration during the past decades has coincided with increased incomes and standards of living in the emigrants’ home countries. Despite this, the wealth differences between countries drive people to seek their luck in richer countries of the world—and who can blame them for that? It does, nevertheless, contradict the often-heard claim that increased development assistance in the departure countries would reduce pressure to emigrate.

Our views of how we should deal with our fellow humans on the move vary considerably. At one end are those who long for a borderless world, like it was hundreds of years ago when you could just walk or ride a camel or sail to a new land and settle there (sometimes replacing or subordinating those already living there). One of them is Gaia Vince, who in her well researched but partial book, Nomad Century, argues for the abolishment of national borders for both moral and economic reasons.

Vince doesn’t seem to see any downsides to accepting an unlimited number of new entrants to any country. She goes as far as to suggest that Swedish policy-makers fear nothing more than the departure of immigrants from the country. Such Pollyannish views would hardly fly with the people of Sweden where foreign gangs (many hailing from North Africa or former Yugoslavia) have turned the peaceful “people’s home” (folkhemmet) into a killing field (unlike in America, it is the foreigners who are driving violent crime in Scandinavia).

At the other end are those who want to keep all foreigners out. We find them everywhere: in Japan where some right-wing nationalists see gaijin corrupting the country; in Finland where violent events involving immigrants have hardened the public attitudes; and in the USA where president-elect Trump has promised to round up and deport 11 million undocumented people living illegally in the country. An analysis by the Peterson Institute for International Economics suggests that this effort would drive up inflation and shrink the US economy, targeting workers in areas where they will be hard to replace. (Not to mention the logistical challenge and cost of actually rounding up and deporting millions of people.)

Understandably, immigration brings out strong emotions and divides people and communities. Although its impacts can be net-positive, there are many factors that influence the balance. One of them is the speed of the process, which can overwhelm communities. The other is the facility of integration of immigrants into their new environments, which requires effort from both sides.

While multiculturalism can be a richness, the long-term inhabitants in a place have a right to maintain their social norms. We need an immigration policy that is both humane towards the people who need refuge, as well as orderly and fair; one that also takes into account what different types of immigrants can contribute to their new country.

[Published originally at: https://juhauitto.substack.com/p/peop...] 

Ghosts of Honolulu -- an unsual perspective on the Pacific War

Quite interesting, an unusual perspective to the Pacific War. Well researched and balanced. I also very much appreciated the description of the suspicion towards and internment of Japanese Americans, and how unfair and irrational it was. There are some lessons there for today's world.

Geopolitics, moral ambiguity, and murder

A very interesting and highly original plot involving the Balkan wars of the 1990s. The main characters are all very well drawn up, interesting and human. McDermid writes beautifully, with genuine sounding dialogue. She manages to insert (black) humor into the rather grim tale, making it at times laugh-out-loud funny. The moral ambiguities at the heart of the story make you think.

As a personal bonus, one of the protagonists is an Oxford geography professor who, as a fellow geographer, shares my interest in geopolitics.

My only regret is that it has taken me this long to discover Val McDermid. On the other hand, it means that I will have many of her books to look forward to.

Get Me Out of Here, Memoirs by Jeremy Steig

What a fascinating and insightful book! The pioneering flutist and prolific artist, Jeremy Steig, paints an interesting canvas through his own lived experience of how music has evolved since the 1960s. He tells personal stories of many jazz musicians in New York City, often from times when they were not yet well-known (as if jazz musicians would ever be well-known; they are to me, though, which adds to the fascination). But not only jazz: He played with a variety of upcoming stars in the Village, including Jimi Hendrix. Steig was an early pioneer of what was then called jazz rock, later fusion. He also tells personal stories about the music industry, which confirms that the record executives and produces have always treated artists as garbage.

But the book is also so much more. It paints an historical portrait of New York City and particularly Greenwich Village where he was born in 1942 and lived most of his life. He had a colorful family (to say the least). His father, William Steig, a cartoonist, created the character Shrek! His mother was an artist and his aunt was Margaret Mead.

Jeremy tells the story of how things changed and mostly not for the better. The days of safe and friendly streets lined with coffee houses where live music was played were replaced by crack dealers. Little by little most of the lively culture scene died out.

Jeremy Steig was a very important person for me personally. Since I was a teenager and an aspiring flutist, I listened to his records and admired his creativity, and the novel music he made inspired me more than most. From 2004 to 2009 Jeremy played regularly at the Cornelia Street Cafe in West Village. That’s when I finally got to meet him and his wife Asako who is from Japan, like my wife Yoko. The four of us once had a delightful dinner in New York.

In 2010 Asako and Jeremy moved to Yokohama in Japan. Finally, he found peace and happiness. Unfortunately, it would not last long enough. The last chapters in the book, the last ones of which are written by Asako, are bittersweet. I have to confess to shedding some tears when I read them.

Adventures in the Aid Trade: Forty Years Practicing Development in Forty Countries, by Richard Holloway

Richard Holloway is a veteran who has worked in the international development business for decades and lived in multiple countries. He’s avoided—mostly successfully—working with large aid organizations (he has worked on some projects funded by the World Bank and DFID) instead preferring to work with people on the ground through a variety of civil society organizations. This book distills his experiences and is intended as advice to young persons embarking on a career in the field. The lessons are valuable and the book is interesting even to someone like me who has had his own four decades in the air trade, albeit mostly at the policy level and not the “coalface” like the author (Holloway’s term).

The book also tells stories from his adventures in Africa, Asia, and the islands of the West Indies and the South Pacific. The chapters are organized in a similar fashion, starting with a description of the country and its situationula and what the author did there; followed by a sections on “What did I learn from the coalface?” and “What happened to it all?” This latter probes into whether anything good stayed after he left; i.e., whether the benefits of the projects he worked on were sustained. The chapters often end with “What were we thinking at the time?” explaining the logic behind the interventions and containing some published resources. Several chapters also have a section on “And on a personal note” which tells about the author’s life (and in later chapters that of his wife who made her own career mostly in UNICEF) in the countries through illustrating and sometimes amusing anecdotes. Richard Holloway is not a particularly eloquent writer. His prose is straightforward and does the job.

Some of the chapters stand out to me. South Sudan’s civil war is nowadays often in the news (although not as often as it would deserve to be). Holloway worked there in 1973-75, before the current troubles started, although their roots can be detected already then. He worked extensive periods in Bangladesh (1989-1995) and especially in Indonesia (1979-84 and 1999-2004). This latter also included work in Timor Leste as it became independent from Indonesia after a brutal war. His description of the gradual shift from emergency relief to long-term development with an emphasis on human rights is enlightening with a description of the complex socio-political situation in the new island nation.

To me, perhaps the most interesting section pertains to Myanmar (2015-16) and the travails of working in an ethnically divided country ruled by a violent junta. The latest of the many coups d’état there took place in 2021.

Several important themes arise. One of them is corruption, which is a way of life in many of the countries in the global South. Another is the frequent tension between civil society and the government. Holloway emphasizes the need for aid and development workers to thoroughly understand the places they work in. He urges aspiring development workers to start by being sociologists or anthropologists, understand the history, and to learn the local languages to the extent possible. Development must reflect the needs and aspirations of the people on the ground. It is very important to understand the people’s livelihoods to be able to support their own development efforts.<br />

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Evidence for Hope -- A Review

This is an interesting and quite original book. The topic isvery important, given the two crises facing humanity today: thoseof environmental sustainability (or lack thereof) and misinformation /disinformation. Rob van den Berg, the former director of evaluation at theGlobal Environment Facility and, before that the Netherlands government,tackles these interconnected challenges from a personal perspective. Anchoredin an understanding of philosophical traditions, he emphasizes the importanceof worldviews to how evidence is perceived. A historian by training, van denBerg explores the historical roots of such worldviews and how theunderstanding of what constitutes evidence has evolved from religious texts toscience to more heterodox views.

He identifies four worldviews that are prevalent today andhow they view evidence. These are: sustainable economic growth; social andeconomic interactions; social, economic and environmental sustainability; andpopulism, patriotism and conspiracies. He points out that “detachment fromevidence may be a contributing factor to our failures to reign in conspiracytheories and/or racist inspired theories of our world” (p. 4).

Van den Berg defines evidence as consisting of observations,explanation, and expectations. He points out that data and observations per sedo not constitute evidence. Explanation is based on theories of what theobservations tell us. As for expectations, “(I)f we have credible observationsthat are explained by a credible theory, we can verify that the observationsand explanations are correct, by making a hypothesis on what we would observein the future” (p. 33). Evidence is thus the well-considered and reasonedjudgement of the above three.

He is not afraid of expressing controversial views (in thebiography at the end of the book he states that he prides himself on"independence of mind"). A main target is the mechanistic perspectiveadopted by many scientists. He critiques medical science that relies onrandomized controlled trials as the only method for testing and approvingmedicines and treatments (recognizing the commercial interests of thepharmaceutical industry)—and the evaluators who have embraced RTCs as a “goldstandard.” He is equally critical of physicists who focus on sub-atomic leveland extrapolate these rules to human behavior (he does find some consolation inphysics that recognizes the interconnectedness of all things). The strongestarguments are contained in the chapters on causality (9-10). He takes a systemsperspective, arguing that higher level systems behave in non-linear ways andhuman actions are intentional and informed by our own will, rather thanpredetermined by molecular interactions. 

While causality has fallen out of favor among some physicalscientists, the author makes a strong case for the importance of causality inthe real world. It is also essential for the applied science and practice ofevaluation (as well as policy in general). His argument is that “If we want tobe successful in dealing with the sustainability crises, we need to agree onthe meaning of causality, and how it helps us get out of the hole we dug forourselves and our societies and this planet” (p. 179) and that “causality is akey ingredient to come to action based on reasoned judgements of evidence” (pp.193-194). However, causality in real life is rarely linear: it is nearly alwayscomposite and very often complex. Two further concepts that emerge as importantrefer to blocked causality (in essence, barriers to change) and catalyticcausality. Two chapters (10 & 11) focus on systems, including causality fortransformational change and how to transform systems.

While environmental, social and economic sustainability is aconstant backdrop to the book, it is in the last few chapters where it takescenter stage. The penultimate chapter (12) focuses on action fortransformational change based on evidence. Referring to the title of the book,the author outlines what he calls “evidence for despair” before moving to“evidence for hope.” He draws primarily from the fast advancements in energygeneration and storage, and their catalytic impact. He also cites his ownexperiences, including with the Transformational Change Learning Partnership ofthe Climate Investment Funds. The author remains critical of the orthodoxeconomics worldview but he also thinks of ways of harvesting this kind ofthinking for transformation. One such way pertains to how market forces areharnessed for the energy transition. He points out that, contrary to themisinformation supplied by the fossil fuel companies and their allies,renewable energy is actually getting cheaper than the traditional alternatives,which will make market transformation inevitable. He calls for thesystematization of knowledge into an easily accessible repository, thus turning“a mountain of evidence” into “a fountain of knowledge” (pp. 264-267).

Rob van den Berg is ultimately an optimist. At no pointminimizing the challenges we face, he still concludes that the world is on theverge of a sustainability revolution—in fact, it is the only option forhumanity. Refreshingly, he notes that many climate activists argue that “humanityneeds to scale down, needs to live close to nature, needs to become sober, needsto return to living off the land, needs to stop consuming and so on” (p. 276).However, their approach would basically doom humanity to poverty and scarcity.According to van den Berg, renewable sources have the potential to provideenough energy for all of us not needing to sacrifice our comforts. “The ThirdEnergy Revolution has barely started but shows huge promise!” (p. 278).

Rob van den Berg is extremely well-read in a wide variety ofsubjects and disciplines, citing equally from philosophical and historicaltracts, as well as texts concerning economics and the environment. This alonemakes his line of argumentation compelling and fascinating. Despite the heavycontent, the book is an easy read. This is largely because of Rob’s writingstyle, which is quite conversational, drawing on his personal experiences andemphasizing his own viewpoints.

Highly recommended to people from a variety of backgrounds—anda variety of worldviews—this is an important contribution towards how weunderstand evidence and causality, and how we can all contribute to asustainability transition.

Exploring Miyagi Wetlands

All photos by the author
The wind was blowing hard across the open flat space as wearrived at Izu-numa. All boats had been stranded and moored by the lakeside. Thiswas a disappointment but understandable. I could see the bamboo thickets on thenorthern side of the lake bending in the wind while hawks soared above takingadvantage of the lift provided by the airflow.

Izu-numa is one of the wetlands in Miyagi Prefecture ofJapan, designated as a Ramsar Site. It’s located north of the prefecturalcapital of Sendai, which received some international fame during the 2011earthquake and tsunami that killed thousands of people and led to a partialmeltdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant. We had arrived from the oppositedirection, from Oshu in Iwate Prefecture just some 100 km further north on theJapanese mainland. I was traveling with a small group of friends from Oshu intheir van.

Instead of getting on a boat, we walked around the shorewhere the lake gave way, first, to a carpet of water lilies, then a brush ofreeds growing in the soft, muddy soil. Some birds, including a couple of egretswith their wings shiny white under the summer sun, took of from the undergrowthas they detected our approaching steps. The whole landscape was deep greenagainst a blue sky on which fluffy cumulus clouds traveled fast driven by thewind.

The lake, although shallow – 1.6 meters at its deepest point– is very rich in biodiversity. There are 40 fish species that have beenidentified in the lake. That is many more than in most freshwater lakes orponds. Several of these fishes belong to the family of carps. The lake and thesurrounding wetland is one of the most important wintering locations for birds,such as whooper swans, in Japan. It is estimated that 90 percent of the greaterwhite-fronted geese traversing Japan stop at the lake. All of 236 bird specieshave been identified in the area. The wetland is also well-known for its insectlife, especially that of dragonflies. For all these reasons, the Isu-numa –Uchi-numa wetland complex was the second in Japan to be designated a Ramsarsite in 1985, just after the Kushiro wetlands in Hokkaido. Wetlands are amongthe most productive and biologically rich ecosystems in the world. As such,they are also essential for human well-being.

After spending time on the lake shores, we entered thewell-equipped Sanctuary Center on a knoll just above the wetland. Operated bythe Miyagi Prefectural Izunuma-Uchinuma Environmental Foundation, the modernbuilding is designed to resemble a white swan spreading its wings. Despite itssize, it fits well into the landscape, with large panoramic windows overlookingthe natural area. The Foundation engages in conservation, information andresearch work. The exhibits in the two-story hall were very interesting.Luckily for me, there was a staff member who was delighted to explain some ofit in fluent English to me.

The Ramsar Convention was adopted in 1971 and came intoforce in 1975. It is thus one of oldest modern international environmentalagreements. Its official name is the Convention on Wetlands and it provides aninternational framework for the conservation and wise use of these productivelandscapes that are extremely important for the preservation of biologicaldiversity, water and other assets that are essential for the survival of ourspecies. Ramsar is a city in Iran where the agreement was created. Since then,almost nine-tenths of the world’s countries have become “contracting parties”to the Convention. The United States has been a member since 1986 and boasts 41Ramsar sites, ranging from the Aleutian Islands and Hawaii to all over thecontinental lower 48 states.

Japan joined in 1980 and has all of 53 Ramsar sites, againranging from Hokkaido in the north to Okinawa in the south. Six of the sitesare in the Tohoku region, which comprises the northern segment of the mainisland, Honshu. 

These include the Izu-numa and Uchi-numa National WildlifeProtection Area and Nature Protection Area covering 559 ha. Izu-numa and Uchi-numaare two interconnected freshwater lakes and their surrounding peat swamps inthe In the Hasama River basin. Outside of the protected area, agriculture andespecially rice cultivation prevails. The Hasama itself is a tributary of theKitakamigawa, the largest river in northern Japan and one of my absolutefavorites in the world, flowing from its origins at Mt. Nanashigure through Iwateand Miyagi prefectures until it reaches the Pacific Ocean. 

The two lakes and wetlands have extensive reed beds and arecharacterized by submerged vegetation, including water lilies. The alluvialplain is also one of the very few locations in Japan where wild rice grows,providing important nutrition to visiting waterfowl. Numerous species ofAnatidae — ducks, geese, swans and related water birds — winter in the Izu-numa/ Uchi-numa area. Already in 1967, the Government of Japan designated the area’sbirdlife and habitat as a National Monument. One of the curiosities thatdemonstrates the closeness of the Japanese people and nation to nature is thedesignation of national soundscapes. In 1996, the call of the greaterwhite-fronted goose (Anser albifrons) was selected as one of the 100Soundscapes of Japan by the MInistry of Environment (in another blog, Imentioned that the wind chimes at Mizusawa train station are also designated assuch). 

Current Ramsar-related research in the area focuses on thedeclining growth of wild rice and the wintering bird populations. Some ofthis research – and conservation action – is conducted by the Izunuma-UchinumaEnvironmental Foundation, which engages in prevention of further shallowing ofthe lakes, eradication of harmful invasive species (like the largemouth bass),planting wild rice, and clearing excessive reed beds.

Leaving Izu-numa and its excellent information center, wecircled the lake by its eastern end, exiting the nature protection area. Ournext destination was Naga-numa, another shallow lake of similar size and oblongshape. It is located about 10 km southeast of Izu-numa and Uchi-numa in thetown of Tome.  At the entrance to thelake there is a park, Naganuma Futopia Park, with its landmark Dutch windmillerected in 1991.

Luckily for us, the wind had abated and we were able to finda boater who would take us on the lake. We entered the small vessel coveredwith a canopy made of reeds. Even more than Izu-numa, Naga-numa was almostentirely covered by water lilies, except for two open water areas, in front ofthe small boat harbor and the center of the lake. The local boatmanexplained that this summer there were more water lilies than ever in the pastdecade.

Traversing the water lily beds, the boat gained speedentering the open water until we reached the other side of the lake where thelilies floated thick in a wide stretch. We lingered a good while, floatingamongst the beautiful red flowers and large green leaves. The day was hot and sunnybut there was a cooling breeze on the water. I felt very calm and satisfiedwith our outing in the beautiful and unique nature.

My friends taking a selfie among the Lotus

I want a world where evidence counts

Today’s world is not my kind of place. I want to live in arational world where intelligent women and men debate ideas in a reasoned wayand in which they make decisions based on evidence: scientific evidence,evaluative evidence, evidence based on analyzing facts and past experiences. Aworld where emotions and feelings have a role but they don’t replace knowledge.Instead, they help us define the goals about what kind of future we want. In mypreferred world, the women and men – all of us – who look at data and thinkabout how we got here, and which way we should go next and how to get there,are educated and cultured. They know history and they understand culture.

We will still disagree with each other, as we come fromdifferent backgrounds and we have had different experiences that have shapedour worldview. We can disagree on issues of societal importance: Where shall weplace our limited resources? What is the right level of government involvementin the economy? How large income differences can we tolerate? How should wepunish offenders? How much immigration is good? We can debate all these importantpolicy matters in a civilized manner, and evidence of what actually brings ustowards our policy goals will inform our decision-making.

There is no one great truth. Intelligent, thoughtful peoplecan arrive at very different conclusions. Furthermore, the devil is often inthe details. The answer is seldom, if ever, all or nothing. For example, ineducation, as MatthewYglesias points out on Substack, there are “tradeoffs between cultivatingthe performance of the strongest students and shoring up the performances ofthe weakest ones.” The trick here, as in most policy matters, is to calibratethe policies so that they produce an optimal outcome in terms of encouragingthe best students to excel without creating excessive inequalities. There areempirical ways of finding that sweet spot.

There, nevertheless, are truths that are fixed: the Earth isnot flat; dinosaurs did not roam around with cavemen; gravity causes light tobend; emitting CO2 and methane into the atmosphere warms up globalclimate. Journalists who present “both sides of the story” in the name ofevenhandedness when one side represents an obvious falsehood do a greatdisservice. People are entitled to their opinions but if someone claimssomething that is patently false – like, the world was created 5,000 years ago– they are dismissed as a crank. People worship thousands of different gods andan increasing number of us are at the very least agnostic about the existenceof even one. Yet, every believer also believes that believing in their god andworshipping him or her exactly the way prescribed by their religion is the onlyway to heaven, while others are sent to eternal damnation. Going to war orkilling each other based on religious differences may be the most irrationalthing humans engage in.

Today, identity politics seem to rule. It is somewhat ironicthat the origin of identity politics is at the Right end of the spectrum (thewhite supremacists with their “great replacement theory”), but it has now beenowned by the progressive Left – and for them, the identity that overwhelmseverything else is race. Well, we know, of course, that the continuum, ratherthan a straight line, is circular and the opposite ends eventually meet. Humansnaturally have multiple identities. I personally don’t think of myselfprimarily as white or even a man. I am also a father and a husband in amulti-cultural and multi-racial family, a son of my parents (who both have left us), a Finn, a European and animmigrant, speaker of a minority language, a jazz afficionado, anenvironmentalist, a culinarist, etc. etc. The notion of reducing everything torace (and gender) is plain insulting. Not to mention intellectually lazy,especially in a world where a steadily increasing proportion of people defysimple racial categories. Like my own daughter. Yet, now we see segregationagain, this time voluntarily initiated by some colored persons, including at someuniversities. What would Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. think? His goal was acolorblind society where every human is judged by their character, not by thecolor of their skin. Or Nelson Mandela who prioritized peaceful coexistence andforgiveness over revenge and mayhem?

The preposterous ”great replacement theory” assumes a wideconspiracy whereby Jews and liberal elites are intentionally promotingimmigration (illegal and otherwise) of colored non-Christian people to Americaand Europe so that whites would become a minority. Conspiracies tend to be generallyimplausible because they assume that, well, large numbers of people actuallyconspire towards some nefarious goal – and no-one ever spills the beans. Thisdoesn’t mean that conspiracies are non-existent. But many of the conspiracytheories going around sound like they came from a 1950s B-list horror-movie,like the one about elites actually smuggling children whom they would eat at asecret basement of a pizzeria in Washington, DC (coincidentally, a pizzeriathat I and my family have personally frequented). In an election year, therehave been congressional efforts to solve the immigration crisis at the southernborder of the USA, but a certain group of rightwing representatives has blockedany solution or compromise because they want to use the administration’sinability to deal with illegal immigration as an election trump card (on June4, President Joe Biden used executive authority to impose new restrictions onillegal immigration). If that’s a conspiracy – and maybe it is – it certainlyisn’t a secret one. Cynical it is: to prevent a solution to a problem thatranks high on people’s list of worries just so you can paint your opponent asincapable.

The debate on the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic providesanother example of the politicization of an issue that should be evidence-based.While both theories of a natural origin and a lab leak are plausible, there iscompelling evidence that would point to the latter (the principle of Occam’srazor would strongly favor a lab leak). Yet, in the US congress the issue hasbecome sharply divisive along party lines. Despite scientificevidence, the Democrats flatly refuse even to consider the possibility of alab leak, apparently fearing that it would further erode trust in thegovernment and the scientific community.

The cynicism of politicians breeds cynicism among regularpeople. If we are concerned about democracy, we should fight cynicism, whichmakes people feel that their actions – or voting – have no influence onanything. Cynicism’s sibling, sarcasm, is an unhelpful attempt at humor but itseems to be the dominant form now.

I believe that a key to the gridlock on many fronts would beplacing evidence in its rightful place. Evidence comes from a variety ofsources and in different shapes. However, it is not evidence just because it’swritten in a book that some consider holy. Nor is it evidence if it simply is basedon some person’s feelings. We know that in a criminal court, the rules ofevidence are stringent. Prosecutors must present the evidence in a systematicway so as to convince the judge and the jury that there is no reasonable doubtof a person’s guilt. The system is not infallible but, as a rule, no singlepiece of evidence alone is sufficient to convict a person. And when newevidence – or better methods of discovering evidence – is presented, this willbe weighed against the previous verdict. This is pretty much how science worksas well. Scientists use the best available methods, considering all possiblefactors and alternative explanations, to home in on the theory that best standsup to scrutiny – convincing the peer reviewers and the broader scientificcommunity is a bit like convincing the jury of your peers – until somethingcomes along that calls for rethinking or refining the theory.

Evaluative evidence equally draws upon multiple sources ofinformation using multiple methods. Some methods – like randomized controlledtrials – have been borrowed from medicine but they are by no means the only, oreven the best, source of evidence. Apart from quantitative methods, there arequalitative approaches that can be equally rigorous. Participatory approachesengage the claimholders and intended beneficiaries, so that their experiences weighin on the assessment (again, the experience of a single individual does notconstitute evidence and it’s important to recognize that different groups ofpeople may win or lose and have different priorities and expectations in thefirst place). We need what MichaelQuinn Patton has called bricolage, a full set of approaches andmethods from which to select the most appropriate for each question to beanswered.

One of the founders of the discipline of evaluation, theAmerican psychologist and methodologist Donald T. Campbell (1916-1986) wishedfor a society that would be guided by evidence. Policies would be developed onthe basis of what works, instead of political convictions. This vision maynever come to pass – and maybe that’s a good thing, as we do need a healthydebate on the goals that we would like to advance as a society. However, todaywe seem to be further away from this vision than in a long while. Not only is trustin science and expertise at an extraordinarily low level, we don’t even want tohear any opinion or counterargument that contradicts our deep-seated beliefs. Onboth the Left and the Right there are efforts to silence, sometimes violently,voices that do not conform with their worldview.

This is a sad state of affairs. Without a reasoned,evidence-based debate society will not be able to advance.

The High Death-toll of American Traffic

Earlier this year, my wife witnessed a pedestrian being hitby a car on our city street in Maryland. It wasn’t tragic and no-one got badlyhurt but the event was in some ways enlightening. There’s a four-way crossingwith a bit complicated arrangement for the traffic lights. There’s a momentwhen all lights are red, both for cars and pedestrians, from all directions. Thisgives pedestrians the temptation to start crossing just when one of the lightsfor cars turns green. This is what happened this time around, too: a motherwith a young daughter made the wrong decision to start crossing just when thedriver saw it was her turn. The driver was in hospital scrubs, perhaps a doctoron her way to work, given that she was driving a Mercedes. She bumped lightlyinto the mother who fell, but quickly got up. Nevertheless, the police arriveda few minutes later. 

The New York Times did a widely publicized study a couple ofmonths back about pedestrian deaths in the USA going up. They found that in1980, pedestrian deaths in the US started to decline sharply, but three decadeslater this trend was reversed and has been going up since then. In thisrespect, the US is bucking the international trend of declining accidentsinvolving pedestrians.

When it comes to overall traffic deaths (not onlypedestrians), deaths per capita and per distance driven are highest in Africa.However, the US is an anomaly when it comes to advanced industrial societies.In the US, there were 12.9 traffic deaths per 100,000 people. This comparesunfavorably with all European countries (e.g., in the UK, the number is 2.9; inFinland 3.8; in France 5.0; and in Sweden only 2.2), Australia (4.1) and Japan(2.5). Now, especially if you’re American, you would retort that Americansdrive more. But the ratio remains even if compared with distances driven: USA 8.3deaths per 1 billion vehicle-kilometers vs. 5.2 in Australia, 5.1 in Finland,5.8 in France, 4.4 in Japan, 3.3 in Sweden, and 3.8 in the UK. By any measure,thus, traffic is more deadly in the US than in peer countries.

In 2021, 7,300 pedestrians died in the USA, three-quartersof them at nighttime. The NYT article put forth a number of reasons why this was happening. One reason is that speedlimits on local roads in the US are often higher than in other countries. Anotherobvious one is that American infrastructure was built for cars, as opposed tocountries where cities predate cars. NYT also suggests that US laws andcultural norms don’t penalize dangerous driving.

An important factor identified by the Times reporter, whichalso coincides perfectly with the timing of increased pedestrian deaths about15 years ago, is the prevalence of smartphones. In the same period, cardashboards and control systems have become more complicated, especially withthe rise of hybrid and electric vehicles. Both of these factors mean thatdrivers can become quite distracted fiddling with their electronic screens. Imight add to the technological factor that cars have also become more quietmaking their approach less obvious to pedestrians.

Each of these reasons is a likely partial explanation. I’dlike to focus on the cultural dimension.

The Times article points out that there has been ageographical and demographic shift where more people have moved to the sunbeltin the south where urbanization came later and roads and cities were built particularlyfor cars. Data show that in the older cities (like New York City or Chicago),pedestrian deaths have actually fallen but they have risen steeply in suburbswhere sidewalks and public transit options are lacking. This is combined withthe “suburbanization of poverty” whereby poorer people and immigrants oftenhave been pushed out from city centers and have to walk along big roads to getto work. They also often have to walk during dark hours when they are hard tospot.

A friend of mine lives in a Virginia suburb not far from thecapital. Their community is intersected by a big road on which speeds are oftenquite fast. As there is perhaps a kilometer between the traffic lights wherepedestrians can cross, the residents petitioned the county to establish anotherpedestrian crossing between the two existing ones. The county sheriff didn’tallow this on the grounds that it would “encourage risky behavior bypedestrians.” Crossing the street on foot in one’s own neighborhood to reachshops and services is considered too risky and inconveniencing drivers.

But even in urban areas like ours where sidewalks exist andwalking is common, the general mindset is that cars go first. Might makesright. This is the polar opposite of how things are seen in Europe wherepedestrians in cities always have the right of way. I remember decades ago whenI was attending driving school in Helsinki, I got slammed by the instructor forthe fact that I only slowed down to let a pedestrian cross the road, instead ofstopping fully. (That is another difference: In the US, few people ever go todriving school. They just learn with an older family member, then go to the departmentof motor vehicles and take a multiple choice test. Consequently, many driversnever internalize the rules of traffic.) Irrespective of the speed limit, inplaces like Finland the authorities judge that your situational speed was toohigh if you were not able to stop before hitting a pedestrian. You will getfined for that. Here it is not so. Cars drive fast, are hard and heavy, andtherefore you have to give them way.

There’s a traffic rule that is uniquely American: the rightto make a right turn against a red light. I’ve heard men say how great this isbecause it gives so much flexibility and reduces wait times. However, the rule iswidely abused and few drivers remember that it still means that you’ll firsthave to stop at the red light to see whether there’s anyone coming from theleft. Instead, people often just turn into the middle of a stream of carsforcing others to give way, as if it were the birth right of the person comingfrom behind the red light. At busy intersections there are “no turn on red”signs and even traffic light arrows that turn red, but these have little or noimpact on many drivers. Needless to say, if there’s a pedestrian or a biker withthe right of way, such drivers couldn’t be bothered to watch out for them. A formerbiking colleague of mine has been knocked over at least twice by drivers who didn’trecognize the equal rights of a bicycle on the street.

I remember years ago when living in Brooklyn, NY – another urbanarea with proper sidewalks where people walk everywhere – I was walking homefrom the subway. I was crossing at a zebra crossing in the same direction I waswalking when a car turned right and almost hit me. The driver, a young white hipster-lookingfellow, screamed at me from his window: “Watch out! If I wasn’t payingattention, you’d be dead.” I guess I should be happy that he was payingattention while speeding through a city block in his metal box (even if it wasa Mini).

Another factor also identified by the NYT research is thatAmericans drive extraordinarily large vehicles and that their size has been steadilygrowing in the past 15 years. As cars get larger and heavier they also becomefar deadlier to those they hit. Furthermore, they have longer brake distancesand are harder to handle. Even in the city where there can be no need for sucha large vehicle, I often observe soccer moms driving a massive Chevy Suburban orFord Expedition. It’s often hard to even detect a small lady from the cockpitof the truck.

In 2023, the list of best selling cars, trucks and SUVs inthe USA was topped by three massive trucks: Ford F-series, Chevy Silverado andDodge Ram pickup (weighing between 1,800 and 3,100 kg). In Finland, in contrast, the top-3 the year before were ToyotaYaris, Toyota Corolla and Toyota RAV4; the two first ones being small compactcars (489-710 kg). A friend of mine who moved back to the Netherlands from Washington, DC,decided to sell his Prius because in his country it was consideredunnecessarily large.

I claim that this trend towards larger and larger vehiclesis also culturally determined. It sits well with the American image of afrontier man or woman, ploughing his own way forward irrespective of what orwho comes in their way.

At the risk of stereotyping, there are certain kinds ofdrivers that may be more aggressive than average. One category consists ofpeople driving luxury vehicles, possibly because such persons may feel entitledor just want to show off. There is some evidence for this. A research teamsupported by the Academy of Finland found that there are two types of peoplewho drive what they called “high-status” cars: disagreeable men and conscientiouspeople.(Their research was published in the peer reviewed International Journal ofPsychology with subtle title, Not only assholes drive Mercedes.)  Even after controlling for wealth, these two characteristicsstood out in statistically significant form. The researchers, led by Prof. JanErik Lönnqvist, concluded that “certain personality traits, such as lowagreeableness, may be associated with both unethical driving behaviour and withdriving a high-status car.”

This research is in a way confirmed in a 2023 report by aFinnish insurance company that found that BMWs and Audis top the list of carsthat are involved in traffic accidents in Finland, with over 20% more accidentscompared with other car brands. When it comes to collissions with animals (Finlandhas a lot of deer and other wildlife right outside of cities), BMWs are theunfortunate leaders, while Audis come second in this dubious list with 15% lesscollisions.

I also suspect a general American characteristic, which maybe a trait stemming all the way from the kinds of immigrants this countryattracted hundreds of years ago. The Europeans who voluntarily moved to the NewContinent were not a random selection of Europeans. No, there was a preselectionof people who were individualistic risk takers seeking their fortunes on thenew frontier. While many were forced to leave due to food shortages caused bybad harvest, many were escaping established hierarchies back home, some beingmisfits in the more staid European societies. Even today, the USA is known forits emphasis on individual action and a me-first attitude. This may haveproduced many good things along the way, but when it comes to traffic behaviorit does not emphasize safety. In fact, incidents of aggression, even road rageare a regular feature when driving in the States.

This cultural trait also makes Americans overall a veryimpatient lot. Drivers feel certain of their own rights. Bikers think thattraffic rules don’t apply to them, so they seldom stop at red lights and feelfree to ride against the traffic on one-way streets or jump on the sidewalkwhen convenient. For most pedestrians, it seems to be psychologically impossibleto wait for the light to turn green. This impatience and sense of entitlementappears to have been the cause of the accident that my wife witnessed, when amother and daughter ran against the red light just as an impatient driverstepped on the gas.