With the fast pace of today’s news cycle it can be hard to know what to pay attention to, and information overload is often the inevitable result. Listed under the categories of Economy, Energy, Environment, Geopolitics and Culture, our selected news highlights bypass celebrity gossip and partisan politics, cutting through the crap to shine the spotlight on the world affairs that affect us most strongly.

The SHIFT team has trawled through hundreds of news sources and stories, turning up our bullshit filter to maximum volume, to bring you December’s and January’s global affairs highlights… 

Economy

Get Ready for another Global Crash

It looks like it’s time to brace ourselves for a return to global recession, with 2014-2015 playing out the script of ’07-’08 with an eerie sense of deja-vu. The myriad reasons for a potential market crash in 2015 are setting the stage for a crisis that could be much worse than the global financial crisis.

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• Ten warning signs of a market crash in 2015
• Five reasons why markets are heading for a crash
• Why the ‘life will go on’ thesis about the global economy might not pass muster in 2015
• Bailouts, bail-ins and the banks: why we can’t afford another financial crisis
• Oil And The Global Slowdown: It’s time for central banks to admit their failures, by Chris Martenson
• Not just oil: Are lower commodity prices here to stay?

Debt-Based Growth Uneconomic

While GDP continues its long-term growth trend, a look inside the figures reveals far more than initially meets the eye: a persistent lack of growth in the ‘real economy’, skyrocketing debt levels that many believe will never be able to be paid off, and rising intergenerational inequality.

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• How the world’s economic growth is actually un-economic
• Pay off our debt? Not likely, say some
• Generation Y have every right to be angry at the baby boomers’ share of wealth

TTIP: Public Opposition Leads to Stalling of Trade Agreement 

The proposed Transatlantic Trade & Investment Partnership (TTIP) has suffered a major setback after its most controversial element has been taken off the negotiating table. Plans to protect foreign investors from decisions by national governments that could interfere with profitability have been scrapped after an unprecedented level of objection in an EU-wide consultation exercise. It is now unlikely that the deal will be finalized this year.    

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• TTIP: Activists triumph as contentious US free trade deal clause suspended
  

Unforseen Setback Demonstrates the Fragility of Economic Systems

The Ebola crisis in West Africa has damaged far more than public health, according to a number of development NGOs in the region. The impact of the crisis has been economic devastation of a region whose development has been slow and fragile due to a history of war and political instability, and due to the diversion of aid money to fight the deadly disease epidemic. 

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• Ebola wrecks years of aid work in worst-hit countries

Energy

Oil Price Shocks set to Wreak Havoc on Global Economy

Dramatic falls in global oil prices are beginning to impact production viability, and companies are buckling under the strain. It is widely predicted that the shock will lead to a long-term sector-wide recession, and will reverberate around the global economy.

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• The Current Oil Crisis Is More Dangerous Than You Think
• This oil thing is the real deal
• Oil prices fall as economics trumps geopolitics
• Oilfield Writedowns Loom as Plummeting Prices Gut Drilling Values
• Oil dips below $49 as sector faces ‘Hunger Games’

A Renewable Energy Revolution?

Google has thrown in the towel on its support for renewable energy, citing financial unviability as its main reason. Google’s green credentials notwithstanding, its admission that renewables cannot compete financially with fossil energy is damning for free-market solutioneering, indicating that strict legislation is the only way to ensure renewable energy uptake.

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• Renewables are not enough
• Google Gives Up On Renewables

Environment

Existential Danger Zone Reached

New studies indicate that we have transgressed four of the nine planetary boundaries that set the parameters for the existence of human life on Earth. The current rate of environmental degradation is now deemed an existential emergency, with human life among those at risk. 

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• Rate of environmental degradation puts life on Earth at risk, say scientists
• Humanity is in the existential danger zone, study confirms

Biodiversity Loss Critical

Animal extinctions are predicted to soar over the coming decades due to climate change as well as numerous other factors. 41% of amphibians are expected to be lost. Legislative safeguards are urgently needed in order to pull biodiversity back from the brink.

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• Animal Extinctions From Climate Rival End of Dinosaurs
• Earth faces sixth ‘great extinction’ with 41% of amphibians set to go the way of the dodo
• 13 species we might have to say goodbye to in 2015
• Another Australian animal slips away to extinction
• Cement company blows up limestone hill and renders snail extinct
• We need a new law to protect our wildlife from critical decline

Health of Oceans under Increased Threat

The world’s oceans are under increased pressure from a range of threats, including CO2 emissions-induced acidification, accumulated plastic waste, and the simple reality of widespread public ignorance as to the importance of healthy oceans. 

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• Ocean Life Faces Mass Extinction, Broad Study Says
• Ocean Acidification Increasing at Unprecedented Rate
• Full scale of plastic in the world’s oceans revealed for first time
• Ningaloo: Australia’s other great barrier reef worth saving

Climate Chaos Continues

Climate change, it seems, is one thing we can be sure will remain consistent for the foreseeable future – consistent in its diabolical instability, that is. The failure of climate talks in Lima is deja-vu all over again, while seafloor methane melt meanders on. Geo-engineering, touted by tech-savvy solutioneers, is predicted to precipitate worse consequences than doing nothing, while eating less meat is a relatively simple measure that gains little traction.     

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• Lima climate summit extended as poor countries demand more from rich
• World set for climate disaster, say activists, as Lima talks falter
• Mysterious Seafloor Methane Begins to Melt Off Washington State Coast
• Geo-engineering: Climate fixes ‘could harm billions’
• Eating less meat essential to curb climate change, says report

Population Matters

Sir David Attenborough has added his voice to the population pragmatists calling for women’s economic emancipation, and political control over their own bodies – in order to help stabilize population at a sustainable level.

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• Sir David Attenborough: Humans may be an endangered species

Geopolitics

The Charlie Hebdo Massacre, in Context

Following the appalling waste of life at satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo’s Paris office on Wednesday 7^th January, the world has been gripped by analysis of everything from freedom of speech, to the question of whether Islam is an inherently violent ideology, to the history of French colonialism in North Africa. Making sense of what happened is not easy, but is aided by good journalism that lends nuance to a context-based analysis of this horrifying example of geopolitical blowback.

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• Blowback in Paris
• Sharpening Contradictions: Why al-Qaeda attacked Satirists in Paris
• A Message From the Dispossessed
• What Radicalized The Charlie Hebdo Terrorists—–Try Abu Ghraib
• Charlie Hebdo attack: this is not a clash of civilisations
• The Paris Mystery: Were the Shooters Part of a Global Terrorist Conspiracy?
• Unmournable Bodies
• Charlie Hebdo, terrorism and the distortion of popular memory
• When ‘free speech’ becomes a kind of fundamentalism
• We can defend Charlie Hebdo without endorsing it

Israel-Palestine Conflict: Update

According to a recent US Army report, extensive US ‘involvement’ “may prove essential in managing possible future conflict” in case of “an eruption of natural resource conflict in the East Mediterranean,” due to huge gas discoveries in recent years. Affected countries include Israel, Palestine, Cyprus, Turkey, Egypt, Syria, and Lebanon. Additionally, Palestinian efforts to hold Israel to account for human rights violations have also borne economic consequences for the impoverished state; Israel has halted transfers of the tax revenue it collects on behalf of the Palestinians, apparently in retaliation for their move to join the international criminal court in the Hague, according to Israeli media.

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• US Army Report Calls for ‘Military Support’ of Israeli Energy Grab
• See report here
• Israel freezes Palestinian tax funds over international criminal court move

Culture

The World According to Women

2014 was the year women’s issues came to the fore, according to apparent trends in mainstream media. The floodgates are finally open, and women’s voices are being amplified like never before, with a consequent backlash from some hardliners within the Men’s Rights movement.

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• Listen up, women are telling their story now
• One in three women have experienced physical or sexual violence from partner: More needs to be done to tackle endemic global violence against women, say papers published in the Lancet

Disclaimer: SHIFT magazine does not take responsibility for the content of any of the articles linked to in our World News Digest. Selection for the Digest does not imply endorsement of any of the positions expressed in any given article.