Links 5/8/15

Politics: 

This is haunting: climate scientists, hounded by right-wing media, know how dire the situation is, but decide to talk about it less and less. 

The other topic [Jason Box] is obsessed with is the human suffering to come. Long before the rising waters from Greenland's glaciers displace the desperate millions, he says more than once, we will face drought-triggered agricultural failures and water-security issues—in fact, it's already happening. Think back to the 2010 Russian heat wave. Moscow halted grain exports. At the peak of the Australian drought, food prices spiked. The Arab Spring started with food protests, the self-immolation of the vegetable vendor in Tunisia. The Syrian conflict was preceded by four years of drought. Same with Darfur. The migrants are already starting to stream north across the sea—just yesterday, eight hundred of them died when their boat capsized—and the Europeans are arguing about what to do with them. "As the Pentagon says, climate change is a conflict multiplier." 

Esquire: When the End of Human Civilization Is Your Day Job, July 7, 2015

What are the implications of ISIS calling itself a state? Turkey, while fighting against Kurdish forces, is now also allowing the US and its allies to establish bases in Turkey in their fight against Islamic State. Jadaliyya outlines three theses on ISIS that are prominent in the media. 

Rolling Stone on the infrastructure in Baltimore that covers up police violence: 

This system, now standard in almost all of urban America, is Mayberry on one side and trending Moscow or 1980s South Africa on the other. Why? Because America loves to lie to itself about race. It's able to do so for many reasons, including the little-discussed fact that most white people have literally no social interactions with black people, so they don't hear about this every day.

Police brutality is tough to talk about because white and black America see the issue so differently, with white Americans still overwhelmingly supportive and trustful of law enforcement. But the current controversy is as much about how modern law-enforcement practices have ruined the job of policing as it is about racism. There are plenty of good cops out there, but the way policing works in cities like Baltimore, the bad ones can thrive. And disasters aren't just more likely, they're inevitable. 

Rolling Stone: Why Baltimore Blew Up, May 26, 2015

35 women tell their stories about being assaulted by Bill Cosby. 

Even though a 3D printer has just manufactured a medical drug, there are still many unresolved issues when it comes to time and the number of materials they can use.

China is building islands in the South China sea. 

More on how you can't shop your way to a fairer world: buying TOMS isn't really helping: "The message of TOMS-style giving is that it’s fine for you to make the decision about what the recipient needs, because you (and by extension, TOMS) are smart and know what’s best. That’s an appealing message, because it carries all kinds of really flattering implications about how clever and responsible you are, and it puts you in control. But research very strongly suggests that in addition to being condescending, it’s a bad way to run an aid program."

Current political culture and dialogue in Hungary is terrible and disappointing. 

Orbán’s disavowal of multiculturalism (“Hungary has never been multicultural” he also stated, “We consider it a value that Hungary is a homogenous country”) and his positioning of the average Hungarian as a monocultural drone are disturbing as he negates the (albeit turbulent) multicultural and intellectual history of Hungary. Hungary, just as other nation states in the region – such as Austria and the Czech Republic - have not always presented themselves as ‘pure’ cultural and linguistic nations. In fact, the multiculturalism of the Habsburg Empire that once encompassed the region was the norm, and there is renewed interest in how pluralist approaches to diversity were pursued and what we can learn from them in present day Europe. 

openDemocracy: Hungary's future: anti-immigration, anti-multiculturalism and anti-Roma?, August 4, 2015

Australia sends gay asylum seekers to Papua New Guinea, where consensual sex between gay men is illegal.

The complex process for determining sexuality-based refugee claims is made infinitely more challenging because PNG criminalises conduct which may need to be disclosed in the course of substantiating such claim. Same-sex attracted asylum seekers sent to PNG for processing are caught in a catch-22 situation. Those who wish to make a claim for refugee status on the basis of their sexual orientation need to disclose it. However they face the possibility of discrimination and persecution under PNG’s laws if they do so.  

openDemocracy: Australia's cruel treatment of gay asylum-seekers, July 31, 2015

Talks for the Trans-Pacific Partnership are slowly ambling along.

Europe wants to become the world's leading tech power. 

Joe Biden is considering running for President. 

Pop Culture: 

An interview with Nina Hoss about her role in Christian Petzold's Phoenix. 

An interview with Sarah Jeong in The Toast, on her book The Internet of Garbage.