Three news stories summarized & contextualized by analytic journalist Colin Wright.
Note: My new book about aging and growing older with intention, How To Turn 39 (https://books2read.com/htt39), is available for pre-sale :)
Fourth global mass coral bleaching episode underway
Summary: Recent record-high ocean temperatures are causing coral around the world to turn white, indicating that these creatures and the ecosystems they support are deteriorating.
Context: This new wave of widespread coral bleaching and subsequent die-offs is the fourth that has been tracked in recent years, and it was initially flagged last year in the Caribbean, but has since been confirmed in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, in the Red Sea and Persian Gulf, and along coastlines in Tanzania, Mauritius, Brazil, and several Pacific Islands; recent record-high oceanic temperatures are partially the consequence of the El Niño phenomenon, which is in the process of retreating over the next few months, and human-amplified climate change, which by all indications is still growing in potency and impact.
—BBC News
Microsoft's new AI play is a $1.5 billion investment in an Abu Dhabi firm with China ties
Summary: Microsoft has announced a $1.5 billion investment in a UAE-based AI company, Group 42 Holdings, or G42, in order to provide enterprise-grade AI services to customers in the Middle East, Central Asia, and Africa.
Context: This is interesting in part because it’s a large investment by Microsoft in a non-Western business, which has been rare in the AI investment race, so far, but it’s also notable because G42 has connections to China’s military, and blacklisted Chinese businesses like Huawei and Beijing Genomics Institute, which has raised concerns in the US House that advanced AI technologies developed by and in partnership with Microsoft could end up in the hands of entities the US government isn’t a big fan of; G42 has denied these China-related allegations, saying they’ve partnered with Chinese companies, but don’t have any deeper ties to China, and Microsoft has said that both they and G42 have developed their working agreement in close consultation with the US and UAE governments.
—Quartz
Greece invests over €2 billion to fight climate change effects
Summary: Greece’s government has announced that it will invest €2.1 billion in the Aegis program, which will provide new and better equipment for wildfire-fighting, including detection and monitoring drones and systems, but also new vehicles and aircraft.
Context: This is the first program of its kind in Greece, and wildfires have become a significant issue for the country over the past few years, burning about 1.3% of its total land area in 2023, alone; Greece’s fire season is also arriving earlier and earlier, historically beginning in May and ending in October, but this year kicking off in late March.
—Bloomberg
We’re broadly expected to be headed out of an especially strong El Niño period and into a La Niña phase within the next few months, which will impact weather patterns globally, and will provide more data about how (and to what degree) these phenomena impact climate models.
—Axios
0.7%
Increase in US retail sales in March, which is more than was expected.
This is being seen as one more data point supporting the assertion that the US economy is surprisingly strong, despite an array of what would typically be downward pressures, and all sorts of concerns related to the upcoming election, geopolitics, and a potential AI investment bubble.
—Reuters
One Sentence News / April 17, 2024