The Economist

Will you be eating insects soon?

Jon Fasman

Facing a global population surge toward 10 billion, companies like Madagascar's Valala Farms and Canada's Aspire are scaling cricket protein production to provide a sustainable, high-efficiency alternative to traditional livestock. Driven by significant environmental benefits, such as reduced land use and carbon emissions, and supported by regulatory approvals in the EU and US markets, these initiatives aim to transform insect farming into a self-optimizing industry capable of meeting massive commercial demand.

China and Russia: MI6’s top concerns

Richard Moore, shashank joshi

MI6 Chief Richard Moore signaled a strategic realignment for the intelligence service by publicly prioritizing the challenge of China's rise, particularly its access to global data streams which threatens UK sovereignty and artificial intelligence development. Distinguishing this systemic digital threat from traditional Russian kinetic aggression, Moore outlined a dual-track approach to maintain cooperation on global issues while defending British values against authoritarian influence. Simultaneously, he addressed the Ukraine conflict, asserting that Russia's invasion would incur severe economic costs and that Ukraine is now better positioned to resist than in 2014.

Dead zones: how chemical pollution is suffocating the sea

Denise Breitberg, Ben Dwyer, Peter Thomas, Kate

Global ocean dead zones are expanding rapidly due to nutrient pollution and rising temperatures, causing massive marine mortality and creating a climate feedback loop through nitrous oxide emissions. While the Gulf of Marmara and the Gulf of Mexico face severe ecological and economic crises, Minnesota's adoption of precision farming and conservation incentives has demonstrated that reducing agricultural runoff is both financially viable and environmentally effective. Despite these proven solutions, widespread implementation remains stalled by cultural resistance, prompting the Economist Group to call for urgent government bans on raw sewage and structural reforms to agricultural practices.

What will China do in 2022?

Ed, Zannie

Xi Jinping is positioning himself for a historic third term by centralizing party power through aggressive regulatory crackdowns on the private sector and strict domestic control, which he sustains amidst rising nationalism despite ongoing human rights controversies. This consolidation coincides with a shift toward international assertiveness and a managed geopolitical standoff with the United States, where deep economic interdependence complicates traditional Cold War narratives. As tensions regarding Taiwan remain high with a significant risk of conflict within the next decade, the strategic dilemma for the Biden administration involves balancing firm security guarantees against the potential for destabilizing Asian alliances.

The World Ahead 2022: five stories to watch out for

Major geopolitical and economic trends in 2022 include China's consolidation of power under Xi Jinping amidst US electoral shifts, alongside a global labor realignment driven by divergent preferences for hybrid work models. Simultaneously, technology sectors are racing to monetize the metaverse through massive corporate investments in virtual collaboration and entertainment, while the fashion industry leverages cultural momentum to elevate African designers into global markets. These developments converge with a renewed space race where geopolitical rivals and commercial entities compete to establish infrastructure and dominate tourism, marking a historic transition where civilian travelers outnumber government astronauts.

Green energy: Which sources are the most sustainable?

Vijay Vaitheeswaran

Strategic discussions emphasize that achieving net-zero emissions requires maintaining and expanding nuclear power while addressing political resistance alongside the technical limitations of solar intermittency and high biofuel costs. Global experiments are underway to test hydrogen and multi-season storage solutions to overcome solar distribution losses, while electric vehicles and heat pumps are identified as critical leverage points for decarbonizing transport and buildings. Critics warn that current biofuel subsidies distort food markets, reinforcing the need to prioritize building efficiency and grid decarbonization over agricultural energy production.

Can science help poor kids earn more?

Neuroscience research confirms that long-term child development benefits more from active conversational turns than passive vocabulary exposure, with data-driven "talk pedometer" interventions successfully increasing hourly word counts by 32% to help close the socioeconomic achievement gap. Despite these communication-focused successes, the persistent stagnation of educational disparities has sparked debate over Professor Catherine Page Harden's proposal to integrate genetic analysis into school policy for predicting academic outcomes. While proponents argue that genetic testing could enable targeted interventions to improve social mobility, critics warn of historical eugenics parallels and the ethical risks of reinforcing social hierarchies through genetic determinism.

How vegan burgers can help save the planet

Jon Fasman

Global food production now accounts for one-third of greenhouse gas emissions, a trajectory that threatens to exceed climate targets unless current consumption habits shift away from animal agriculture. While plant-based alternatives and emerging cultured meat technologies offer substantial environmental benefits, their widespread adoption is hindered by high costs, limited scalability, and deep-seated consumer resistance to dietary change. Industry experts and researchers argue that bridging this gap requires not only technological innovation but also robust regulatory frameworks to support a just transition for livestock producers.

Why it's harder to earn more than your parents | The Economist

Sophie Pender, Mohsin Ismail, Kavika Smith, Christine, Novelette, Sally Grantham-McGregor, Dawn, Idrees Kahloun

Declining social mobility in the US and UK, driven by rising inequality and educational barriers, has prompted researchers to identify geographic location, early childhood interventions, and state school networks like the "93% Club" as critical levers for reform. Comparative data highlights that while legacy admissions and wealth bias stifle progress in American universities, programs relocating families to high-opportunity areas and reducing SAT reliance have demonstrably increased long-term earnings and tax revenues. These findings suggest that structural changes to education and neighborhood composition offer a fiscally sustainable path to reversing intergenerational income stagnation.

Is it time to go back to the office?

Callum, Vindiru

Post-pandemic tensions between employer mandates and employee demands for remote work have escalated into public conflicts, exemplified by over 1,000 Apple staff signing petitions against a three-day office return. These disagreements are deeply influenced by demographic factors, as Black knowledge workers express a far lower desire for full-time office presence than their white counterparts, raising concerns about retention and diversity. To resolve these disparities and boost efficiency, experts advocate for structured hybrid models that assign deep-focus tasks to remote days and collaborative work to in-office sessions, thereby mitigating unconscious bias in promotion decisions.

How economic policy can help the world recover

The panel assesses that while hyperinflation remains improbable, sustained high inflation and supply chain bottlenecks driven by post-stimulus goods demand are reshaping the global economy. Key risks include a potential Chinese slowdown from compounded shocks and persistent labor shortages fueled by shifting worker priorities, whereas recovery inequalities persist due to disparate vaccine access and stimulus timing. Economic stability ultimately hinges on high vaccination rates decoupling health risks from production, alongside strategic policy shifts toward green infrastructure and carbon pricing to address climate goals.

How to keep cool while the world gets hotter

Sarah El-Batouti, Eleni Miravili, Vijay Vaideswaran

Record-breaking heat waves and a growing reliance on fossil-fuel-powered cooling systems are accelerating a dangerous feedback loop, with global air conditioning usage projected to drive emissions up by 90% by 2050 if left unaddressed. To mitigate this crisis, innovators and policymakers are deploying a mix of passive building designs, natural cooling strategies, and urban greening initiatives in cities like Athens and Cairo to reduce temperatures without exacerbating the problem. Successful long-term outcomes depend on scaling affordable, low-energy technologies globally to ensure developing nations can meet cooling demands while avoiding high-end exclusivity and further environmental degradation.

Russia: how Putin is silencing his opponents

Putin

Following the 2020 attempted assassination of Alexei Navalny, the Russian Kremlin escalated repression by labeling his Anti-Corruption Foundation an extremist organization, resulting in over 11,000 arrests and the criminalization of dissent during the January 2021 protests. The state leveraged a rigged judicial system and pandemic protocols to systematically eliminate opposition figures, ensuring United Russia retained a supermajority that permitted constitutional changes extending Vladimir Putin's rule through 2036. Concurrently, intensified censorship against independent media and a massive political exodus have characterized an environment where economic decline and high fear of violence coexist with a government that prioritizes security spending to maintain a monopoly on power.

Brian Cox: Why Succession struck a chord

Brian Cox, Anne

In *The Economist Asks*, actor Brian Cox analyzes the archetype of Logan Roy from *Succession* as a figure defined by trauma and the universal disappointments of the modern human experiment. Cox connects the show's satirical critique of dynastic power to the contemporary "Trumpy Zeitgeist" while highlighting how the series transcends partisan divides to expose systemic dysfunction in both right-leaning and left-leaning families. Furthermore, the conversation extends to the British acting industry, where Cox argues that current feudal class structures have severely eroded social mobility, threatening to exclude working-class talent from opportunities that were once more accessible.

What does three degrees of global warming look like? | The Economist

A comprehensive analysis by the United Nations and hundreds of scientists projects a one-in-four chance of global temperatures rising three degrees above pre-industrial levels by 2100, a threshold that would trigger catastrophic droughts, extreme heat, and massive sea-level rise. This warming trajectory threatens to displace tens of millions of people annually, specifically exacerbating vulnerabilities among 600 million smallholder farmers, low-lying coastal cities, and populations in the Central American Dry Corridor. To avert such outcomes, experts emphasize the urgent necessity of aggressive mitigation and negative emissions strategies, noting that current policies will likely result in a 16% increase in greenhouse gas emissions by 2030.