| | | Good morning! | | The biggest, the most revolutionary scientific advancements, the ones that have the power to change the course of human history, are, almost always, recognised in hindsight. This contemporaneous myopia — I had to struggle to describe it before coming up with the term — is sometimes the result of a lack of awareness; at others, of the hype that usually accompanies anything of any significance these days; but usually, it is caused by the inability to see what lies ahead, to join the dots to a logical, if delayed, denouement. No amount of hyperbole can match what humanity announced on December 13, 2022. WE. HAVE. HARNESSED. THE. POWER. OF. THE. SUN. On that day, scientists at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (of the National Ignition Facility) in California announced a breakthrough in nuclear fusion, the concept that makes the sun and the stars shine, and which, if recreated on Earth, and controlled, and commercialised (do not ignore all these caveats) can be a source of clean, green, and bountiful energy. Fusion isn’t new; nor is the effort to make it work. But, until now, scientists and researchers had faltered in a very fundamental way — the energy needed to create the fusion reactions was always more than the energy they created. Not early in the morning of December 5, though, when 2.05 megajoules of energy went into creating a fusion reaction that generated 3.15 megajoules of energy. Output exceeded input. Fusion works. For a world in desperate search of a scalable, inexpensive, and plentiful option to other sources of energy, this is a breakthrough — although we are at least a decade away from getting fusion to work at scale, and commercially. A decade is actually an aggressive timeline, but we have seen in the case of Covid-19 vaccines what can be achieved if governments, academia, and business give it their all. Will it help us combat the climate crisis? On paper, yes — but much will depend on the urgency with which the world approaches the problem. With Covid-19 vaccines, the stakes were clear, and high — without them it would have been impossible to save lives or restore normalcy, especially in business activities. With climate, I’m not convinced leaders understand the problem. | | THINK  (Source: AP) China’s Covid-19 vaccines, which do not work very well, are part of the reason behind the viral tsunami sweeping through the country right now. That, the infectiousness of the Omicron variant of the virus, and the lack of previous exposure to the virus of much of the country’s population, could mean tens, perhaps hundreds of millions of cases over the next few months. Vaccines reduce severity of illness and deaths — but the cloud over Chinese vaccines means we do not really know what is going to happen in China. This is Xi Jinping’s biggest challenge, the first of his latest term as President, and so far, he isn’t doing very well. Some analysts see this as the reason for Beijing’s aggression along the Line of Actual Control in Arunachal Pradesh — an incursion by PLA aimed at claiming high ground that was repulsed by the Indian Army, with some injuries on both sides. That could well be the case, although the fact that usually hyper-nationalist Chinese media (not that some Indian outlets are not hyper-nationalist) have played down the skirmish points to more proximate triggers. A few Indian military experts believe that the aggression could presage problems in the middle sector (the Ladakh sector has seen a stand-off between the armies of the two countries for 20 months; and the Eastern sector has always been problematic; but the middle one, with better defined lines, has usually been stable). | | THINK MORE The Covid-19 wave in China came after the country abandoned its restrictive Zero Covid policy following widespread protests that were set off, we are told, when people cooped up in their homes saw the huge crowds (minus masks) in stadiums in Qatar where the football World Cup is going on.  (Source: AP) That tournament, which started with upsets of the kind not unknown in the early stages in the history of the World Cup, has since been played to script, and France and Argentina will meet in the final. The French have been quietly efficient, and there is a certain inevitability about how they approach the game now (it is almost as if they know they will win), and they have in their midst, perhaps the best player in the world right now, Kylian Mbappé. The Argentines have been a little more flashy, and their progress has been more staccato, but while other teams have mere players, they have football’s biggest talisman, Lionel Messi. | | KNOW China’s stop-start economy, a direct consequence of its Zero Covid policy, over the past two years is at least in part responsible for supply chain disruptions that have resulted in inflation across the world. The environment for this inflationary cycle was created by the easy-money policies of Western nations that sought to buy their way out of the economic implant of Covid-19, and the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the resulting energy crisis served as the perfect fuel for the surge in prices. Analysts around the world have consistently been wrong about inflation but it does look as if India may finally be getting its under control with retail (consumer) inflation touching a 11-month low and wholesale (farm- and factory-gate) inflation touching a 21-month low. | | LEARN  (Source: Reuters) Could this be the Paris moment for biodiversity? The biodiversity crisis — the sixth mass extinction of species is now on — is a subset of the climate crisis, and much like climate talks, biodiversity talks are split along predictable lines, North vs South. There are three points of contention in the ongoing COP15 biodiversity summit in Montreal— funding, the definition of the 30% area that has to be conserved, and the elimination of subsidies that harm the environment. Talks are expected to intensify this weekend (the conference ends Monday). | | OUTSIDE  (Source: Unsplash) Most people now take online dating for granted. The number, and variety of such apps on offer has increased. At the core of all these apps is a matching algo that helps people find the perfect match. It wasn’t always this way. Almost two decades ago, a woman named Helen Fisher “helped revolutionise online dating”, Kaitlyn Tiffany writes in The Atlantic. This is her story. | | WHAT I'M READING I can’t remember whether I mentioned Deep Wheel Orcadia in one of my earlier newsletters. This is a science fiction novel in verse — and if that weren’t forbidding enough, it is a science fiction novel in Orkney verse. There is an English translation alongside, but the translation itself, even the English, is mind-bending (and perhaps points to the depth and subtlety of Orkney). The telling, thought, doesn’t take away from the tale — of a queer romance between a woman and a transwoman set on an aging space station. | | WHAT I’M LISTENING TO Another Japanese Jazz classic, albeit one that’s not so well-known: Like a Child by the Sadayasu Fujii Trio. This one is from 1977, and is free of the funk influence that characterized a lot of Japanese jazz in the early 1970s. Bandleader Fujii leads his group through some jazz standards as well as original compositions with an economy and grace that has come to characterize one school of Japanese jazz. I’m taking a two-week break from the newsletter. Normal business will resume on January 7. Got a feeling ’23 is going to be a good year. | Please share your feedback with us What do you think about this newsletter? | | Were you forwarded this email? Did you stumble upon it online? Sign up here. | | | | | | Get the Hindustan Times app and read premium stories | | | | | | View in Browser | Privacy Policy | Contact us You received this email because you signed up for HT Newsletters or because it is included in your subscription. Copyright © HT Digital Streams. All Rights Reserved | | | | |
