New York Times (July 5)
“A quarter of a millennium is long enough to make a nation feel permanent, as though it had always been here and always will be. But the founders… knew that they were making a wager, not a guarantee.” So far, the U.S. has surmounted seemingly existential challenges. “Each time the Republic proved more durable than its mourners predicted, not because of any magic in the system, but because enough people decided the alternative was unacceptable and went to work. Democracy is not a sheltered structure we live inside. It is a habit we must practice — or lose.”
Tags: Challenges, Democracy, Durable, Existential, Founders, Guarantee, Habit, Nation, Permanent, Practice, Surmounted, U.S., Wager
Fortune (June 22)
“The U.S. farm economy has been fighting one battle after another in recent years, but a new threat is on the horizon that evokes memories of one of the worst agricultural disasters ever.” U.S. farmers were left reeling from low prices, tariffs and most recently Trump’s Iran War, which sent the prices for fertilizer and fuel soaring. Bankruptcies have been rising and now they may face the existential “risk of a ‘mini-Dust Bowl’ as a rare Super El Niño looms.”
Tags: Agricultural disasters, Bankruptcies, Existential, Farm economy, Farmers, Fertilizer, Fuel, Iran war, Low prices, Mini-Dust Bowl, Reeling, Risk, Super El Niño, Tariffs, Threat, Trump, U.S.
Reuters (November 8)
“The unique exposure of Ireland’s low-tax business model to the United States could place its public finances at significant risk under a Donald Trump presidency.” The president-elect has promised “to incentivise industries to bring production back to the United States, and to slash the corporate tax rate to Irish levels.” This could “prove existential for Ireland’s decades-old model of attracting jobs and tax dollars from U.S. multinationals.”
Tags: Business model, Corporate tax rate, Existential, Exposure, Ireland, Jobs, Low-tax, Production, Public finances, Risk, Slash, Trump, U.S., Unique
Le Monde (November 6)
Trump’s second term marks “the end of an American world” and, for Europe, will prove “even more perilous” than his first term. “There is a real risk that Europe will be divided or even fractured…. This threat is existential for the European Union, and its leaders need to be aware of it and prepared to confront it, without waiting for Trump to take office.”
Tags: American world, Divided, EU, Europe, Existential, Fractured, Leaders, Perilous, Prepared, Risk, Second term, Threat, Trump
New York Times (April 20)
“The World Health Organization concluded last year that air pollution is ‘the single largest environmental threat to human health and well-being.’” Recognizing “the low quality of the air that we breathe” is a crisis would help bring greater immediacy to “the existential threat of climate change…. The solution to both threats is the same: We need to stop burning fossil fuels, preferably yesterday.”
Tags: Air pollution, Climate change, Crisis, Environmental threat, Existential, Human health, Immediacy, Solution, Well-being, WHO
BBC (January 18)
“The United Nations has identified three existential environmental threats – climate change, biodiversity loss and pollution – and concluded that they must be addressed together” through multilateral agreements. Now “more than 100 countries, including the UK” appear to support a dedicated plastics treaty that may be “proposed at the next UN Environment Assembly in February and March.”
Tags: Biodiversity, Climate change, Environmental, Existential, Multilateral agreements, Pollution, Support, Threats, UK, UN
Washington Post (January 5)
“It’s an existential moment for all of Europe’s leaders, most of whom are only just beginning to grapple with the fact that Russia wants to destroy the Euro-American alliance.” Alas, with the inauguration of Donald Trump, they may “have to prepare for an American government that wants to do so too.”
Tags: Destroy, Euro-American alliance, Europe, Existential, Government, Leaders, Russia, Trump, U.S.
