Retirement Benefits Under the Gun in the US

Although the US population is not aging as quickly as Europe's or east Asia's, it is aging nonetheless, and the benefits that will accrue to an ever larger older population are coming under scrutiny. President Obama's Deficit Commission, headed by former Senator Alan Simpson, has proposed raising the full retirement age even higher than it currently is (which is higher already than in most European countries). This would involve "a gradual increase in the Social Security retirement age to 68 by 2050 and 69 by 2075, using a less generous cost-of-living adjustment for the programs and increasing the cap on income subject to Social Security taxes." There are also plans to reduce the costs of Medicare in a variety of ways.

The Frontline of Global Climate Change

The Economist this week has a special report on global climate change in which they argue that it is, for all intents and purposes, too late to prevent it. It is happening and we can slow it down, and maybe even eventually reverse it, but for now we are going to have deal with it. 

The fight to limit global warming to easily tolerated levels is thus over. Analysts who have long worked on adaptation to climate change—finding ways to live with scarcer water, higher peak temperatures, higher sea levels and weather patterns at odds with those under which today’s settled patterns of farming developed—are starting to see their day in the uncomfortably hot sun. That such measures cannot protect everyone from all harm that climate change may bring does not mean that they should be ignored. On the contrary, they are sorely needed.

In lock-step with this is the story this week from Norfolk, Virginia, where the rising sea level--a consequence of global warming melting polar ice--has led to flooding of neighborhoods near the water.

“We are the front lines of climate change,” said Jim Schultz, a science and technology writer who lives on Richmond Crescent near Ms. Peck. “No one who has a house here is a skeptic.”

Politics aside, the city of Norfolk is tackling the sea-rise problem head on. In August, the Public Works Department briefed the City Council on the seriousness of the situation, and Mayor Paul D. Fraim has acknowledged that if the sea continues rising, the city might actually have to create “retreat” zones.

Kristen Lentz, the acting director of public works, prefers to think of these contingency plans as new zoning opportunities.

Migrating Toward the Future

The International Organization for Migration (IOM) in Geneva, Switzerland, has just released its World Migration Report for 2010. You probably won't be surprised to learn that they expect migration to continue into the future:

There are far more international migrants in the world today than ever previously recorded – 214 million according to UN DESA (2009) – and their number has increased rapidly over the last few decades, up from 191 million in 2005. If the migrant population continues to increase at the same pace as the last 20 years, the stock of international migrants worldwide by 2050 could be as high as 405 million. At the same time, internal migrants account for 740 million migrants (UNDP, 2009) bringing the total number of migrants to just under 1 billion worldwide today.

The report also notes that the overall composition of migrants is changing:

International migration involves a wider diversity of ethnic and cultural groups than ever before. Significantly more women are migrating today on their own or as heads of households; the number of people living and working abroad with irregular status continues to rise; and there has been a significant growth in temporary and circular migration.