COP28: What is it, who’s going and what are the key sticking points?
World leaders are set to meet at the UN climate summit in Dubai for the next two weeks to discuss tackling climate change
Rabina Khan, Contributor – November 29, 2023
Representatives from around the world will gather at Expo City in Dubai, UAE, for COP28. (AP) (Kamran Jebreili, Associated Press)
Thousands of politicians, economists, faith leaders, activists and many others are convening in Dubai for the latest UN climate conference, COP28.
This year’s event, which kicks off today, will focus on ramping up the shift to clean energy by cutting greenhouse gas emissions before 2030 in a bid to limit the impact of climate change.
But with competing priorities at play, the likelihood of consensus among the key players around the major sticking points remains in the balance.
This year, even the location of the conference has sparked some controversy.
The UAE has invested heavily in solar and wind energies, but it also remains one of the world’s top oil-producing nations.
“It is the equivalent of appointing the CEO of a cigarette company to oversee a conference on cancer cures,” said campaign group 350.org.
COP28 president-designate and the UAE’s special envoy for climate change Sultan Al Jaber has defended his country hosting the latest round of climate talks. (AP) (Kamran Jebreili, Associated Press)
COP28 agenda
As in previous years, the central issues are cutting fossil fuels and the greenhouse gases driving climate change by ramping up the shift to clean energy.
COP28 aims to prioritise securing funding for climate action in less affluent countries, fostering inclusivity, and addressing diverse issues like nature, people, health, finance and food and work towards a new agreement benefiting developing nations.
Although the hope is to continue to limit global temperature rises to 1.5֯C – the world is currently on track for 2.4-2.6C of warming – and the efforts being pursued to tackle this have been described by the UN as “nowhere near ambitious enough”.
The focus will also be on how people can best use nature and land use, moving to clean energy sources and making COP28 the “most inclusive” ever.
COP28 will focus on clean energy, aiming to cut greenhouse gas emissions before 2030, fostering inclusivity, and addressing issues like nature, people, health, finance, and food. (Source: COP28) (COP28)
Who are the key players?
King Charles III, prime minister Rishi Sunak, and foreign secretary David Cameron will be the most high-profile UK representatives.
However, their popularity among some allies remains uncertain due to Sunak’s support for North Sea oil and recent retreat on domestic net zero targets. His decision to advise against Charles attending COP27 also raised eyebrows.
The conference itself is being hosted by Sultan al Jaber – the boss of one of the world’s largest oil companies, the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC) – and whose appointment was greeted with scepticism. He insists he wants to guide major oil and gas producers toward emission reduction goals, focusing on eliminating methane emissions by 2030.
However, the UAE this week had to fend off uncomfortable allegations from leaked documents that it planned to use meetings to promote deals for its national oil and gas companies to other countries. A COP28 spokesperson described the documents as “inaccurate”.
The absence of US president Joe Biden means climate envoy John Kerry will attempt to navigate disagreements on climate finance and broader US-China tensions.
His relationships with Al Jaber and Beijing’s Xie Zhenhua, the vice-chairman of China’s top economic development body, could shape the summit’s outcomes. While viewed positively, Xie’s stance on a fossil fuel “phase-out” remains a point of contention.
Pope Francis, pictured here meeting Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber at the Vatican in October, will make history as the first pope to attend the global climate summit at this year’s COP28. (Abaca Press/Alamy Live News) (ABACAPRESS, Abaca Press)
Russia, a major carbon polluter with a recent climate pledge aiming for net zero by 2060, will be represented by Vladimir Putin’s climate adviser, Ruslan Edelgeriyev.
Saudi Arabia’s stance on oil, gas, and coal will also likely pose challenges. Chief negotiator Khalid al-Mehaid will defend fossil fuels with a focus on reducing pollution, transitioning to renewables.
At the other end of the spectrum, the UN climate chief Simon Stiell, from Grenada, balances the interests of nearly 200 nations, seeking difficult answers and clear targets for climate action.
Representing the least-developed countries, Madeleine Diouf Sarr, head of the climate change division in Senegal’s Ministry of Environment will prioritise clear targets for adaptation and financial support amid growing concerns of the disproportionate impact of climate change on vulnerable nations.
The presence of philanthropist and former Microsoft CEO Bill Gates at COP28 underscores the intersection of environmental responsibility and business. (Reuters) (Leah Millis / reuters)
And Barbados prime minister Mia Mottley,willchampion climate equity, pushing for financial mechanisms benefiting vulnerable nations. Her outspoken calls for a just global financial system and debt-pause clauses have often resonated on the international stage.
Two other familiar faces include Pope Francis, who will make history as the first pope to attend the climate summit, and Bill Gates.
Gates will wear two hats at COP28: advocating for climate action through philanthropy and investing in green technologies. His presence underscores the intersection of environmental responsibility and business.
Watch: Barbados – Prime Minister Addresses United Nations General Debate, 78th Session
https://youtube.com/watch?v=ftHsJscUARU%3Frel%3D0
COP28: The sticky points
Differing views on the future of “unabated” fossil fuels, like coal, oil, and gas without emissions capture, are anticipated at COP28. While the UAE’s Al Jaber calls for a gradual “phase down”, the European Union is likely to advocate for a complete “phase out”.
Financial issues loom, with the unclear implementation of a “loss and damage” fund from richer to poorer countries, and the US rejecting climate reparations for historical emissions.
The EU aims to lead with a groundbreaking deal to phase out “unabated” coal, oil, and gas globally, but resistance is expected from major fossil fuel producers like Saudi Arabia and developing nations reliant on fossil fuels for economic growth.
China, the US, India and Russia are the top four polluters, according to data from Statista, China was the biggest emitter of carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions in 2021, accounting for nearly 31% of the global emissions. The world’s top five largest polluters were responsible for roughly 60% of global CO2 emissions in 2021.
COP28’s key challenge is staying below a 1.5C temperature rise. To achieve this, there’s a push for a binding energy package—tripling renewable energy by 2030 and deploying 1.5 terawatts yearly.
Financial clarity is crucial, demanding a $200bn annual increase for the Global South, according to 350.org, an international movement of ordinary people working to end the age of fossil fuels.
“As civil society campaigners, demonstrations and protests are expected to be limited to the UN-designated zones only but we are determined to make our voices heard and that this COP28 should be one that leads to decisive action to tackle the climate crisis,” Kim Bryan, 350’s associate director told Yahoo!.
Watch COP28 climate change summit begins: Here’s what you need to know
Are the annual climate summits working? These countries are going to the courts, instead
Ella Nilsen, CNN – November 29, 2023
Few leaders paint a picture of the climate crisis as vividly as United Nations chief António Guterres. He has accused world leaders of opening “the gates of hell” and said the planet is “heading into uncharted territories of destruction” after deadly heat waves and floods.
“The current fossil fuel free-for-all must end now,” Guterres said last year. “It is a recipe for permanent climate chaos and suffering.”
Yet the UN climate summit, known as COP, is tedious. It is full of jargon, snail-paced developments and painful consensus-building that can be broken by a single country’s veto.
Now some are asking: Is the process even working? Some small island nations — countries that are facing irrevocable change from rising seas — say no.
Over the decades, these painstaking negotiations have worked to prevent several catastrophic degrees of global warming. COP’s biggest win was the Paris Agreement, widely seen as one of the most effective environment treaties, which set a goal to limit global warming to well under 2 degrees Celsius, and preferably to 1.5 — a target that climate scientists, advocates and most countries have since rallied around.
Before those talks, the world was on track for roughly 4 degrees of warming. Countries’ pledges after Paris pushed that to 2.5 to 2.9 degrees, according to recent UN figures.
But the Paris Agreement was voluntary by design, in large part due to the influence of the US, and it relies on a system of collective shaming and competitive ambition in lieu of legal consequences. It contained “very few obligations” for major polluters, said Payam Akhavan, an attorney for the Commission of Small Island States on Climate Change and International Law.
Vanuatu, Tuvalu and Antigua and Barbuda are now asking international courts to issue “advisory opinions” that could fundamentally change future COPs by compelling countries to set legally binding targets to cut climate pollution, rather than voluntary ones.
“The turn toward international litigation is an attempt to put some teeth in the toothless Paris regime, by declaring the 1.5-degree target is a binding target and not discretionary,” Akhavan told CNN.
As world leaders head to Dubai for COP28 this week, this courtroom strategy is raising eyebrows among the United States’ current and former climate negotiators, who say that while diplomacy can be stubborn and slow, it yields progress.
Even fierce climate advocates who agree COP should be more ambitious still believe the summit is a powerful and worthwhile endeavor.
“There is a lot of questioning whether this process will deliver or not,” Ani Dasgupta, president and CEO of international climate nonprofit World Resources Institute, told CNN. “However, I believe COP, or some version of COP, will remain and absolutely is needed. This is the only forum that I know where poor countries actually have a place at the table that is equal, to negotiate with rich countries across a vastly important topic.”
‘Countries move farther when they move together’
COP’s detractors and advocates alike agree it is a crucial annual meeting, but also one that is plodding and technical. An errant word or piece of punctuation can derail negotiations, and it can — and often does — take years for incremental progress to happen.
“I would say it’s necessary, but maybe not sufficient,” said Sue Biniaz, the deputy for US climate envoy and former Secretary of State John Kerry.
Sue Biniaz, the US deputy climate envoy, at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, on October 31, 2022. – Frances F. Denny/The New York Times/Redux
Biniaz has a lot of experience at COPs; she was the United States’ lead climate lawyer for more than two decades and was one of the key authors of the Paris Agreement.
Both Biniaz and other former top US climate negotiators told CNN that although each climate summit is often judged as a singular event, it is more important to look at the year leading up to it.
“It’s necessary because the fact that it meets annually and puts pressure on countries is a good thing, and we’re in a lot better position with the annual COPs and the Paris Agreement than we would have been without it,” Biniaz told CNN. “At the same time, it is really difficult and challenging to get agreement among everyone in the world, particularly when you have geopolitical issues, and some countries may be more motivated to reach agreement than others.”
International politics and the dynamics within countries matter to the success or failure of COP. There is no better recent example of than the shockwave that surged through the summit when former President Donald Trumppulled the US out of the Paris agreement in 2017 — a move President Joe Biden reversed upon taking office.
In this June 2017 photo, President Donald Trump after announcing his intention to abandon the Paris Agreement in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, DC. – Doug Mills/The New York Times/Redux
Still, former and current US negotiators say climate diplomacy has helped keep the world’s temperature from reaching truly alarming highs.
“If you look at those first assessments coming out of the scientific community back then, we were looking at an incremental temperature gain of about 7 degrees,” said Jonathan Pershing, a former Kerry deputy who now directs the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation’s environment program. “Seven degrees, today, is unimaginable.”
Pershing added that the fact the world’s governments are now racing to keep to below 2 degrees of warming is an “extraordinary transition.”
“The collective endeavor has fundamentally altered the trajectory of greenhouse gas emissions,” Pershing said. “I think countries move farther when they move together.”
The annual summit has also become the most visible rallying point for global climate action, former US climate envoy Todd Stern told CNN. The summits used to largely be a gathering of only government climate negotiators, but each year COP becomes much larger — drawing advocates, businesses (including fossil fuel companies) and think tanks from all corners of the globe.
In this 2009 photo, Todd Stern, US special envoy for climate change, listens to questions during a press conference in the Bella Center in Copenhagen. – Jens Astrup/AFP/Getty Images
Stern thinks the growing spectacle of COP is a positive force, impossible to ignore even for groups that used to deny climate change’s existence. Even US House Republicans have sent a delegation for the past two years.
“It’s a two-week moment in the course of the year when people around the world — or at least some meaningful subset of people around the world — are paying attention to it,” Stern said. “That needs to keep getting bigger and bigger and bigger because that puts pressure on governments.”
Too little, too slow
Attorneys for the small island nations who are rocking the boat at COP say the proof it isn’t working is in the extreme heat felt around the world this year, and the global records smashed.
The world’s governments are working to hold global temperature rise to 1.5 degrees Celsius — above which scientists say a hotter world with more severe droughts and intense storms will become difficult to adapt to.
But 1.5 degrees is no longer an abstract concept; the world briefly crossed that temperature threshold this summer, though scientists caution it will take several years above that limit to say with confidence it’s been officially exceeded. This summer was a taste of life at this threshold: Wildfires raged across Europe, mighty rivers like the Mississippi and the Amazon fell to new lows, and hot-tub-like ocean water killed coral reefs and rapidly intensified hurricanes and cyclones.
“It’s not as if 1.5 is safe in any way, but we are very much on track to cross it,” said Margaretha Wewerinke-Singh, an international lawyer representing the island nation Vanuatu in climate litigation at the International Court of Justice. “Clearly we need more mitigation ambition to make sure we don’t end up with an unlivable world.”
The potential for an unlivable world weighs heavily on young COP negotiators, who are urging swift action to cut climate pollution.
Mitzi Jonelle Tan, of the Philippines, center, participates in a Fridays for Future protest calling for money for climate action at the COP27 in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, in 2022. – Peter Dejong/AP/File
Hailey Campbell, a 25-year-old, Hawaii-based climate adaptation specialist who successfully lobbied for more official youth representation at COP, told CNN it is sometimes disconcerting to spend long hours and days at international summits debating the precise words on climate finance and ramping down fossil fuel use, then return to her Honolulu home and see climate impacts first-hand.
“You go back home and you’re like, ‘sea level rise is still here, [we] still need to do something about it,’” said Campbell, the co-executive director of advocacy group Care About Climate. “If I had to pick just one thing to come out of this year’s COP, it would be language to commit to an equitable phase-out of all fossil fuels.”
Two of the world’s highest courts are expected to weigh in on the small island nations’ cases as soon as next year. While the advisory opinions alone can’t force faster action from countries, it can “inject some urgency, some political will, some vision” into the annual climate talks and protect the “inalienable rights” — the very survival — of these disappearing nations, Wewerinke-Singh said.
“I think that the COP process has failed,” Akhavan said. “But we must make it work because we have no other choice.”
When it comes to walking and type 2 diabetes risk, it’s not just how much you do it that helps — it’s also how fast you move, a new study has found.
Brisk walking is associated with a nearly 40% lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes later in life, according to the study published Tuesday in the British Journal of Sports Medicine.
“Previous studies have indicated that frequent walking was associated with a lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes in the general population, in a way that those with more time spent walking per day were at a lower risk,” said the study’s lead author Dr. Ahmad Jayedi, a research assistant at the Social Determinants of Health Research Center at the Semnan University of Medical Sciences in Iran.
But prior findings haven’t offered much guidance on the optimal habitual walking speed needed to lower diabetes risk, and comprehensive reviews of the evidence are lacking, the authors said.
Going a certain pace during your walk may help lower your type 2 diabetes risk, according to a new study. – LeoPatrizi/E+/Getty Images
The study authors reviewed 10 previous studies conducted between 1999 and 2022, which assessed links between walking speed — measured by objective timed tests or subjective reports from participants — and the development of type 2 diabetes among adults from the United States, the United Kingdom and Japan.
After a follow-up period of eight years on average, compared with easy or casual walking those who walked an average or normal pace had a 15% lower risk of developing type 2 diabetes, the researchers found. Walking at a “fairly brisk” pace meant a 24% lower risk than those who easily or casually walked. And “brisk/striding walking had the biggest benefit: a 39% reduction in risk.
Easy or casual walking was defined as less than 2 miles (3.2 kilometers) per hour. Average or normal pace was defined as 2 to 3 miles (3.2 to 4.8 kilometers) per hour. A “fairly brisk” pace was 3 to 4 miles (4.8 to 6.4 kilometers) per hour. And “brisk/striding walking” was more than 4 (6.4 kilometers) per hour. Each kilometer increase in walking speed above brisk was associated with a 9% lower risk of developing the disease.
That faster walking may be more beneficial isn’t surprising, but the researchers’ “ability to quantify the speed of walking and incorporate that into their analysis is interesting,” said Dr. Robert Gabbay, chief scientific and medical officer for the American Diabetes Association, via email. Gabbay wasn’t involved in the study.
The study also affirms the idea that “intensity is important for diabetes prevention,” said Dr. Carmen Cuthbertson, an assistant professor of health education and promotion at East Carolina University who wasn’t involved in the study, via email. “Engaging in any amount of physical activity can have health benefits, but it does appear that for diabetes prevention, it is important to engage in some higher intensity activities, such as a brisk walk, to gain the greatest benefit.”
Understanding the benefits of brisk walking
The study doesn’t prove cause-and-effect, Gabbay said, but “one can imagine that more vigorous exercise could result in being more physically fit, reducing body weight and therefore insulin resistance and lowering the risk of diabetes.”
Dr. Michio Shimabukuro, a professor and chairman of the department of diabetes, endocrinology and metabolism at the Fukushima Medical University School of Medicine, agreed — adding that “increased exercise intensity due to faster walking speeds can result in a greater stimulus for physiological functions and better health status.” Shimabukuro wasn’t involved in the study.
Walking speed may also simply reflect health status, meaning healthier people are likely to walk faster, said Dr. Borja del Pozo Cruz, principal investigator of health at the University of Cadiz in Spain, who wasn’t involved in the research.
“There is a high risk of reverse causality, (wherein) health deficits are more likely to explain the observed results,” del Pozo Cruz added. “We need randomized controlled trials to confirm — or otherwise — the observed results.”
Lowering your diabetes risk
The overall message “is that walking is an important way to improve your health,” Gabbay said. “It may be true that walking faster is even better. But given the fact that most Americans do not get sufficient walking in the first place, it is most important to encourage people to walk more as they’re able to.”
If you want to challenge yourself, however, using a fitness tracker — via a watch, pedometer or smartphone app — can help you objectively measure and maintain your walking pace, experts said.
If you can’t get a fitness tracker, an easy alternative for tracking exercise intensity is the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s “talk test,” which relies on understanding how physical activity affects heart rate and breathing. If, while walking, you’re able to talk with a labored voice but not sing, your pace is probably brisk.
To commemorate Munger’s monumental legacy, we’ve compiled some of our favorite Charlie quotes:
On life:
“I think life is a whole series of opportunity costs. You know, you got to marry the best person who is convenient to find who will have you. Investment is much the same sort of a process.” — 1997 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
“Another thing, of course, is life will have terrible blows, horrible blows, unfair blows. Doesn’t matter. And some people recover and others don’t. And there I think the attitude of Epictetus is the best. He thought that every mischance in life was an opportunity to behave well. Every mischance in life was an opportunity to learn something and your duty was not to be submerged in self-pity, but to utilize the terrible blow in a constructive fashion. That is a very good idea.” — 2007 USC Law School Commencement Address
“You don’t have a lot of envy, you don’t have a lot of resentment, you don’t overspend your income, you stay cheerful in spite of your troubles, you deal with reliable people and you do what you’re supposed to do. All these simple rules work so well to make your life better.” — 2019 CNBC interview
“With everything boomed up so high and interest rates so low, what’s going to happen is the millennial generation is going to have a hell of a time getting rich compared to our generation. The difference between the rich and the poor in the generation that’s rising is going to be a lot less. So Bernie has won. He did it by accident, but he won.” — 2021 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
Vice-chairman of Berkshire Hathaway Charlie Munger speaks to Reuters during an interview in Omaha, Neb., May 3, 2013. (Lane Hickenbottom/REUTERS) (Lane Hickenbottom / reuters)
On learning
“Without the method of learning, you’re like a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest. It’s just not going to work very well.” — 2021 Daily Journal Annual Meeting
“In my whole life, I have known no wise people (over a broad subject matter area) who didn’t read all the time — none, zero. You’d be amazed at how much Warren reads — and at how much I read. My children laugh at me. They think I’m a book with a couple of legs sticking out.” — Poor Charlie’s Almanack
“I constantly see people rise in life who are not the smartest, sometimes not even the most diligent, but they are learning machines. They go to bed every night a little wiser than when they got up and boy does that help — particularly when you have a long run ahead of you.” — 2007 USC Law School Commencement Address
“Acquire worldly wisdom and adjust your behavior accordingly. If your new behavior gives you a little temporary unpopularity with your peer group then to hell with them.” — Poor Charlie’s Almanack
“I think value investors are going to have a harder time now that there’s so many of them competing for a diminished bunch of opportunities. So my advice to value investors is to get used to making less.” — 2023 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
“There is so much money now in the hands of so many smart people all trying to outsmart one another. It’s a radically different world from the world we started in.” — 2023 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
“What everybody has learned is that everybody needs some significant participation in the 12 companies that do better than everybody else. You need two or three of them, at least.” — Acquired podcast in 2023
“I wish everything else in America was working as well as Costco does. Think what a blessing that would be for us all.” — 2022 Daily Journal Annual Meeting
On meme stocks: “What we’re getting is wretched excess and danger for the country. A lot of people like a drunken brawl, and so far those are the people that are winning, and a lot of people are making money out of our brawl.” 2021 Daily Journal Annual Meeting
Berkshire Hathaway chairman and CEO Warren Buffett, left, and vice chairman Charlie Munger briefly chat with reporters May 3, 2019, one day before Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholders meeting in Omaha, Neb. (Nati Harnik/AP Photo, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
On investing
“One of the inane things [that gets] taught in modern university education is that a vast diversification is absolutely mandatory in investing in common stocks. That is an insane idea. It’s not that easy to have a vast plethora of good opportunities that are easily identified. And if you’ve only got three, I’d rather it be my best ideas instead of my worst. And now, some people can’t tell their best ideas from their worst, and in the act of deciding an investment already is good, they get to think it’s better than it is. I think we make fewer mistakes like that than other people. And that is a blessing to us.” — 2023 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
“I find it much easier to find four or five investments where I have a pretty reasonable chance of being right that they’re way above average. I think it’s much easier to find five than it is to find 100. I think the people who argue for all this diversification — by the way, I call it ‘deworsification’ — which I copied from somebody — and I’m way more comfortable owning two or three stocks which I think I know something about and where I think I have an advantage.” — 2021 Daily Journal Annual Meeting
“If you’re going to invest in stocks for the long term or real estate, of course there are going to be periods when there’s a lot of agony and other periods when there’s a boom. And I think you just have to learn to live through them. As Kipling said, treat those two imposters just the same. You have to deal with daylight and night. Does that bother you very much? No. Sometimes it’s night and sometimes it’s daylight. Sometimes it’s a boom. Sometimes it’s a bust. I believe in doing as well as you can and keep going as long as they let you.” — 2021 Daily Journal Annual Meeting
“Mimicking the herd invites regression to the mean (merely average performance).” — Poor Charlie’s Almanack
“I think that the modern investor, to get ahead, almost has to get in a few stocks that are way above average. They try and have a few Apples and Googles or so on, just to keep up, because they know that a significant percentage of all the gains that come to all the common stockholders combined is going to come from a few of these supercompetitors.” — 2023 Wall Street Journal interview
“There are huge advantages for an individual to get into a position where you make a few great investments and just sit on your ass: You are paying less to brokers. You are listening to less nonsense. And if it works, the governmental tax system gives you an extra 1, 2 or 3 percentage points per annum compounded.” —Worldly Wisdom by Charlie Munger 1995-1998
American billionaire investor Charles Munger poses for a portrait with his arms folded in Los Angeles, March 9, 1988. (Bonnie Schiffman/Getty Images) (Bonnie Schiffman Photography via Getty Images)
“I have a friend who’s a fisherman. He says, ‘I have a simple rule for success in fishing. Fish where the fish are.’ You want to fish where the bargains are. That simple. If the fishing is really lousy where you are you should probably look for another place to fish.”— 2020 Daily Journal Annual Meeting
“The world is full of foolish gamblers and they will not do as well as the patient investors.” — 2018 Weekly in Stocks interview
“It takes character to sit with all that cash and to do nothing. I didn’t get to be where I am by going after mediocre opportunities.” — Poor Charlie’s Almanack
“Understanding both the power of compound interest and the difficulty of getting it is the heart and soul of understanding a lot of things.” — Poor Charlie’s Almanack
On new technologies
“The electric vehicle is coming big time, and that’s a very interesting development. At the moment, it’s imposing huge capital costs and huge risks, and I don’t like huge capital costs and huge risks.” — 2023 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
“I am personally skeptical of some of the hype that has gone into artificial intelligence. I think old-fashioned intelligence works pretty well.” — 2023 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
On Big Tech regulation: “I would not break them up. They’ve got their little niches. Microsoft maybe has a nice niche, but it doesn’t own the Earth. I like these high-tech companies. I think capitalism should expect to get a few big winners by accident.” — 2023 “Acquired” podcast
“We now have computer algorithms trading with other computers. And people buying stocks who know nothing, being advised by people who know even less. It’s an incredibly crazy situation … All this activity makes it easier for us.” — 2022 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting
“We are going to miss these newspapers terribly. Each newspaper… was an independent bastion of power. The economic position was so impregnable … and the ethos of a journalist was to try to tell it like it is. And they really were a branch of the government — they called them the Fourth Estate, meaning the fourth branch of the government. It arose by accident. Now about 95% of [newspapers are] going to disappear and go away forever. And what do we get in substitute? We get a bunch of people who attract an audience because they’re crazy ….
I have my favorite crazies, and you have your favorite crazies, and we get together and all become crazier as we hire people to tell us what we want to hear. This is no substitute for Walter Cronkite and all those great newspapers of yesteryear. We have suffered a huge loss here. It’s nobody’s fault. It’s the creative destruction of capitalism, but it’s a terrible thing that’s happened to our country.” — 2022 Daily Journal Annual Meeting
Berkshire Hathaway vice chairman Charlie Munger arrives to begin the company’s annual meeting in Omaha May 4, 2013. (Rick Wilking/REUTERS) (Rick Wilking / Reuters)
On crypto
“A cryptocurrency is not a currency, not a commodity, and not a security. Instead, it’s a gambling contract with a nearly 100% edge for the house, entered into in a country where gambling contracts are traditionally regulated only by states that compete in laxity.” — 2023 Wall Street Journal op-ed
“I am not proud of my country for allowing this crap — well, I call it crypto shit. It’s worthless, it’s crazy, it’s not good, it’ll do nothing but harm, it’s antisocial to allow it.” — 2023 Daily Journal Annual Meeting
“I think the people that oppose my position are idiots. And so I don’t think there is a rational argument against my position.” — 2023 Daily Journal Annual Meeting
“When you’re dealing with something as awful as crypto shit, it’s just unspeakable. I’m ashamed of my country that so many people believe in this kind of crap and the government allows it to exist.” — 2023 Daily Journal Annual Meeting
“I’m proud of the fact that I avoided it. It’s like some venereal disease. I just regard it as beneath contempt. Some people think it’s modernity, and they welcome a currency that’s so useful in extortions and kidnappings [and] tax evasion.” —2022 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
“When you have your own retirement account and your friendly adviser suggests you put all the money into bitcoin, just say no.” — 2022 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
“I hate the bitcoin success and I don’t welcome a currency that’s useful to kidnappers and extortionists, and so forth. Nor do I like just shuffling out a few extra billions and billions and billions of dollars to somebody who just invented a new financial product out of thin air. So, I think I should say modestly that I think the whole damn development is disgusting and contrary to the interests of civilization.” — 2021 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Shareholders Meeting
On the US economy and business:
“What makes capitalism work is the fact that if you’re an able-bodied young person, if you refuse to work, you suffer a fair amount of agony, and because of that agony, the whole economic system works … You take away that hardship and say, ‘You can stay home and get more than if you come in to work,’ that’s quite disruptive to an economic system like ours. The next time we do this, I don’t think we ought to be so liberal.” — 2022 Daily Journal Annual Meeting
“Usually, I don’t use formal projections. I don’t let people do them for me because I don’t like throwing up on the desk, but I see them made in a very foolish way all the time, and many people believe in them, no matter how foolish they are. It’s an effective sales technique in America to put a foolish projection on a desk.”—2003 Herb Kay Undergraduate Lecture, University of California, Santa Barbara Economics Department
Berkshire Hathaway chairman and CEO Warren Buffett, right, and his vice chairman Charlie Munger, left, speak during an interview in Omaha, Neb., Monday, May 7, 2018. (Nati Harnik/AP Photo, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)
On mental models and decision-making frameworks:
“We’ve had enough good sense when something is working very well to keep doing it. I’d say we’re demonstrating what might be called the fundamental algorithm of life — repeat what works.” — 2010 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting
“I spent a lifetime trying to avoid my own mental biases. A.) I rub my own nose into my own mistakes. B.) I try and keep it simple and fundamental as much as I can. And, I like the engineering concept of a margin of safety. I’m a very blocking and tackling kind of thinker. I just try to avoid being stupid. I have a way of handling a lot of problems — I put them in what I call my ‘too hard pile,’ and just leave them there. I’m not trying to succeed in my ‘too hard pile.’” — 2020 CalTech Distinguished Alumni Award interview
“Charlie and I think pretty much alike. But what it takes me a page to explain, he sums up in a sentence. His version, moreover, is always more clearly reasoned and also more artfully — some might add bluntly — stated.
Here are a few of his thoughts, many lifted from a very recent podcast:
• The world is full of foolish gamblers, and they will not do as well as the patient investor.
• If you don’t see the world the way it is, it’s like judging something through a distorted lens.
• All I want to know is where I’m going to die, so I’ll never go there. And a related thought: Early on, write your desired obituary — and then behave accordingly.
• If you don’t care whether you are rational or not, you won’t work on it. Then you will stay irrational and get lousy results.
• Patience can be learned. Having a long attention span and the ability to concentrate on one thing for a long time is a huge advantage.
• You can learn a lot from dead people. Read of the deceased you admire and detest.
• Don’t bail away in a sinking boat if you can swim to one that is seaworthy.
• A great company keeps working after you are not; a mediocre company won’t do that.
Warren Buffett (L) and Berkshire-Hathaway partner Charlie Munger address members of the press May 5, 2002, in Omaha, Neb. (Eric Francis/Getty Images) (Eric Francis via Getty Images)
• Warren and I don’t focus on the froth of the market. We seek out good long-term investments and stubbornly hold them for a long time.
• Ben Graham said, ‘Day to day, the stock market is a voting machine; in the long term it’s a weighing machine.’ If you keep making something more valuable, then some wise person is going to notice it and start buying.
• There is no such thing as a 100% sure thing when investing. Thus, the use of leverage is dangerous. A string of wonderful numbers times zero will always equal zero. Don’t count on getting rich twice.
• You don’t, however, need to own a lot of things in order to get rich.
• You have to keep learning if you want to become a great investor. When the world changes, you must change.
• Warren and I hated railroad stocks for decades, but the world changed and finally the country had four huge railroads of vital importance to the American economy. We were slow to recognize the change, but better late than never.
• Finally, I will add two short sentences by Charlie that have been his decision-clinchers for decades: ‘Warren, think more about it. You’re smart and I’m right.’
And so it goes. I never have a phone call with Charlie without learning something. And, while he makes me think, he also makes me laugh.”
New report reveals 98% of world population experienced alarming trend this summer: ‘Virtually no one on Earth escaped’
Leo Collis – November 27, 2023
A new study by Climate Central has revealed the impact of rising temperatures on the planet in 2023 and the role of humans in exacerbating the problem.
The findings are eye-opening, and they remind us of the role we can all play in mitigating the causes of overheating the planet.
What did the study find?
According to research group Climate Central, a peer-reviewed study summarized by Euronews Green and Reuters found that 98% of the global population witnessed higher than usual temperatures between June and August this year — and these temperatures were twice as likely because of human-caused pollution.
The research examined global heat events and used modeling to remove the influence of pollution to determine the possible high temperatures without the influence of humans.
Data from 180 countries and 22 territories helped to estimate that 6.2 billion people experienced at least one day of high average temperatures that would have been difficult to achieve without the effects of carbon pollution. Those temperatures were five times more likely because of human impact.
“Virtually no one on Earth escaped the influence of global warming during the past three months,” Climate Central’s vice president for science Andrew Pershing told Euronews Green and Reuters.
The study found that July was the hottest month on Earth since records began, while August saw a 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit higher average temperature compared to the same month before the prevalence of industrial activity.
Why is this so concerning?
“In every country we could analyze, including the Southern Hemisphere, where this is the coolest time of year, we saw temperatures that would be difficult — and in some cases nearly impossible — without human-caused climate change,” Pershing said.
It’s a worrying statement, especially considering the devastating heat waves and wildfires in the United States and southern Europe in 2023.
When looking at isolated heat waves, climate scientist Friederike Otto from the Grantham Institute for Climate Change and the Environment noted that these events were made “infinitely more likely” by the overheating of the planet, reported Euronews Green.
What can we do to mitigate human climate impact?
The study consistently points to human-caused pollution as the driver of these worrying heat trends.
With that in mind, reducing the harmful gases we release into the atmosphere is crucial to prevent further shocking temperature rises.
Making lifestyle alterations such as walking, biking, or using public transport to travel instead of using dirty fuel–powered vehicles is a great start.
Cutting down on meat in your weekly diet can also benefit the planet, as agriculture relating to the beef, pork, and chicken supply chain significantly contributes to global pollution and deforestation, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Since 98% of the global population experienced increased temperatures in 2023, it’s beneficial to everyone to prevent the causes of this phenomenon.
Join our free newsletter for cool news and cool tips that make it easy to help yourself while helping the planet.
Arizona is building the first solar canal in the US. What are they and how do they work?
Euronews Green – November 27, 2023
Arizona is building the first solar canal in the US. What are they and how do they work?
The first solar-covered canal in America is set to be completed within a couple of years.
Arizona is getting the pioneering renewable project after a historic agreement between leaders of the Gila River Indian Community and the US Army Corps of Engineers earlier this month.
The panels will supply clean energy while also helping to reduce water evaporation in the arid state, which is currently experiencing drought conditions.
“This is the type of creative thinking that can help move all of us toward a more sustainable future,” said Tom Buschatzke, director of the Arizona Department of Water Resources (ADWR).
“Leveraging existing infrastructure such as the Level Top Canal to help provide sustainable, dependable energy – and to do so as part of cooperative partnership like this one – constitutes a win all around.”
The southwestern state of Arizona isn’t the only one eyeing up the solar technology.
A similar project has been in the works in California for years, but is reportedly still in the planning stages. This puts the Arizona project, with its budget of $6.74 million (€6,165 million), on the verge of being a US-first.
It takes inspiration from the Canal Solar Power Project in Gujarat, India, which launched in 2012. This was an early example of solar over canal success, though SunEdison, the company overseeing the project, filed for bankruptcy in 2016, their ambitions not fully realised.
If rolled out effectively, experts say there is huge potential for both energy and water saving.
Writing about the California plans in The Conversation, engineering Professor Roger Bales, estimated that, “Covering all 4,000 miles [6,437 kilometres] of California’s canals with solar panels would save more than 65 billion gallons of water annually by reducing evaporation.”
How will the Arizona solar canal technology work?
Solar photovoltaic shades will first be installed along a 305 metre stretch of the 1-10 Level Top canal.
Facing upwards, they catch the abundant sunlight in Arizona while acting as a barrier to limit the amount of water evaporating in the desert heat.
The water below the panels also helps to cool the panels down, and so keep them operating at a more efficient temperature.
Phase one of the project is expected to produce around 1 MW of renewable energy which will benefit the tribal farmers.
Gila River Indian Community (GRIC) Governor Stephen Roe Lewis sat under the Arizona sun to sign the deal with the US Army Corps of Engineers on 9 November.
The ‘Project Partnership Agreement’ (PPA) he signed is a legally binding agreement between the federal government and a non-Federal sponsor – here a Native American Tribe. PPAs typically involve the construction of a water resources project, and they lay out the shared responsibilities of the parties regarding costs and workload.
An advocate for renewable and green technologies, Governor Lewis oversees the implementation of the Community’s Water Settlement of 2004 (at that time the largest water settlement of its kind in US history).
The GRIC people trace their history to circa 300 BC, when the Huhugam people constructed some 500 miles of large canals from the Gila River to water their farmland.
Sure, Joe Biden is pretty old: Listen, could you do what he’s doing?
Kirk Swearingen – November 27, 2023
Joe Biden Drew Angerer/Getty Images
For months, since Joe Biden’s age became the pet topic of the corporate media — you know, rather than the openly authoritarian maneuverings of the former occupant of the White House — I have said to anyone who will listen (OK, mostly to my wife, who nods agreeably) that I couldn’t do a quarter of the things that Joe Biden is doing. Honestly, not many of us could.
Not long ago on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” journalist Mike Barnicle defended Biden on the “age issue” in the same way. His comments came after host Joe Scarborough noted that Biden, beyond his normal duties as president, currently has multiple other full-time jobs:working to try to limit the conflict in the Middle East, supporting Ukraine’s war against Russian aggression, trying to stabilize relations with China. (His recent meeting with Xi Jinping reportedly went quite well.)
Here’s what Barnicle had to say about the media’s focus on Biden’s age:
Very few of us, very few in the media, really pay enough attention to the weight that this president carries each and every day. … Right now, he’s carrying two twin towers of tyranny: one in Donald Trump here domestically and the other Bibi Netanyahu in Israel, who is perhaps the biggest obstacle to a two-state solution that exists today. So, the president has that on his plate. … He has, every hour of every day, something that comes across his desk. None of us can comprehend the weight of the presidency, every hour of every day.
And as he would tell you if he were here today, it’s amazing how every country in the world looks to the United States for help, for solutions, for just almost anything you can think of. Every single day.
Read every newspaper in the country about President Biden, within the first two paragraphs they’ll point out he’s in his 80s. No kidding. He knows how old he is. You couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it. Someone 45 years of age couldn’t do what he does every day. But he does it.
Scarborough pointed out that leaders and diplomats around the world admire and trust Biden and say that he fully understands the issues facing their own countries. Scarborough also commented that Biden works hard as president, while Trump notoriously spent most of his days in the White House watching cable TV until noon and often continued viewing even when he bothered to show up in the Oval Office.
Trump entered the presidency with no experience in public service and left it with next to none. He did, however, leave office with two impeachments and box after box of classified documents. One recalls that Rex Tillerson, his first secretary of state, said that getting Trump to pay attention to important issues around the world was always a challenge, partly because he was likely to listen to others and “form a view that had no basis in fact.” (We all know what Tillerson really thought of Trump.)
I understand the hand-wringing about Biden’s age. Didn’t he say he would be a one-term bridge to a better, Trumpless future? (Well, Republicans haven’t given up on their angry cult leader.) Haven’t I considered Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s decision to remain on the Supreme Court? Don’t I hear Bill Maher and David Axelrod unhelpfully quailing at the polls and saying that Biden can’t win because people think he’s too old? I have, and it makes me feel deeply anxious (so I stop thinking about it and go for a walk or do some push-ups).
Still, Biden is doing a lot more than I could do, and I suspect (as Barnicle said indignantly) that he’s doing a lot more than most of us could do, physically and emotionally, and he’s doing it with something we lack: a deep understanding of the deftness needed in maintaining personal relationships and the give-and-take critical to governing and diplomacy.
Biden has the experience we need in political leadership in general, especially with the Republican Party dead and gone and reduced to playacting “toughness” by elbowing House colleagues and challenging witnesses to fistfights in the Senate. Too many Republicans don’t take their oath of office seriously, and now even have to be reminded they are members of Congress. These seriously unserious people know their ideas are unpopular with the American public and thus have seriously unhinged plans for instituting minority rule permanently in any way they can.
Less than a year from now, Americans face a choice between remaining a democratic republic or morphing into a chaotic, vengefultheocracy, where millions of immigrants will be sent to holding camps before being deported (that’s the stated plan) and where women and people of color and LGBTQ folks and political “enemies” and journalists and authors and critics are targeted by those in power. For all their endless talk about the First Amendment, the MAGA insurrectionist party wants to turn it on its head, by instituting a national “religion” (Christian in name only) and silencing dissent.
Would it be ideal to have someone younger than 80? Sure it would. But that’s not reality this time around. And that imaginary 45-year-old wouldn’t have the extensive institutional and foreign policy experience that Joe Biden has. The Democratic Party has quite a few truly worthy (and perhaps even charismatic) future candidates for the highest office waiting in the wings, gaining more experience in governing and serving all the citizens in their districts or states, not just the ones who voted for them.
But those candidates will need a liberal democracy in place (i.e., basic rule of law, support for voting rights, willingness to compromise on policies and acceptance of the peaceful transfer of power) for us to find out what they can do to move us forward.
If you think 80 is really old — well, in some cases it is. People sometimes die much younger than that. In the two months since I retired, I’ve lost two close friends. But let’s list just a few older people who are still out there killing it: Paul McCartney is touring again and puts on vigorous three-hour concerts (without breaks). He turned 81 in June. Mick Jagger is still doing that chicken-strut thing he learned from Tina Turner, and celebrated his 80th birthday in July. At 97, Mel Brooks is sharper (and a lot funnier) than you or me. So is the amazing Norman Lear, at 101. Many notable scientists, philosophers, poets, artists and people in other demanding fields function at a high level, mentally and physically, deep into their lives.
Moreover, emotional well-being tends to increase in old age, as personal ambitions drop away and we allow ourselves the time to just be. (These findings do not apply to people who never grow up, by the way.) Biden stays active, eats a good diet, has social intelligence and awareness of others’ needs, has varied interests and solves complex problems daily — those, it seems, are the habits and characteristics of “super agers.” He is buoyed by a loving wife and family, because he’s earned that love. (The Beatles would approve.)
No matter how any of us may feel about Biden going for a second term at his age, it is beyond my comprehension that anyone could consider Trump, who is only a few years younger, as being more mentally or physically competent. According to his niece Mary Trump and others who know him well, has not been mentally fit for most of his life.
Physically, as a young man Trump claimed he was not fit enough to serve his country, and, by all accounts, his diet continues to be a disaster zone of highly processed food and well-done steaks served with ketchup, sometimes tossed against the wall (speaking once again to his mental state, which seems to be characterized by endless, irrational resentment).
Does Trump have any interest in or curiosity about anything beyond himself (except for a few of his favorite authoritarian leaders)? Has he ever solved a complex problem for the benefit of anyone but himself? He’s teased them endlessly but has never delivered — think those multiple, embarrassing “Infrastructure Weeks”; think “I will get it all done” to bring peace to the Middle East, fobbed off on his embarrassing son-in-law.
Trump has made it crystal clear over many years that he is vengeful and only out for himself. He now threatens those he wants to “root out” like “vermin,” jutting out his chin like his favorite historical Italian dictator and talking like his favorite German one. He also likes to fantasize that he’s a superhero.
I suspect that if it weren’t that guy the Republicans seemed determined to put up again, Biden would have determined it was safe to step aside. But it is that guy, who now has two impeachments, 91 felony indictments in four different jurisdictions, findings of liability for sexual assault and business fraud, and a history of telling lies every time he opens his mouth, including persistent whoppers about the 2020 election and about being good at business.
Liberals and progressives, broadly speaking, tend to be people who believe in reality, in facts. Whether we’re delighted about this or not, Joe Biden is running for president again. His leadership, whether you agree with every decision or not, can help us extend the American experiment and bolster democracy, as well as fight for more ways to share our nation’s prosperity and protect its cultural heritage.
The other choice will be a man who is chronologically almost as old and who seems to live in an entirely imaginary version of America in a previous era. He is mentally and emotionally unstable, to say the least, and has no interest and no ability to help anyone other than himself. Oh, and he intends to be a dictator and get revenge on his perceived enemies.
If we lose our democracy because voters tie themselves in knots about Joe Biden’s age. that will go down as ageism for the ages.
Goodwill Church, in New York’s leafy Hudson Valley, is a special destination for The Atlantic’s Tim Alberta. This was where his family’s faith journey began. “There’s something so deeply familiar about this place, it’s hard to describe,” he said. “My parents always described this church as holy ground for our family.”
Tim’s father, Richard Alberta, was once a pastor on this pulpit, after becoming a born-again Christian here nearly 50 years ago. “I don’t know where he sat,” said Alberta. “I don’t know what the sermon was that day. But something happened: A guy who’d been an atheist for years, you know, decided that he was gonna give his life to Jesus.”
The Alberta family later moved to Michigan, where Tim’s father led Cornerstone Evangelical Presbyterian Church. “My life was completely wrapped up in the church,” said Tim. “It was the sun around which we as a family revolved. It was our whole world.”
Tim Alberta of The Atlantic, with CBS News’ Robert Costa. / Credit: CBS News
But Tim Alberta sought a career in journalism, writing about politics. His father urged him to stay grounded, including in a 2019 chat he’ll never forget: “He keeps saying to me, ‘Don’t spend your whole career around these people. There are so many other stories.’ And that was one of the last conversations we had.”
Days later, Tim’s dad suddenly died.
He recalled, “When I come home to my church, I’m expecting, I guess, something different from what I got.”
While some offered consolation, Alberta also got confrontation from some conservative church members objecting to his reporting on then-President Donald Trump. “A lot of folks right there at the viewing just wanted to argue about politics,” he said. “They wanted to know if I was still a Christian. And my dad’s in a box, like, 100 feet away.”
Costa asked, “The church wasn’t a sanctuary from politics; politics was now part of the church?”
“That’s right. I knew that, to some degree. And in fact, I willfully ignored it.”
Alberta’s reckoning with faith and politics is the basis for his new book “The Kingdom, the Power, and the Glory,” which documents what he calls an “age of extremism” for evangelicals. “There was a real crisis in the American church, specifically a crisis in the white evangelical church,” he said.
/ Credit: CBS News
According to Pew Research Center, about a quarter of American adults (24%) identify as evangelical. And as the Republican presidential race heats up, 68% of white evangelicals are supportive of Trump. Alberta says that reflects a shift away from norms — in the GOP and in the church.
“We should think about the American church almost in parallel to American politics,” he said. “When it gains enough influence, when it gains enough power, the fringe can overtake the mainstream. And that’s what we’ve seen happen in the church.”
The convulsions in today’s churches come after decades of evangelicals gaining influence, from Billy Graham’s stadium crusades, to the stadium rallies of Donald Trump. In recent years, evangelicals have had heated debates over the response to COVID and to Trump, all while many key Republicans (like House Speaker Mike Johnson) count themselves as one of them.
At Goodwill Church, Senior Pastor John Torres (who used to work with Tim’s dad) is uneasy about the shadow of politics over his church and others.
Costa asked Torres, “What do people say about politics?”
“That it’s bad. That it’s dirty.”
“What do they say to you about politics?”
“Don’t get involved,” Torres replied. “I don’t want somebody who’s sitting there, listening to me preach, whatever their views are, I want them to stay put. I wanna talk to them about Jesus. I don’t want to talk to ’em about politics. ‘Cause I don’t really know what I can offer them in terms of politics.”
Other evangelicals don’t mind politics — and see this moment as an affirmation of hard-won power.
Worshippers attend a concert by evangelical musician Sean Feucht on the National Mall on October 25, 2020 in Washington, D.C. / Credit: Samuel Corum/Getty Images
Costa asked, “What do you say to evangelical leaders who might hear your argument and say, ‘You missed the point: Trump wins for evangelical Christians, he wins for conservative America’?”
“Wins what?”
“Supreme Court seats, a seat at the table at the White House?”
Alberta responded, “Show me where in scripture any of that matters.”
But it does matter to many of those standing with Trump as he once again seeks the White House. Alberta said, “You have millions of evangelical Christians who voted for Donald Trump and just sort of gleefully embraced his terrible rhetoric and his un-Christlike conduct.”
“Why did they ‘gleefully’ embrace it, to use your term?” asked Costa.
“Power,” Alberta replied. “Trump campaigned for president in 2016 promising that if he was elected, Christians would have power. He gave it to them. He gave it to them in ways that, arguably, no American president has in modern history. And when you have power, you can very quickly lose sight of your principles, your values and your beliefs.”
Alberta says that, regardless, today his faith has never been better. His faith in reporting is also strong, and he says that is his own calling.
“You and I, we’re reporters,” said Alberta. “We’re not supposed to be the story. I never wanted to be the story. [But] once you see this, you can’t look away.”
For several months during the summer of 2022, my dog Scout vomited at 3 a.m. nearly every day. If you have a dog, you know the sound. And each time, she gobbled up her mess before I could get to it, making diagnosis of the cause difficult.
The vet and I eventually settled on my hydrangeas as the source of the problem – but keeping Scout away from them didn’t work. She started to seem tired all the time – highly concerning in a typically hyper yellow Lab puppy.
Then one day Scout vomited up a hairball – but not just any hairball. In dogs, hair normally passes easily through the digestive system, but this hairball was wrapped around a brillo pad that was too big to move through. Once this foreign object was removed, the overnight vomiting ended. Scout still needed treatment, though, for a different and surprising reason: The object had inhibited a step in her body’s absorption of vitamin B12. B12 is an essential nutrient involved in proper functioning of blood cells, nerves and many other critical processes in the body.
I’m a registered dietitian, and I teach nutrition and food science to college students, but still I missed the B12 deficiency that was causing my puppy’s fatigue. Doctors can just as easily be blind to it in people – even though B12 deficiency is a common health problem that affects an estimated 6% to 20% of the U.S. population.
B12 is scarce in the diet, and it is found only in foods from animal sources. Fortunately, humans need only 2.4 micrograms of B12 daily, which is equivalent to one ten-millionth of an ounce – a very, very small amount. Without adequate B12 in the body, overall health and quality of life are negatively affected.
One primary symptom of B12 deficiency is fatigue – a level of tiredness or exhaustion so deep that it affects daily life activities.
Other symptoms are neurological and may include tingling in the extremities, confusion, memory loss, depression and difficulty maintaining balance. Some of these can be permanent if the vitamin deficiency is not addressed.
However, since there can be so many causes for these symptoms, health care providers may overlook the possibility of a B12 deficiency and fail to screen for it. Further, having a healthy diet may seem to rule out any vitamin deficiency. Case in point: Because I knew Scout’s diet was sound, I didn’t consider a B12 deficiency as the source of her problems.
How B12 is absorbed
Research is clear that people who consume plant-based diets must take B12 supplements in amounts typically provided by standard multivitamins. However, hundreds of millions of Americans who do consume B12 may also be at risk because of conditions that could be hampering their body’s absorption of B12.
B12 absorption is a complex multistep process that begins in the mouth and ends at the far end of the small intestine. When we chew, our food gets mixed with saliva. When the food is swallowed, a substance in saliva called R-protein – a protein that protects B12 from being destroyed by stomach acid – travels to the stomach along with the food.
Specific cells in the stomach lining, called parietal cells, secrete two substances that are important to B12 absorption. One is stomach acid – it splits food and B12 apart, allowing the vitamin to bind to the saliva’s R-protein. The other substance, called intrinsic factor, mixes with the stomach’s contents and travels with them into the first part of the small intestine – the duodenum. Once in the duodenum, pancreatic juices release B12 from R-protein and hand it to intrinsic factor. This pairing allows B12 to be absorbed into cells, where it can then help maintain nerve cells and form healthy red blood cells.
A B12 deficiency typically involves a breakdown at one or more of these points on the way to absorption.
Risk factors for B12 deficiency
Without saliva, B12 will not bind to the saliva’s R-protein, and the body’s ability to absorb it is inhibited. And there are hundreds of different drugs that can cause dry mouth, resulting in too little saliva production. They include opioids, inhalers, decongestants, antidepressants, blood pressure drugs and benzodiazepines, like Xanax, used to treat anxiety.
The last three categories alone account for easily 100 million prescriptions in the U.S. each year.
Another potential contributor to B12 deficiency is low levels of stomach acid. Hundreds of millions of Americans take anti-ulcer medications that reduce ulcer-causing stomach acids. Researchers have firmly linked the use of these drugs to B12 deficiency – although that possibility may not outweigh the need for the medication.
Production of stomach acid can also decrease with aging. More than 60 million people in the U.S. are over age 60, and some 54 million are over the age of 65. This population faces a higher risk of B12 deficiency – which may be further increased by use of acid-reducing medications.
Production of gastric acid and intrinsic factor by the specialized parietal cells in the stomach is critical for B12 absorption to occur. But damage to the stomach lining can prevent production of both.
In humans, impaired stomach lining stems from gastric surgery, chronic inflammation or pernicious anemia – a medical condition characterized by fatigue and a long list of other symptoms.
While some health care providers routinely measure B12 and other vitamin levels, a typical well-check exam includes only a complete blood count and a metabolic panel, neither of which measures B12 status. If you experience potential symptoms of a B12 deficiency and also have one of the risk factors above, you should see a doctor to be tested. A proper lab workup and discussion with a physician are necessary to discover or rule out whether inadequate B12 levels could be at play.
In the case of my dog Scout, her symptoms led the vet to run two blood tests: a complete blood count and a B12 test. These are also good starting points for humans. Scout’s symptoms went away after a few months of taking oral B12 supplements that also contained an active form of the B vitamin folate.
In humans, the type of treatment and length of recovery depend on the cause and severity of the B12 deficiency. Full recovery can take up to a year but is very possible with appropriate treatment.
Treatment for B12 deficiency can be oral, applied under the tongue or administered through the nose, or it may require various types of injections. A B12 supplement or balanced multivitamin may be enough to correct the deficiency, as it was for Scout, but it’s best to work with a health care provider to ensure proper diagnosis and treatment.
This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world.The Conversation is trustworthy news from experts. Try our free newsletters.
Seniors with prediabetes should eat better, get moving, not fret too much about diabetes
Judith Graham – November 26, 2023
Almost half of older adults — more than 26 million people 65 and older — have prediabetes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. How concerned should they be?
Not very, say some experts. Prediabetes — a term that refers to above-normal but not extremely high blood sugar levels — isn’t a disease, and it doesn’t imply that older adults who have it will inevitably develop Type 2 diabetes, they note.
“For most older patients, the chance of progressing from prediabetes to diabetes is not that high,” said Dr. Robert Lash, chief medical officer of the Endocrine Society, commenting on recent research. “Yet labeling people with prediabetes may make them worried and anxious.”
Other experts believe it’s important to identify prediabetes, especially if this inspires older adults to get more physical activity, lose weight, and eat healthier diets to help bring blood sugar under control.
“Always a diagnosis of prediabetes should be taken seriously,” said Dr. Rodica Busui, president-elect of medicine and science at the American Diabetes Association, which recommends adults 45 and older get screened for prediabetes at least once every three years. The CDC and the American Medical Association make a similar point in their ongoing “Do I Have Diabetes?” campaign.
According to the American Diabetes Association, an estimated 84 million Americans age 20 and older have pre-diabetes.
Still, many older adults aren’t sure what they should be doing if they’re told they have prediabetes. Nancy Selvin, 79, of Berkeley, California, is among them.
At 5 feet and 106 pounds, Selvin, a ceramic artist, is slim and in good physical shape. She takes a rigorous hour-long exercise class three times a week and eats a Mediterranean-style diet. Yet Selvin has felt alarmed since learning last year her blood sugar was slightly above normal.
“I’m terrified of being diabetic,” she said.
Two recent reports about prediabetes in the older population are stimulating heightened interest in this topic. Until their publication, most studies focused on prediabetes in middle-aged adults, leaving the significance of this condition in older adults uncertain.
The newest study by researchers at the CDC, published in April in JAMA Network Open, examined data about more than 50,000 older patients with prediabetes between January 2010 and December 2018. Just over 5% of these patients progressed to diabetes annually, it found.
Researchers used a measure of blood sugar levels over time, hemoglobin A1C. Prediabetes is signified by A1C levels of 5.7% to 6.4% or a fasting plasma glucose test reading of 100 to 125 milligrams per deciliter, according to the diabetes association. (This glucose test evaluates blood sugar after a person hasn’t eaten anything for at least eight hours.)
Higher risks for some groups
Of note, study results show that obese older adults with prediabetes were at significantly heightened risk of developing diabetes. Also at risk were Black seniors, those with a family history of diabetes, low-income seniors, and older adults at the upper end (6%-6.4%) of the A1C prediabetes range. Men were at slightly higher risk than women.
The findings can help providers personalize care for older adults, Busui said.
They also confirm the importance of directing older people with prediabetes — especially those who are most vulnerable — to lifestyle intervention programs, said Alain Koyama, the study’s lead author and an epidemiologist at the CDC.
Since 2018, Medicare has covered the Diabetes Prevention Program, a set of classes offered at YMCAs and in other community settings designed to help seniors with prediabetes eat healthier diets, lose weight, and get more physical activity. Research has shown the prevention program lowers the risk of diabetes by 71% in people 60 and older. But only a small fraction of people eligible have enrolled.
Another study, published in JAMA Internal Medicine last year, helps put prediabetes in further perspective. Over the course of 6.5 years, it showed, fewer than 12% of seniors with prediabetes progressed to full-fledged diabetes. By contrast, a larger portion either died of other causes or shifted back to normal blood sugar levels over the study period.
The takeaway? “We know that it’s common in older adults to have mildly elevated glucose levels, but this doesn’t have the same meaning that it would in younger individuals — it doesn’t mean you’re going to get diabetes, go blind, or lose your leg,” said Elizabeth Selvin, daughter of Nancy Selvin and a co-author of the study. She is also a professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
“Almost no one develops the [diabetes] complications we’re really worried about in younger people.”
“It’s OK to tell older adults with prediabetes to exercise more and eat carbohydrates evenly throughout the day,” said Dr. Medha Munshi, director of the geriatric diabetes program at Joslin Diabetes Center, an affiliate of the Harvard Medical School. “But it’s important to educate patients that this is not a disease that is inevitably going to make you diabetic and stress you out.”
Many older people have slightly elevated blood sugar because they produce less insulin and process it less efficiently. While this is factored into clinical diabetes guidelines, it hasn’t been incorporated in prediabetes guidelines, she noted.
Drugs not recommended for prediabetes
Aggressive treatments for prediabetes, such as the medication metformin, should be avoided, according to Dr. Victor Montori, an endocrinologist and professor of medicine at the Mayo Clinic. “If you get diabetes, you will be prescribed metformin. But it’s just nonsense to give you metformin now, because you may be at risk, to reduce the chance that you’ll need metformin later.”
Unfortunately, some doctors are prescribing medication to older adults with prediabetes, and many aren’t spending time discussing the implications of this condition with patients.
That was true for Elaine Hissam, 74, of Parkersburg, West Virginia, who became alarmed last summer when she scored 5.8% on an A1C test. Hissam’s mother developed diabetes in adulthood, and Hissam dreaded the possibility that would happen to her too.
At the time, Hissam was going to exercise classes five days a week and walking 4 to 6 miles daily as well. When her doctor advised “watch what you eat,” Hissam cut out much of the sugar and carbohydrates in her diet and dropped 9 pounds. But when she had another A1C test at the start of this year, it had dropped only slightly, to 5.6%.
“My doctor really didn’t have much to say when I asked, ‘Why wasn’t there more of a change?’” Hissam said.
Experts I spoke with said fluctuations in test results are common, especially around the lower and upper ends of the prediabetes range. According to the CDC study, 2.8% of prediabetic seniors with A1C levels of 5.7% to 5.9% convert to diabetes each year.
Focus on cardiovascular risks
Nancy Selvin, who learned last year that her A1C level had climbed to 6.3% from 5.9%, said she’s been trying to lose 6 pounds without success since getting those test results. Her doctor has told Selvin not to worry but prescribed a statin to reduce the potential for cardiovascular complications, since prediabetes is associated with an elevated risk of heart disease.
That conforms with one of the conclusions of the Johns Hopkins prediabetes study last year. “Taken as a whole, the current evidence suggests that cardiovascular disease and mortality should be the focus of disease prevention among older adults rather than prediabetes progression,” the researchers wrote.
For her part, Libby Christianson, 63, of Sun City, Arizona, started walking more regularly and eating more protein after learning last summer that her A1C level was 5.7%. “When my doctor said, ‘You’re prediabetic,’ I was shocked because I’ve always thought of myself as being a very healthy person,” she said.
“If prediabetes is a kick in the butt to move people to healthier behaviors, I’m fine with that,” said Dr. Kenneth Lam, a geriatrician at the University of California-San Francisco. “But if you’re older, certainly over age 75, and this is a new diagnosis, it’s not something I would worry about. I’m pretty sure that diabetes isn’t going to matter in your lifetime.”
KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFF — an independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism.
