Blog Roll: Mexico

 

Feb 24, 2026 Mexico on edge following drug lord’s killing

Mexico is semi-peripheral country in the World-System. Why isn't it a Core Country?

  

This blog explores the question of Mexico' role in the World-System.

• Eight Futures for Mexico The best future for Mexico would be Business-as-Usual (BAU), that is no Geopolitical alignments. Geopolitical with the US would produce a steady state while linkage with China (CN) would be the worst, creating collapse.
• Geopolitical Linkages: Canada, Mexico and the US.The Trump II Administration does not understand the World Trade System.
• Latin America and the Donroe Doctrine US attempts to destroy the Rule-Based World Order and become a regional Hegemon involve dominating both North and South America.
• Latin America Futures  The best future for Latin America is Business-as-Usual (BAU), that is, no Geopolitical Linkages.
• Unstable System Cycles in Latin America Another reason not to pursue Geopolitical Linkage with Latin America!
• Why is it important to study Spain?  Spanish Culture is a strong force in the Southwestern United States and, of course, in Latin America.  The US Government understands none of this and would be an awful Regional Hegemon.

You can run the MXL20 model and other statistical models for Latin America here.

Blog Role: Climate Change

April 11, 2026 Northeast US Climate Goals are in Big Trouble

March 22, 2026 The Balance That Keeps Climate Stable Is Out of Whack, U.N. Report Finds

Feb 10, 2026. The NY Times is reporting that Trump Allies Near ‘Total Victory’ in Wiping Out U.S. Climate Regulation. Right-wing Conservative Zealots have been working on destroying the Clean Air Act since it was enacted in 1963. With the help of a Conservative Supreme Court and a poorly administered Environmental Protection Agency, they appear to be on the verge of success.

Here is a blog roll of my posts on Climate Change:

• A Primer on Climate Change Denial Scientific Consensus: the World is Warming and it is due to Human (Anthropogenic) forces.
• Climate Feedbacks and Climate Change Denial Feedback effects are too weak to overcome uncontrolled exponential growth in emissions.
• Integrated Assessment Models (IAMS) Computer models that implement the current state of scientific knowledge on Climate Change. Climate Change Deniers offer no comparable models.
• Back of the Envelope calculations on Global Warming. So you don't believe the IAMS? You can do the calculations yourself on a piece of scrap paper (HINT: they won't support Climate Change Denial).
• Is the "Settled Science" Argument a Straw Man?  Scientific consensus is never "settled" but a few wack-a-doodle books, articles and arguments don't destroy it.
• Is there a role for Nuclear Power in reducing CO2 Emissions? Maybe.
• What do "Intelligent Design" and "Climate Change Denial" have in common? Wack-a-doodle arguments.
• The most important IPCC Graphic. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change at the UN has been working since 1988 to document the scientific consensus on Climate Change. It has produced a lot of documentation which has been difficult for Climate Change Deniers to digest. Here is a simple graphic comparing anthropogenic and natural climate forcings.
• Earth System Complexities  Needless to say, the World Environmental System has a level of complexity that eludes computer models and qualitative commentaries. Here's a simple flow chart.
• Why are Winters getting Colder? A favorite argument of Climate Change Deniers (here), but there is a scientific explanation.
• What is Conservative Philosophy really about? Self-dealing.
• Russia is Burning. Climate Change is real in Russia (so Let's Invade Ukraine).
• Are there Feedback Loops that could control Energy Use and CO2 Emissions? Maybe, but they are not strong enough to prevent Climate Change.
• Hottest Years on Record are difficult to explain away.
• A Global Warming Denial based on Vapor Hiss and Poof!
• Carbon Accounting and Policy What is the Carbon Cycle and why isn't it in balance?
• Scientific Consensus and the Precautionary Principle. If you still think Climate Change isn't real, what is a rational response?
• CO2 Emissions and Ocean Acidification The CO2 has to go somewhere and the fish and aquatic plants (e.g. coral) don't like it.
• Why Climate Change will lead to more Hurricanes. The energy pumped into the atmosphere has to go somewhere!
• An Inconvenient Half-Truth Will sea-level rise flood New York and Trump's Mar-a-Lago?
• The Dangers of Environmentalism Is the Environmental Movement inspired by the Devil?
• Why Science is never settled. It's an iterative system.
• Feedbacks from Ecosystem Pressure. Can we adapt our way out of any Environmental Crisis?
• Are Carbon Markets back from the Dead? Economists once argued that Carbon Markets (trading emission rights for mitigations) could solve the Climate problem. They were wrong, but Free-Market Environmentalism will never die.
• Controlling CO2 Emissions. One way is to have a permanent Global Financial Crisis.

Projections from My State Space Models

So IAMS, paper-and-pencil calculations and opinionated blather are not good enough for the Skeptical Environmentalist? Here are results from my own, statistically estimated models:

• Blog Roll: The World System (1950-2000+) No support for Climate Change Deniers here.

However, Global Temperature will peak sometime after 2050.

The reason is that the World System (at least the WL203 Model) goes into Collapse Mode reducing the causes of rising temperatures. None of this will be pleasant.

Blog Roll: China

 

How China Is Building Its Next Outpost at Sea - The New York Times

April 21, 2026 · China has been quietly and quickly building an island in disputed waters off of the coast of Vietnam over the last few months.

Since 2009 under the Obama administration, US Foreign policy has shifted toward Asia, sometimes called the Asia-Pivot. Google AI:

Over time, according to ChatGPT:

All the R-code for my East-Asia Pacific (EAP) models are published here. Here are some of the Blog postings I have done using these models:

• China's Long Malthusian Crisis After Mao's Death A Malthusian Controller and an Unemployment-Globalization controller have dominated the development of China during the Long 20th Century.
• Six Futures for China: One Scary Geopolitical linkage with Russia is scary!
• What If the World System was Dominated By China? The result would be stable growth (Huh)?
• China and the Global South It's not uniformly good or bad!
• A New Axis of Evil China, Russia and India Geopolitical alignment: the result for the World System is collapse!
• Hegemonic Dominance Forecasts If you want unstable unending, unstable exponential growth, China is not the best Hegemon!

For more on the Rule-Based World Order (RBO) see my post here.

Notes

Wikipedia

• China officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia.
• History of China history of China spans several millennia across a wide geographical area. Each region now considered part of the Chinese world has experienced periods of unity, fracture, prosperity, and strife.
• The Economy of China a developing socialist market economy, incorporating industrial policies and strategic five-year plans.
• East Asia a geocultural region of Asia. It includes China, Japan, Mongolia, North Korea, South Korea, and Taiwan,^[2][3] plus two special administrative regions of China, Hong Kong and Macau.
• Nuclear Weapons of China China's stockpile of nuclear weapons is the world's third-largest, estimated at 620 nuclear warheads as of 2026.
• Nuclear Power in China As of April 2026, 62 nuclear power plants are operational in mainland China, second globally to the United States, which has 94.
• China-US Trade War An economic conflict between China and the United States has been ongoing since January 2018, when U.S. president Donald Trump began imposing tariffs and other trade barriers on China with the aim of forcing it to make changes to what the U.S. has said are longstanding unfair trade practices and intellectual property theft.
• Politics of China In the People's Republic of China, politics functions within a communist state framework based on a system of people's congress under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). 
• Mass Surveillance in China  the network of monitoring systems used by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Chinese government to monitor Chinese citizens.
• Socialism with Chinese Characteristics The term was first established by Deng Xiaoping in 1982 and was largely associated with Deng's overall program of adopting elements of market economics as a means to foster growth using foreign direct investment and to increase productivity (especially in the countryside where 80% of China's population lived) while the CCP retained both its formal commitment to achieve communism and its monopoly on political power.
  
  

State Space Models

For more information about how the models are created, see the Boiler Plate.

• CN2000 Growth rates have to be stabilized or unstable growth continues forever.
• CN21 Growth collapses (negative feedback from historical controllers) unless growth rates are stabilized
• EAP BAU The East Asia Pacific region is unstable unless growth rates are reduced.
• CN_LM Model (Late Modern) In this model, that includes Exports, growth rates must also be stabilized particularly in the Export-Employment historical controllers.
• CN1 Model In this model, input from the World System puts the Economy of China into Stable Growth-and-Collapse mode.
• WL20 China 2000 In this model, growth rates and historical unemployment feedback must be stabilized.

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