War? More COVID? Irreversible Climate Change? What 2022 Could Bring

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War? More COVID? Irreversible Climate Change? What 2022 Could Bring

BU faculty predict what to expect in the coming year

January 20, 2022

Rich Barlow

As 2022 begins, it finds us in a tsunami of grim news: a climate that won’t stop warming, prices that won’t stop inflating, international tensions that won’t stop tensing up, and, of course, a pandemic that won’t stop, period.

BU experts in these fields say that indeed, 2022 could bring 12 months of disturbing developments. But they also see potential silver linings, imbuing the new year with hope. Below are faculty forecasts for what’s likely to happen in 2022.

COVID-19

Do you expect the pandemic to be brought under control or put in the rearview mirror during 2022?

Sandro Galea, dean, School of Public Health, and Robert A. Knox Professor: There are two answers to that question. The first concerns the changing nature of our relationship to the virus. COVID-19 will likely be with us for some time, just as prior pandemic-creating diseases, like the strain of influenza that caused the 1918 pandemic, remain in circulation. The question, then, is will we decouple rates of infection from rates of severe illness, hospitalization, and death? The answer is: we have, in large part, already done so. Thanks to vaccines, boosters, and increasingly sophisticated therapeutics, catching COVID today is qualitatively different from catching COVID in March of 2020. In this sense, we are already well on our way to making the virus something we manage just as we manage a range of other infectious threats.

The second answer reflects the fact that the pandemic was not just about a virus. COVID-19 provided the spark, but that spark became a blaze, thanks to underlying socioeconomic inequities. These include factors like inequality, political dysfunction, racial injustice, poverty, disinvestment in public health systems, and the conditions that contribute to the persistence of chronic disease in our society. Until we have addressed these challenges, we cannot say we have put the pandemic in the rearview mirror, because we will remain vulnerable to the next contagion, which may be even worse than COVID-19.

So, we are at an inflection point. If we apply the lessons of the COVID moment to shaping a healthier world, we can close the door on pandemics—perhaps to a degree that is unprecedented in human history. If we do not, we are opting to leave ourselves open to whatever threat emerges next. We should embrace the hard-won wisdom of this moment and do what is necessary for health.

Photo by iStock/peterschreiber.media

The Economy

How much might inflation rise this year, and how will it affect the economy?

Laurence Kotlikoff, William Fairfield Warren Distinguished Professor and College of Arts & Sciences professor of economics: Inflation has been running at roughly 6 percent annually over the past year. This is a 30-year high. The market and the Federal Reserve describe this as due to supply chain bottlenecks. They believe that inflation will decline to roughly 2 percent per year in short order. This expectation can be confirmed by comparing long-term returns on 30-year nominal Treasury bonds with those on 30-year inflation-indexed Treasury bonds. The differential reflects the market’s inflation expectations. I am far less sanguine.

Countries that are broke invariably make money to make money. And the United States appears in far worse long-term fiscal shape than any advanced nation, primarily due to its off-the-books (hidden) debts to pay for social programs, defense, you name it. Since 2008, the Federal Reserve has increased its printing of money dramatically. The monetary base, which tells us the amount of money the Fed has printed since its establishment, is now six times higher than it was in 2008. How much of this money has been printed to pay for federal spending is unclear. The Fed engages on a daily basis in huge portfolio transactions in which it prints, primarily electronically, money to buy financial securities, including Treasury bonds. In so doing, it expands the money in the economy, as well as its holding of securities. Assuming the securities retain value, they can be sold back into the market, meaning the Fed can suck back the money that it has injected.

What we do know is that countries that can’t, over time, pay their bills with taxes end up printing money to do so down the road. So, we don’t know how much of the massive, 13-year money printing is permanent. But when the public starts to understand that a country is bankrupt, it begins to anticipate monetary finance—using the printing press rather than raising taxes to pay otherwise unpayable bills—and becomes very reluctant to hold money, given the potential for inflation. Business also starts to raise its prices. This, of course, leads to higher interest rates, all of which can lead to further rounds of price and interest rate increases. In short, I’m a deficit hawk and would stay miles clear of bonds or anything else that pays off in nominal terms (i.e., in dollars whose purchasing power can quickly be wiped out by inflation).

Photo by iStock/Douglas Rissing

Politics

Can we expect any meaningful legislation to be passed by Congress and signed by the president, including some version of Joe Biden’s Build Back Better? And what is the likeliest outcome of the looming midterm elections in November?

Lauren Mattioli, CAS assistant professor of political science: Congress passes legislation during election years—there’s no question about that. The key term here is “meaningful.” Political scientists grapple with what counts as significant legislation and whether its likelihood of passage is influenced by the election calendar independently of other factors, such as the presence or absence of divided government. We don’t have a cut-and-dried answer that makes it easy to predict what will happen in 2022. That said, the Build Back Better plan will likely pass in some form. Democratic leadership wants something significant to reach Biden’s desk before Democrats give up control of the House (and perhaps the Senate). It has passed the House—significantly pared down—and is being considered by the Senate where, predictably, the ideological range of the Democratic party is on display.

We don’t have many discipline-wide laws in political science, but one observed regularity that approaches that status is: “The president’s party loses seats in Congress during midterm elections.” Political scientists have been investigating this pattern for decades. How many seats the president’s party will lose and whether that will be enough to shift the balance of power is trickier to predict. Democrats in Congress are extrapolating from the party’s loss in Virginia’s gubernatorial race, the rising inflation rate, and the long-observed tendency for the president’s party to lose seats in the midterms. The urgency with which Democrats are pursuing Build Back Better reflects this prediction. The Senate is another story—the contested seats don’t show a clear advantage for Republicans. Democrats might be able to hold on to their majority for another two years.

Photo by Kent Nishimura/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

The World

Will US-Chinese relations deteriorate or improve this year? What points of conflict or cooperation might arise?

Min Ye, Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies associate professor of international relations: It takes two to tango. In 2022, both Washington and Beijing will face mounting domestic political challenges, while facing growing bilateral strategic tensions. Their leadership has to deal with the health crisis, economic troubles, and political divisions, all challenging their administrations’ political and popular support. Amid such domestic challenges, bilateral relations will take a back seat in the leaders’ priorities in the new year. There are still interests and voices for cooperation and exchange in the two countries, such as businesses with stakes in each other’s markets, scholars and scientists who share common values, and social groups who cherish joint public work. However, the continuing health crisis and inability to travel will incapacitate these groups. Thus, the common consensus in both the United States and China is to remain tough and competitive with each other. The logic of conflict is likely to continue and even intensify in the year.

There are three issues of conflict. First, the Taiwan Strait remains a security hot spot. Military repositioning by the United States and its allies will drive more intense military preparation on the mainland. However, given domestic political priorities and the long-term care given to managing the conflict, an actual military fallout is unlikely in 2022. Second, the technology race is likely to sharpen, with the United States and China both boosting national technology development while restricting an exchange with each other. In this context, the technology contest is likely to go global, deepening the digital “curtain” based on political systems.

The most dangerous conflict—potentially provoking societal animosity and hatred between the United States and China—is Xinjiang, China’s western-border province. The US use of “genocide” [to describe China’s internment of Uyghurs and other Muslims] is powerful to rally domestic support and democratic allies in anti-China actions, but it is unconvincing and disingenuous to the Chinese population. The term “genocide” is repulsive across all cultures, including China’s, but its definition is values-laden. Moreover, designating China’s Xinjiang policy as “genocide” obligates America to sanction China in 2022. Since the Chinese, except for Chinese dissidents, largely do not buy the designation, they are likely to view America’s sanctions as a declaration of bilateral and diplomatic “warfare,” to which China’s tit for tat is likely to ensue.

Hope for stable and cooperative relations between the United States and China? Look beyond 2022!

Photo by Greg Baker/AFP via Getty Images

$Russian conscripted soldiers board a train in uniform. Photo by Sergei Malgavko\TASS via Getty Images$

The World

Will US-Russian relations deteriorate or improve this year? What points of conflict or cooperation might arise?

Igor Lukes, CAS professor of history and of international relations: Just before Christmas, Russia presented NATO and Washington with a list of provocative demands, formulated as an ultimatum that must be accepted in toto. It is not possible, Moscow stressed, “to pick and choose.”

The West quickly rejected Russia’s attempted diktat. Was it meant, perhaps, to justify an imminent escalation in Ukraine? Having amassed some 100,000 troops along its western border, Moscow has seized the initiative. One is reminded of Tsar Alexander’s remark during the Congress of Vienna that with a million men under arms, he didn’t feel compelled to rely on diplomacy. Does Vladimir Putin feel empowered to behave like a modern-day tsar? There are hints of it in the current saying in Moscow that those in the West who won’t listen to foreign minister Lavrov will hear from defense minister Shoygu. Under Putin’s leadership, Russia has certainly reemerged as a feared player. Reacting to Biden’s summit with Putin, some East Europeans complained they smelled “Munich” in the air, and Sweden’s top general warned that the United States might have to reinforce its military presence in Europe.

However, if Putin is smart, he will not escalate the present tensions. Consider the following:

• The size of the Russian economy is comparable to that of Italy and is dwarfed by the real GDP of the United States and China.

• Russia’s population has declined by 10 million from 1990 to the present, a drop with no precedent in peacetime. Male life expectancy is 66 years.

• The country fills its coffers by exporting gas and oil, and energy production tends to be profitable. However, this is likely to decline if efforts to decarbonize Europe continue. Russia has nothing to substitute for the shrinking demands for oil and gas. It is competitive only as an arms exporter.

• The above will wreak havoc in the ranks of the Kremlin-linked billionaires. They are co-owners of Putin’s Sistema, and when the demand for oil and gas, the source of their wealth, is reduced, the consequences will be wild.

Putin needs to realize that he has already achieved his objectives in Ukraine by under-provoking the West. Launching an all-out war now would be counterproductive. The United States and European Union are on record that it would lead to harsh consequences, including the expulsion of Russia from the Swift banking system, a step dreaded by Russia’s elite.

What can the West do? Washington needs to restore the overall security architecture by returning to the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, a crowning achievement of the Reagan-Gorbachev era. The United States should invite Russia as a partner who shares responsibility for progress in the Middle East. Washington must demonstrate its commitment to the resurrection of the Iran nuclear deal. Negotiating directly with Tehran would be a step Moscow would likely support. Finally, Washington should acknowledge that the Dayton Agreement of 1995 involving Bosnia-Herzegovina is likely to crumble. Moscow has traditionally been a powerbroker in the Balkans. Washington doesn’t want to be involved. Let Russia try its hand.

Photo by Sergei Malgavko\TASS via Getty Images

The Planet

Do you expect progress against climate change in 2022, and what measures might realistically be enacted by the United States and other nations this year?

Abigail Sullivan, CAS assistant professor of earth and environment: I’ve taught or studied climate change for more than a decade now and the most common question I receive from students is whether there’s any hope that the world will address climate change. Specifically, they want to know if I think the United States will do enough to minimize the most serious impacts for those peoples who contributed the least to the problems. In 2022, my answer remains the same as it’s been for a few years: yes, there is still hope, but the world is largely looking in the wrong places and to the wrong people.

At this point, I have zero expectation that the United States will enact meaningful climate change policy at the federal level in 2022 or anytime soon—we have seen evidence of this myopia time and time again, including at the last international climate summit in Glasgow. Rather, social science and historical analyses indicate that we should shift our focus to local efforts that may catalyze large-scale changes. So, I say to my students and anyone else asking—remember that local climate policies and collective action are critical!

We should all keep an eye on policies to create a more climate change–resilient electricity grid in 2022, especially at the state level. A decarbonized, resilient electrical grid is absolutely necessary to tackle climate change, in terms of both adaptation and mitigation. Some of the policies in President Biden’s infrastructure package will help with this, but it will be important to be aware of local efforts to, for example, bury electric cables, foster community-level electricity generation, and support low-income households in paying any resulting increases in electric bills. There is evidence that people from all parts of the political spectrum support such efforts—whether it’s for economic or climate change reasons—which will be important for passing these policies.

Photo by iStock/Naruden

Abortion

Is the Supreme Court likely to overturn, or greatly restrict, Roe v. Wade, and could that tarnish the court’s reputation?

Linda McClain, Robert Kent Professor of Law, School of Law: I regrettably predict that in 2022—one year short of Roe v. Wade’s 50th anniversary—the Supreme Court will overrule Roe and Planned Parenthood v. Casey, or so radically reinterpret them that little remains of a constitutional right of a pregnant person to terminate their pregnancy. The oral argument in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization [over Mississippi’s ban on abortions after 15 weeks of pregnancy] indicated that some justices favor this route: they seem sympathetic to Mississippi’s comparison of Roe and Casey to infamous decisions like Plessy v. Ferguson, which upheld “separate but equal” and was overruled by Brown v. Board of Education.

Justice Kavanaugh confusedly suggested that overruling Roe and Casey—taking away a previously recognized right—would be consistent with cases where the court overruled precedents to recognize a previously denied right. In one such case, Lawrence v. Texas, the court overruled Bowers v. Hardwick to protect same-sex sexual intimacy. The court stated that Bowers “was not correct when it was decided, and it is not correct today. It ought not to remain binding precedent.” The court might quote this language in overruling Roe and Casey, which would be ironic, since Lawrence’s analysis drew on Casey. Such an opinion would reject powerful arguments about the correctness of these precedents, and the weight the court should give to women’s “reliance” upon them, because of the critical role of reproductive autonomy to their equal participation in (as Casey put it) “the economic and social life of the Nation.”

If enough justices worry that direct overruling would lead to a public perception that the court has become more “political” and less legitimate, and has shown a lack of regard for women, they might choose the second route. Three decades ago, Casey cut back on Roe while asserting that it reaffirmed its “essential” holding: before viability, a woman must be free to choose to have an abortion and without “undue interference from the State.” At oral argument in Dobbs, Chief Justice Roberts suggested the viability line was mere “dicta,” raising the possibility that a majority might claim that the key holding in Roe and Casey as simply that a woman have (in his words) a “fair opportunity” to choose, and that 15 weeks is sufficient. Further, because most abortions occur before then, this would not be an “undue burden.” As Justice Sotomayor would likely argue in dissent, such reasoning cruelly ignores the severe burden this would place on women who fall outside that statistic—rural women, poor women, young women, and women of color. A further problem with such an approach is that many states have or would enact far shorter time limits (such as six weeks, in the Texas Heartbeat Act). The court would open the door to future legal challenges to whether such limits afford “fair opportunity” to choose.

How people assess the court’s ruling in Dobbs will depend on what they believe it means to show fidelity to the Constitution. While many critics of Roe will think that overruling it restores the court’s legitimacy (since the Constitution “says nothing” about abortion), many others (including myself) will think that overruling Roe undermines a commitment to fidelity to our deepest principles of liberty and equality.

Photo by Salud Carbajal

The Media

Will teaching media literacy, in the face of our pandemic of conspiracy theories on various topics, become a priority in education?

Michelle Johnson, College of Communication former associate professor of the practice of multimedia journalism: My prediction: it will be hard to prioritize media literacy when there are so many pressing issues that are disrupting education. That’s not to say that it won’t be discussed or implemented, I just doubt that it will be at the top of the list or deployed widely.

Entire books have been written about, and researchers have examined, the issue of media literacy. So, discussions about teaching it aren’t exactly new. Whenever things blow up, there is much hand-wringing and talk in education circles about preparing our students to do better when it comes to critical thinking. Sometimes it has led to changes in curricula, but not on a wide enough scale, in my opinion.

My guess is that in the wake of the 2016 election pushback against “woke” educators and critical race theory, coming from folks who really don’t understand what they are, opposition will not lessen in 2022.

There will be some valiant efforts to combat the spread of misinformation, but unless it can be rolled out, coordinated, and on a larger scale from grade school to college (and how often does that happen!), it may not make much of a difference going forward. Kudos to individual educators and institutions that are trying. In the absence of a strong and more coordinated effort, they are doing the best that they can for their students.

Photo by Robert Gauthier/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

The Arts

How will the fine and performing arts capture and reflect the era we’re living in, in the year ahead?

Harvey Young, dean, College of Fine Arts, CFA professor of theater, and CAS professor of English: The arts will help us to transition back to a style of living that will more closely resemble pre-pandemic times. Admittedly, the first few weeks of the new year—as the Omicron variant surges—will be challenging.

The sky will brighten beyond January. The arts will regain their stride. Theaters, galleries, concert halls, and cinemas will draw people—who are longing for community and interconnection—to share in a moment of art together. With our masks on, we will watch unmasked singers, actors, and musicians. We will feel free—breathe easier. Artistic yet restorative, these entertainments will recharge and reinvigorate us.

The arts will not become pandemic-themed. Yes, some people will discover last year’s excellent TV series Station Eleven, essentially a pandemic-themed This is Us. With that exception, I can’t imagine us watching story after story about COVID. The arts usually are future-oriented. Contagion, the film about a global pandemic spurred on by a virus, premiered in 2011.

Despite this inclination toward the future, there will be an uptick on nostalgia for the before times of COVID: anniversary events related to Harry Potter, Paula Vogel’s play How I Learned to Drive on Broadway, and the resilience of nearly 80-year-old touring rockers Mick Jagger, Paul McCartney, and Elton John.

The steady push to diversify the arts continues. We will see the successes of past efforts in this year’s award recognitions. It’s difficult to imagine 2022 ending without Denzel Washington, Will Smith, Ruth Negga, Rachel Zegler, Ariana Dubose, Lee Jung-jae, and BU alumna Uzo Aduba (CFA’05) recognized for their artistry and holding golden statuettes.

If there’s a lesson that we’ve learned in our current COVID era, it is how essential the arts are to our sense of self, peace of mind, and understanding of a good life. The arts—our lifeline—will guide us out of this pandemic.

Photo by iStock/elkor

The Technology Industry

Will the federal government enact significant regulation of Big Tech this year, and if so, do you expect it to be fruitful or counterproductive?

Marshall Van Alstyne, Questrom School of Business professor of management and information systems: I expect movement on several fronts regarding Big Tech regulation. Various proposals being put forward in Congress include new data rights, divestiture of large platform assets, restrictions on new acquisitions, banning self-preferencing in recommendations, and repeal of platform liability protections for user-generated content. Most of these are well-intended. A few are unwise. Very few are likely to become binding law this year. One very unwise idea is to revoke rather than reform Section 230, the legislation protecting platforms from liability for user-generated content. Doing so could seriously diminish free speech as platforms clamp down to avoid lawsuits. Reform, here, such as a “duty of care” standard would be a far better solution.

The Europeans are well ahead of us in introducing new platform regulation. The well-intentioned and wise new rules include interoperability of data, so it may be shared across platforms; “fair uninstall,” so users are not forced to keep preinstalled apps; and giving merchants access to their own data, so they are not disintermediated by e-commerce giants. There are two good examples, however, of well-intentioned but unwise rules on both sides of the Atlantic.

The first is that platforms cannot use data to enter their partners’ markets. In any other context, regulators welcome increased competition because it brings higher quality and lower prices. Here, however, the issue is intrinsic unfairness based on privileged data access. A better solution is therefore to delay platform entry, but also allow third parties, not just the platform, to enter, based on access to that same market level data. That would favor broad competition, create broad consumer benefits, and restore fairness of competition.

A second well-intentioned but unwise proposal in the United States and EU is data portability. The problem is not that this is bad per se, but rather does not go far enough. Data portability suffers several shortcomings. Removing data from its infrastructure removes its context. We don’t get our friends’ posts in response to our data because that’s their data. A transfer stagnates. It’s more important to have access to past and present flows and not a one-time depreciating stock.

Also, data removed from its infrastructure becomes impotent. It cannot be used to make purchases or posts or receive benefits, because it is detached from actions in its original infrastructure. A better way to handle this is a new “in situ” data right that allows users to access their own data where it resides. People can then bring algorithms to their data, rather than take the data to different algorithms. In-situ data rights preserve context, give access to all past and present flows, and are actionable in their original setting. We developed this idea at Boston University, and happily, the Europeans have adopted it for their next generation of the Digital Markets Act.

Photo by Justin Tallis/AFP via Getty Images

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War? More COVID? Irreversible Climate Change? What 2022 Could Bring

War? More COVID? Irreversible Climate Change? What 2022 Could Bring

BU faculty predict what to expect in the coming year

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War? More COVID? Irreversible Climate Change? What 2022 Could Bring

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