Not only does the GDP mask this erosion, it can actually portray it as an economic gain: an oil spill off a coastal region "adds" to the GDP because it generates commercial activity.
Mr Netanyahu's inflexibility over the settlers may have got him out of a political jam; it also militates against the peace that would guarantee the Jewish state's long-term survival.
The February Revolution overthrew a regime, to be sure, but met with so little resistance that it failed to generate any real sense of historical drama.
As a recently published paper shows, the process of urbanization will only accelerate in the decades to come—with an enormous impact on biodiversity and potentially on climate change.