Documents
(Published: 2005-02-25 04:09 AM)
The notion that energy technologies will not improve over the next century is similarly absurdly untenable. In fact, carbon intensity per unit of energy produced has declined by a third over the past century. The world has been moving progressively away from high carbon/low hydrogen fuels like wood and coal to lower carbon/high hydrogen fuels like oil and natural gas. Jesse Ausubel, director of the Program for the Human Environment at Rockefeller University, puts it this way: "Think of hydrogen and carbon competing for market niche as did horses and automobiles, or audio cassettes and compact discs, except the H[ydrogen]/C[arbon] competition extends over 300 years. In 1800 carbon had 90 percent of the market. In 1935 the elements tied. With business continuing dynamic as usual, hydrogen will garner 90 percent of the market around 2100."
(Published: 2005-02-25 03:53 AM)
Despite its bold name, the new celebrity campaign won't Make Poverty History.
(Published: 2005-02-22 09:03 PM)
Summary: Saudi Arabia is in the throes of a crisis, but its elite is bitterly divided on how to escape it. Crown Prince Abdullah leads a camp of liberal reformers seeking rapprochement with the West, while Prince Nayef, the interior minister, sides with an anti-American Wahhabi religious establishment that has much in common with al Qaeda. Abdullah cuts a higher profile abroad -- but at home Nayef casts a longer and darker shadow.
(Published: 2005-02-20 12:00 AM)
During more than 15 years of reporting on climate change science and policy, I have watched climatology become increasingly politicized. Most headlines and publicized scientific reports confirm that humanity is heating up the planet by burning fossil fuels that load the atmosphere with heat-trapping carbon dioxide......Well, maybe. Once a particular notion becomes conventional wisdom, evidence and stories confirming that conventional wisdom are easily accepted and published—and reported in the media. Those that contradict the prevailing views have a much harder time getting a hearing. Either global warming has hardened into conventional wisdom in the climatological community, or mounting scientific evidence shows that humanity is in fact warming the world at a dangerous pace.
(Published: 2005-02-02 01:29 AM)
Hitchens in November 2002: "Part of the charm of the regime-change argument (from the point of view of its supporters) is that it depends on premises and objectives that cannot, at least by the administration, be publicly avowed."
(Published: 2005-01-25 03:22 PM)
(Published: 2005-01-21 08:23 PM)
Public forum, Melbourne Town Hall, 15 September 2000
(Published: 2005-01-19 05:04 AM)
'Sustainable development' leaves the poor vulnerable to natural disasters.
(Published: 2005-01-19 04:24 AM)
The notion that economic growth has to be curtailed is tragic when billions still live in dire poverty.
(Published: 2005-01-04 04:47 AM)
From our old forum:
"What purpose do Tariq Ali and his ilk serve then?" is a very important question.
(Published: 2005-01-04 04:43 AM)
(Published: 2004-12-30 10:23 AM)
The Transitional Administrative Law will be the Supreme Law of Iraq, during the transitional period. It will expire once a government is elected under a permanent constitution and take office. This will happen no later than December 31, 2005.
(Published: 2004-12-15 08:15 PM)
(Published: 2004-12-12 06:00 AM)
Postrel divides the world into dynamists and stasists - dynamists support evolution and the processes of variation, feedback and adaptation - stasists supports stability.
"Do we search for stasis - a regulated engineered world? Or do we embrace dynamism - a world of constant creation, discovery and competition?" (from the Introduction)
(Published: 2004-12-09 06:56 AM)
Some correspondence with Noam Chomsky about the current US strategy of "draining the swamps".