January 3, 2016 The Doomsday Clock Last year, on January 22, 2015 to be precise, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists advanced the Doomsday Clock to 3 minutes before midnight, a metaphor to indicate how close our species is to extinction. Among other things, the scientists are (correctly) concerned with … Continue reading
Category Archives: COP21
COP21 And The Distribution Of Wealth
January 1, 2016 Background COP21 is a pragmatic face-saving agreement for politicians, nothing more. Essentially, signatory nations have agreed only to commit individually and severally to maximum annual carbon emissions. Reporting the results is mandatory, but unlike global lending institutions that routinely force helpless quasi-bankrupt governments into painful austerity programs … Continue reading
Making COP21 Work
December 15, 2015 President Obama and Secretary Kerry have made the case that developing nations account for 65% of carbon emissions, and that consequently even if industrialized countries were to stop using fossil fuels instantly, now, that would not bring global warming under control. Statistically they are correct, but that’s … Continue reading
Paris FCCC 2015 Final Agreement
December 12, 2015 The Paris conference is over, and member nations have unanimously adopted a resolution to keep global mean temperature within 1.5°C of that which existed before the industrial era and to help needy nations cope with the effects of global warming. Pundits are already criticizing it due to … Continue reading
Making Paris 2015 Successful
December 11, 2015 As at Copenhagen, the sticking point in Paris is money –who is going to pay how much so the entire world won’t look like Beijing during a red-alert smog storm. The real issue is not money per se but that the world’s powers are reluctant to simply … Continue reading