It was going to happen sooner or later. Maybe the meltdown in the world of finance hastened the trillion dollar deficit, though US governments have been trying hard to breach that milestone. Three months before the end of this financial year it’s happened. Maybe it’s not such a frightening number in the context of the …
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Month:July 2009
US economy recession or recovery
Fortune’s gauge: 7 metrics that indicate the trend in the US economy. Data in pretty pictures. http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/storysupplement/recovery_index/index.html
Energy shown to be the most important issue in world’s biggest company ranking.
The latest annual survey of the largest companies by Fortune magazine confirms the dominance of oil companies, with 7 in the top 10, despite the steep drop in crude prices in the past year. This isn’t surprising because we realise the unnatural dependence on oil that humanity has nurtured over the past century. It would …
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Bundanoon outshines the G8. It bans bottled water.
Bundanoon, a rural town in New South Wales, Australia, has voted overwhelmingly to ban the sale of bottled water over concerns about its environmental impact. It may be the first community in the world to have such a ban. 350 residents turned out to vote at the public meeting in the town hall. Only one …
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G8 saves face with procrastination and prevarication.
So the G8 agreed to limit global warming to 2°C by 2050. OK maybe a step in the right direction. But no agreement to cuts by 2020. And no agreed action. The G8 agreed its members would “work towards” 80% cuts in emissions by 2050, but again no commitment, no economic penalties for failing to …
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Stabilisation is uneven and recovery will likely be sluggish.
The IMF’s World Economic Outlook Update is subtitled Contractionary Forces Receding But Weak Recovery Ahead. Their Global Financial Stability Report Market Update is subtitled Policies Have Reduced Systemic Risks But Vulnerabilities Remain. While capital injections have helped staunch the bloodletting, financial systems remain impaired and will remain a drag on economic recovery. More than that, …
Continue reading Stabilisation is uneven and recovery will likely be sluggish.
Time to start decarbonising, and stop recarbonising.
An international group of academics is urging world leaders to abandon their current policies on climate change. The authors of How to Get Climate Policy Back on Course say the strategy based on overall emissions cuts has failed and will continue to fail. The current system of attempting to cap carbon emissions then allow trading …
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The shrinking planet.
Although the graphics are not as dramatic as a movie like Independence Day or even An Inconvenient Truth, they show simply and clearly the imbalance between the carrying capacity of the earth and the human population. They also show that the imbalance is growing, rapidly. The only real solution is to reduce the human population. …
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Climate change: The evidence
Climate change: The evidence in pictures. A very quick overview of the evidence and consequences of human overconsumption of planetary resources. By the way, there is still a choice.
The Kama Sutra finally wins over colonial law in India
The ancient Indian text the Kama Sutra makes an interesting read. It is not just a “sex manual” but also a guide or commentary on human behaviour and society. It allows for the differences in people and offers insight in to the intimate relationships that humans explore, including same gender sex. Homosexuality has always been …
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