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The Kyoto Protocol Launches! But will it matter?

(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."

Poor ambitions for the world

(Published: 2005-02-25 03:53 AM)
Despite its bold name, the new celebrity campaign won't Make Poverty History.

The Saudi Paradox

(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.

Two Sides to Global Warming:Is it proven fact, or just conventional wisdom?

(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.

Machiavelli in Mesopotamia

(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."

Iraq and the American Civil War

(Published: 2005-01-25 03:22 PM)

a Couldn't we live perfectly well without money? "I think that the problems with money are more or less self-solving. Marx explained this long ago, that the whole development of commodity production leads to the development of wage labour and capital, which leads to a deeper and deeper concentration of property in the hands of a few, and a larger and larger working class which has no stake in the present society and nothing to lose but their chains. That is the history of modern capitalist development, and it is the history of why Marx was so enthusiastic in his praise for the corrosive effect of money on the old communities."

(Published: 2005-01-21 08:23 PM)
Public forum, Melbourne Town Hall, 15 September 2000

Development should mean more than survival

(Published: 2005-01-19 05:04 AM)
'Sustainable development' leaves the poor vulnerable to natural disasters.

The dismal quackery of eco-economics

(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.

The functions of Nihilism

(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.

Support for Iraqi Democrats

(Published: 2005-01-04 04:43 AM)

Summary of Iraqi Transitional Administrative Law

(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.

Mao Zedong - On Contradiction - This essay on philosophy was written by Mao Zedong after his essay "On Practice" and with the same object of overcoming the serious error of dogmatist thinking to be found in the Party at the time. Originally delivered as lectures at the Anti-Japanese Military and Political College in Yenan, it was revised by the author on its inclusion in his Selected Works.

(Published: 2004-12-15 08:15 PM)

Discussion of Postrel's book: "The Future and its Enemies" - 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?"

(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)

Draining the Swamps: Correspondence with Chomsky. In September 2002, Chomsky wrote an article entitled Drain The Swamps And There Will Be No More Mosquitoes. Subsequently the article Mayday - It's the Festival of the Distressed was published, which argued that the US is indeed following a policy of draining the swamps. This view waspresented to Chomsky who refused to give it any serious consderation.

(Published: 2004-12-09 06:56 AM)
Some correspondence with Noam Chomsky about the current US strategy of "draining the swamps".
Created by pault
Last modified 2004-11-18 07:37 AM
 

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