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October 9, 2008 :: Joseph Eugene Robertson :: No Comment Yet
The United States Supreme Court, in the spring of 2007, ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency must regulate carbon emissions. That ruling could now be the basis for legislation moving the nation toward a fully combustion-free economy.
July 21, 2008 :: Joseph Eugene Robertson :: One Comment
CafeSentido.com :: The United States is firmly in the thrall of a banking meltdown, in which the normal structures, the means of measuring performance, and the meaning of debt-holdings, are all out of balance. More than one Wall Street firm or investment bank has written of tens of billions of dollars in uncollectable debt. Financier […]
July 19, 2008 :: Joseph Eugene Robertson :: 4 Comments
Food prices are skyrocketing. Initially, many put the blame on the rising demand of biofuels in the transport sector, but bio-ethanol is far from the only thing driving up food prices. New diets, soaring oil prices and climate change are all in the complex soup of explanations behind the recent development putting food beyond the reach of the planet’s poor.
July 18, 2008 :: admin :: 4 Comments
Ladies and gentlemen: There are times in the history of our nation when our very way of life depends upon dispelling illusions and awakening to the challenge of a present danger. In such moments, we are called upon to move quickly and boldly to shake off complacency, throw aside old habits and rise, clear-eyed and alert, to the necessity of big changes. Those who, for whatever reason, refuse to do their part must either be persuaded to join the effort or asked to step aside. This is such a moment.
July 17, 2008 :: Joseph Eugene Robertson :: 2 Comments
Former US vice-president Al Gore is calling on the nation to marshal its resources and divorce itself from the combustible fuels economy. Gore says the US can produce all its energy requirements from renewable resources within 10 years, if concerted action is taken. The bold initiative is designed to drive debate on the topic and move discussions about how to deal with high fuel prices toward the new opportunity they provide for funding renewable infrastructure development.
July 12, 2008 :: Joseph Eugene Robertson :: 3 Comments
The chairman of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Stephen Johnson, says the Clean Air Act is “ill-suited” to fighting the greenhouse effect, and that Congress should pass laws mandating the regulation of carbon emissions, with global warming in mind. The move may lead to a more comprehensive regulatory regime, but as the Guardian newspaper notes: “Last year’s Massachusetts v. EPA Supreme Court ruling had found that greenhouse gases can be regulated under the U.S. Clean Air Act. The decision pressured the EPA to reconsider its refusal to regulate carbon dioxide emissions from new cars and trucks.”
July 12, 2008 :: Joseph Eugene Robertson :: No Comment Yet
During the concluding half of the last century, the world was making steady progress in reducing hunger, but during the transition into the new century, the tide began to turn. In February 2007, James Morris, head of the U.N. World Food Programme (WFP), announced that 18,000 children are now dying each day from hunger and related causes. For perspective, this loss of young lives in one day is almost five times U.S. combat deaths in Iraq through four years of fighting. Although these huge numbers of dying children may be an abstraction, each represents a young life ended far too soon.
July 9, 2008 :: Joseph Eugene Robertson :: No Comment Yet
Petroleum is the most pervasive base resource other than water in the global economy of the 21st century, and as demand is exploding, production is nearing its geological peak, and untenable price increases are hitting a strained economy hard. Oil prices could be in a stagflation lock, unable to readjust to consumers’ means, unable to compete as emerging energy sources repeatedly slash development and commercial prices. Whatever factors are at play, crude oil prices have jumped over 900% since 1998, and it looks like production cannot meet global demand.
June 18, 2008 :: Joseph Eugene Robertson :: 2 Comments
The International Energy Agency has called for a major increase in the price at which carbon emissions are traded in carbon-offsetting schemes designed to reduce emissions. The IEA, as reported by the Financial Times, has called for carbon offsets to be priced closer to $200 per ton, in order to bring carbon-trading schemes in line with the costs of reducing emissions. EU carbon offsets are currently priced at roughly $43 per ton.
June 10, 2008 :: jr3o :: No Comment Yet
On the same day that oil futures jumped a record $10.75/barrel, gaining 8% in one day, the US Senate voted on major carbon-capping legislation that would reduce US carbon by 66% by the year 2050, the International Energy Agency proposed drastic increases in the cost of carbon offsets, designed to reduce the overall amount of carbon emissions in a given market, through trading.
May 17, 2008 :: Joseph Eugene Robertson :: 3 Comments
We are living in a time of unprecedented global integration, where economies, security interests, legal systems, and languages and systems of learning have been dispersed and interwoven across the globe. There are obvious positive effects to this integration, along with certain overarching and seemingly intractable problems that cause real worry for even the most hopeful or studied observers. Languages and cultures intermingle, yet seek to remain distinct and continuous, and individuals seek to enhance their own possibilities (requiring freedom of information, and freedom of movement), while seeking to prevent the corrosion of already structured social fabrics.
May 10, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
Food riots from Haiti to west Africa, Egypt and the Philippines, in recent weeks, have sparked concern among policy-makers, diplomats and economists, that the current state of the global food supply is so precarious that such violence will spread and political and economic instability could follow. Concerns about the American economy, home to most productive grain-producing region in the world, and a shift to biofuels there, could mean added difficulty in bringing food prices down.
April 9, 2008 :: admin :: One Comment
In a period of roughly 18 months, the price of corn across central American markets has doubled, making staple foodstuffs too expensive for many in the region. Today, what is described as an “angry mob” of protesters suffering food scarcity attacked the government palace in Port-au-Prince; UN peacekeepers responded by firing teargas, while food markets remained closed throughout.
March 31, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
Demonstrations against Chinese rule in Tibet turned violent in Nepal’s capital Kathmandu, yesterday, as police wielded bamboo clubs and beat demonstrators, including Buddhist monks and nuns. The UN has said Nepal’s harsh clampdown on Tibetan demonstrators violates international human rights law, including the right to peaceful assembly, as embodied in treaties signed by Nepal.
March 29, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
Rice is a basic food staple for nearly half the world’s population. The world’s two most populous nations, China and India, depend heavily on the grain for basic sustenance, and for economic stability. The price of rice has doulbed in the last 3 months, causing concern about potential for conflict along Asian border regions.
March 29, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
Reports out of Colombia cite government sources saying the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia) acquired uranium on the black market. Colombian authorities claim to have recoverd 66 pounds of uranium. The radioactive material, which in some forms can fuel to a nuclear device, was said to have been recovered after information on 3 laptops seized led authorities to it.
March 23, 2008 :: admin :: 2 Comments
As part of the Crisis Policy Forum, the HotSpring collaborative innovation initiative is now planning an effort to tackle the problem of food supply management and chronic food and water scarcity in Africa. The lessons from this experiment in collaborative research will be applicable in many cases to other situations around the world, and we are open to spurring dialogue in those areas as outgrowths of this ongoing discussion.
March 22, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
The Chinese government’s military crackdown on demonstrators in Tibet and in neighboring Chinese provinces has been intense, though foreign media have been unable to confirm reports of mounting death tolls. In Sichuan province, there are allegations of 23 killed by security forces in one incident, including a 16-year-old. Reports of mounting fear among civilians in Tibet and Sichuan have become common in recent days.
March 17, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
A revolutionary web-based social networking project, Witness.org has created a platform for delivering evidentiary video documenting human rights abuses for the collective conscience of the online world. ‘The Hub’, as the video sharing platform is called, is designed to ensure that individuals who have documented potential human rights abuses, or who are able to give their testimony via video, can put their message before the eyes of the world.
March 16, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
Two days after peaceful demonstrations across Tibet turned violent in the capital Lhasa, the Reuters news agency has reported that the violent clashes between protesters and Chinese security forces have spread to neighboring provinces. Supporters of the Dalai Lama, the exiled spiritual leader of Tibetan Buddhists, say they have confirmed at least 80 deaths among demonstrators. Xinhua, China’s official state-run media organization, reports only 10 civilian deaths and a number of policemen injured.
March 15, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
International media reports say that sources in the Tibetan exile community, from India to New York, have confirmed that at least 30 civilian demonstrators were killed by Chinese security forces as they moved to end a demonstration in the Tibetan capital, Lhasa, on Friday. Demonstrations had begun on Monday, and for four days, reports suggest the majority of demonstrations were peaceful.
March 10, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
A new study has found that selective seratonin re-uptake inhibitors (SSRI, or anti-depressants), sex-hormones, painkillers and anti-biotics in significant quantities in the drinking water of 24 out of 28 major metropolitan areas in the United States. Though the term “trace amounts” appears multiple times in today’s reporting of the findings, that term does not necessarily speak to quantity.
February 4, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
At the World Economic Forum at Davos, Switzerland, a range of ideas from international disease relief, healthcare, security, climate change, extreme poverty, and the responsibility of market incentives, took the discussions in a new direction. Fmr. US vice-president Al Gore spoke of the need for a “marriage” of policy regarding extreme poverty and the climate crisis.
February 4, 2008 :: admin :: 14 Comments
The global climate change crisis may soon enter a new phase in terms of human society’s reaction, efforts to curb harmful activities that exacerbate the problem. The United States Dept. of the Interior is considering a proposal to list the polar bear as the first species facing extinction specifically as a side-effect of global warming.
The move would fall under the regulatory powers of the Endangered Species Act, and environmental activists believe it could be used as leverage to push for the shutting down of projects that would bring new carbon-emissions-intensive activities (like new coal-fired power plants) into use.
January 24, 2008 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
The potential for broad-scope “electronic agents” —preprogrammed service aggregators and self-organizing databases with proactive marketing capability—, aiding in everyday information-related activities, will require a new security standard to prevent identity theft, which could become one of the gravest threats to economic performance and individual liberty.
December 30, 2007 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
In the wake of the assassination of Pakistan People’s Party leader Benazir Bhutto, stability seems to be the key goal among top rivals in secular political leadership. The PPP has announced that in keeping with Ms. Bhutto’s wishes, her son Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, a 19-year-old student at Christ Church College, Oxford, will take the helm of the party, with her husband, Bilawal’s father, managing day-to-day affairs until Bilawal finishes his studies.
December 28, 2007 :: admin :: One Comment
Fmr. Pakistan prime minister Benazir Bhutto, whose father was executed in the process of a military coup in the 1970s, and who has said she remained “broken” by what had happened to her during 5 years in military prison, was assassinated Thursday, while campaigning to restore free elections to her country. She had been the first woman elected PM in a Muslim country and had sworn she would combat radical fundamentalism and end the cycle of military takeovers.
December 16, 2007 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
The UN climate change policy conference on the Indonesian island of Bali has ended in dramatic fashion, as EU and US delegates found themselves in a war of words over differences in how to reach long-term reductions in “heat-trapping gases” emitted by human societies, essentially: carbon emissions.
December 14, 2007 :: admin :: One Comment
If you think you are spending more each week at the supermarket, you may be right. The escalating share of the U.S. grain harvest going to ethanol distilleries is driving up food prices worldwide. Corn prices have doubled over the last year, wheat futures are trading at their highest level in 10 years, and rice prices are rising too. In addition, soybean futures have risen by half.
November 18, 2007 :: Joseph Eugene Robertson :: No Comment Yet
Due to the science we already have, the laws we have to govern our own activity and to force government to act for the public health, we face the real possibility of being forced, in American courts, in the future, to pay for damage done to the most affected populations in other parts of the world, as a result of inaction by our government. And if not in court, then as a matter of the de facto urgencies of international political stability.
November 13, 2007 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
In many parts of the world, people are presently facing the question, on a societal scale, of whether or not free and open democracy can coexist with measures taken to protect against extremism. The question is an old one and goes to the root of whether it is possible, as a matter of natural law, to vote away one’s rights or to vote against democracy.
October 14, 2007 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
Can the world prepare to face the potential economic fallout from increasingly intense weather phenomena, prolonged heat waves, desertification, ice-melt and flooding? While there is no clear proof Hurricane Katrina was a direct result of climate change, hurricanes of such intensity will become increasingly frequent as Gulf waters warm; the aftermath provides real instruction for just how fragile the social fabric can be in the face of natural disaster.
October 14, 2007 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
Climate change is no longer controversial; it has been accepted as scientific fact by a global consensus of researchers and policy makers, including the Bush White House, which resisted acknowledging human activities were a vital contributing factor, until recently. Now the Nobel committee selecting the Peace Prize laureate has raised the issue of warming posing a major international security crisis.
October 11, 2007 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
The world grain harvest for 2006 was projected mid-year to fall short of consumption by 61 million tons, marking the sixth time in the last seven years that production has failed to satisfy demand. As a result of these shortfalls, world carryover stocks at the end of this crop year were projected to drop to 57 days of consumption, the shortest buffer since the 56-day-low in 1972 that triggered a doubling of grain prices.
October 4, 2007 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
Darfur, beset by years of bloody internecine violence, with the Khartoum-backed janjaweed militia killing civilians in numbers the US government has officially declared to be genocide, is still struggling to find a real beginning for peace. For years, human rights groups have pleaded with the international community to intervene, with or without the support of the Khartoum government. Finally, in August, the UN Security Council ordered the world’s largest peacekeeping mission to secure Darfur.
September 30, 2007 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
The Elders is a humanitarian initiative led by South African archibishop Desmond Tutu and former South African pres. Nelson Mandela, designed to bring the African “village elders” concept to the global village, in an effort to defuse flashpoint crisis situations and speed responsible policy-making. Its foundations are the basic principles of human rights and the experience and credibility of the group’s emissaries.
September 26, 2007 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
Former US pres. Bill Clinton’s Global Initiative (CGI) holds a major international stakeholders’ and donors’ conference each year in conjunction with the UN’s General Assembly, in New York City. This year’s convention brings together 1,300 delegates from 72 countries. 52 active or former heads of state are participating, in only the 3rd year of this no-nonsense charity initiative.
September 26, 2007 :: admin :: One Comment
As land and water become scarce and as competition for these vital resources intensifies, we can expect mounting social tensions within societies, particularly between those who are poor and dispossessed and those who are wealthy, as well as among ethnic and religious groups. Population growth brings with it a steady shrinkage of life-supporting resources per person. That decline, which is threatening to drop the living standards of more and more people below survival level, could lead to unmanageable social tensions that will translate into broad-based conflicts.
September 22, 2007 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
In the wake of Mozambique’s long civil war, lasting from 1976 to 1992, a group of artists, sponsored by Christian aid, set up the Transforming Arms into Tools (TAE) project in the nation’s capital, Maputo. Sculptors use decomissioned weapons, and parts of weapons to make art, expressing the possibility of finding new ways to secure and advance civil society.
September 22, 2007 :: admin :: No Comment Yet
Amnesty International (Amnesty/AI) has published a new report examining the international arms trade, and its findings indicate there is little control on the expanding web of private interests seeking to profit from a proliferation of dangerous weapons. The report also illustrates the ways in which this scattering of dangerous weapons has led to severe human rights abuses.
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