Scientists with the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) have re-created the mysterious Colony Collapse Disorder in several honeybee hives simply by giving them small doses of a popular pesticide, imidacloprid. Bee populations have been dying mysteriously throughout North America and Europe since 2006, but the cause behind the decline, known as Colony Collapse Disorder,…
Category: World
March Heat Records Crush Cold Records by Over 35 To 1, Scientists Say Global Warming Loaded The Dice
The final data is in for the unprecedented March heat wave that was “unmatched in recorded history” for the U.S. and Canada. New heat records swamped cold records by the stunning ratio of 35.3 to 1. This ratio is almost off the charts, even with the brutally warm August we had, as this chart from Capital…
Taking Action on Clean Energy and Climate Protection in 2012
We must accelerate the economic transformation that has already begun and move forcefully into a completely new clean energy economic era defined by stronger industries, better infrastructure, and a steadily growing middle class. In this paper we propose how to do just that. We identify clean energy and climate solutions that are effective, strategic, and…
By 2025, three of the world’s richest cities will be in China
The McKinsey Global Institute explains what the new world order will look like in 2025: Just 600 cities will be responsible for about 60 percent of global GDP growth. And while urban centers in the United States, Europe*, and Japan are still dominant, cities in China and India, in particular, will have an outsized role…
A New Energy Third World in North America?
The “curse” of oil wealth is a well-known phenomenon in Third World petro-states where millions of lives are wasted in poverty and the environment is ravaged, while tiny elites rake in the energy dollars and corruption rules the land. Recently, North America has been repeatedly hailed as the planet’s twenty-first-century “new Saudi Arabia” for “tough energy” — deep-sea oil, Canadian tar…
French film, music industries shrink despite harsh anti-piracy law
A report published by the French High Authority for the Dissemination of Creative Works and Protection of Rights on the Internet HADOPI is being touted by file sharing opponents the world over as proof that so-called “graduated response” policies are very effective at stopping copyright infringement. Problem is, it neglects to mention something very important:…
Global Warming Denialism ‘Just Foolishness,’ Scientist Peter Raven Says
“There is virtually unanimous consensus among the world’s scientists who work in the area that human beings are the major reason that this is so the world’s average temperature rising,” writes Raven from London. “Because, just as first noted by the Swedish chemist Arrhenius in 1895, when you add more carbon dioxide or other co-called…
90 Degrees in Winter: This Is What Climate Change Looks Like
The National Weather Service is kind of the anti–Mike Daisey, a just-the-facts operation that grinds on hour after hour, day after day. It’s collected billions of records (I’ve seen the vast vaults where early handwritten weather reports from observers across the country are stored in endless rows of ledgers and files) on countless rainstorms, blizzards…
U.S.-Korea Trade Agreement Takes Effect Today
As of March 15, 2012, the U.S.-Korea Trade Agreement – the most commercially significant U.S. trade agreement in nearly two decades — is now in effect. The opportunities this agreement offers to American manufacturers, service providers, farmers, ranchers, and workers are key components of President Obama’s National Export Initiative, which aims to double American exports by…
Science: Ocean Acidifying So Fast It Threatens Humanitys Ability to Feed Itself
That is to say, it’s not just that acidifying oceans spell marine biological meltdown “by end of century” as a 2010 Geological Society study put it. We are also warming the ocean and decreasing dissolved oxygen concentration. That is a recipe for mass extinction. A 2009 Nature Geoscience study found that ocean dead zones “devoid of fish…
“It’s time to put delusional beliefs about the virtues of austerity in a depressed economy behind us”
Specifically, in early 2010 austerity economics — the insistence that governments should slash spending even in the face of high unemployment — became all the rage in European capitals. The doctrine asserted that the direct negative effects of spending cuts on employment would be offset by changes in “confidence,” that savage spending cuts would lead…
ANALYSIS: The Real World Debunks The GOP’s ‘Austerity Now’ Ideology
In Britain, a large package of budget cuts and austerity measures which rolled out in 2010 has not unleashed the proverbial job creators in the private market. Instead, the country is still shackled with an economic growth trend that’s even worse that what it suffered in the aftermath of the Great Depression. In the Eurozone…
Germany Installed 3 GW of Solar PV in December — The U.S. Installed 1.7 GW in All of 2011
In the lead up to another 15% reduction in Germany’s feed-in tariff (the price paid for solar electricity fed into the grid), the German solar industry finished 2011 off with a bang — installing 3,000 megawatts of solar photovoltaic systems in December. Let’s put those figures in perspective: In just one month, Germany installed almost…
Remarkably Dry and Warm Winter Due to “Most Extreme Configuration of the Jet Stream Ever Recorded”
Flowers are sprouting in January in New Hampshire, the Sierra Mountains in California are nearly snow-free, and lakes in much of Michigan still have not frozen. It’s 2012, and the new year is ringing in another ridiculously wacky winter for the U.S. In Fargo, North Dakota [Thursday], the mercury soared to 55°F, breaking a 1908…
Army National Guard units heading to Afghanistan
Even across the river at the Pentagon, the very morning deployment to Afghanistan was becoming a reality for nearly 100 local families, President Obama was announcing plans for a reduced American military. Heading off to war seems so 2002, not 2012. And yet, here we are. “It’s like all of America forgot that we’re still…
DeMint Blocks Confirmation Of El Salvador’s Ambassador Because She Condemned Homophobia
On June 28, Aponte penned an op-ed praising the Funes’ directive, writing, “No one should be subjected to aggression because of who he is or who he loves. Homophobia and brutal hostility are often based on lack of understanding about what it truly means to be gay or transgender. To avoid negative perceptions, we must…
Reports: Sarkozy Heard Telling Obama That Netanyahu Is A Liar
French President Nicolas Sarkozy was overheard last week telling President Obama that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is “a liar,” according to reports from Reuters, The Associated Press and other news outlets. Sarkozy also said of Netanyahu that “I cant stand him,” the stories say. Obama, the AP says, was heard saying in…
Week in Review | Video Summary | Nov. 2011 Week 1 | TRP
A year out from the presidential election of 2012, here is a sampling of the video stories in the news the past week. We’ve got PBS on the generational impacts on the election, Chris Matthews on the election and his new book, some polling data and a few words from our President, corporate tax rates,…
The Numbers: U.S with Stimulus vs. U.K. Without
At Tax.com, Martin Sullivan rebuts those who claim that the 2009 Recovery Act (i.e. the stimulus) did nothing to boost the economy. “Republicans constantly remind us that the Obama stimulus — the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 — did not work. They voted against it. In the United Kingdom the government…
Vatican Calls For Economic Equality, Sweeping Reform Of Global Financial System
With protesters taking to the streets around the world to fight for better income equality and economic opportunities for the poor and middle classes, the Vatican called Monday for an overhaul of world’s financial systems and a return to a global economy based on ethical behavior and “achievement of a universal common good,”…