Welcome words from @VolokhC: [E]ven if a doubling of CO2-equivalent will produce warming at the low end of conventional projections, it is still a serious concern (even from a libertarian perspective).
@Levi_M offers valuable insights in a look at the new oil age. Under IEA scenarios for cheap, medium and costly oil, the resulting tracks for CO2 emissions barely differ. Much more here.
50 years of federal spending in one chart (@NPRnews @PlanetMoney).
Fun cartoon from @malekanoms on why US gas price is high despite ample supply, low demand. Answer? Bernanke monetary policy. Evidence? Chart of stock prices relative to gas prices. Bernanke has different view. Omid Malekan made headlines in 2010 with explainer on “quantitative easing.”
Post on @TheEconomist Schumpeter blog charts dark side of hyperconnectedness: ‘Blizzard of buzz.’ http://media.economist.com/sites/default/files/imagecache/full-width/images/print-edition/20111231_WBD000_0.jpg I see upside swamping such issues, particularly if/when media (to stay alive) provide filters for overloaded public.
Fun: Read “Why We Spend, Why They Save” @nytopinion & watch George Clooney in Norway savings bank ad.
Kenny Broad. at #SEJmiami: Why did God invent economists? To make climate scientists look good.
> @ScottBrophy: “Plato thought democracy was doomed..because its freedom would result in a war among “appetites,” an irrational & self-destructive pursuit of “false needs” created by market forces that profit from unbridled consumption. 2,400 years later, John Dewey was more optimistic that something like what John Rawls called “public rationality” would emerge in democratic political arrangements, providing the means for individual flourishing and happiness that real communities of grown-ups can provide. Ultimately, a lot of the answers to these questions will come down to whether Plato or Dewey was right about democracy. The jury is still out.” Read the rest.
"I see it as very secondary compared to the already unfolding Great Unraveling, with all rich economies in chronic downfalls that will last and last…"
— Vaclav Smil @dotearth, comparing global warming to debt-driven economic turmoil.
Concerns about sustaining growth in agricultural productivity on a finite planet with a changing climate are legitimate. But it is important to keep a long-term, inflation-adjusted context when pondering recent food price spikes, as in this graph from “Population Growth, Increases in Agricultural Production and Trends in Food Prices,” a paper by Douglas Southgate in the Electronic Journal of Sustainable Development.
More on Dot Earth Beyond the Eternal Food Fight
