The Duck of Minerva

Thursday Linkage: Get the Duck out of this Semester

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by Josh Busby

18 April 2014, 0119 EDT

With the tale end of this semester bearing down on me, this Duck is barely keeping his head above water. Fortunately, time has stopped and nothing has happened in the world. Ukraine is fine (no more Russian incursions). The global environment has put the threat of major disruption from climate change on pause. It’s clear skies in Beijing. All the poachers of wildlife around the world have dropped dead. I wish. Read on for what’s really happening.

Ukraine/Russia

  • Russia-sympathetic protesters in eastern Ukraine occupy government installations, encouraging a response from the Ukrainian government, with violence, and Russian reprisals a real possibility
  • The West brokers deal to provide eastern autonomy in exchange for an end to violent provocations
  • For what the West ought to do, read the exchange on the Duck between Jeffrey Stacey and Sean Kay in the comments
  • Snowden asks Putin a question on surveillance and then defends himself in The Guardian

Climate Change

  • IPCC issues full report from Working Group III on mitigation
  • The Economist dumps on the anondyne summary for policymakers, considering it pretty neutered by policymakers and useless
  • New reports that fugitive emissions on methane might be higher around natural gas drilling sites
  • EPA considering new rules on methane leakage

China’s Air

  • China gets serious on shale gas, but safety concerns abound
  • A DIY solution to filtering air in China: put a filter on a fan
  • USG monitors record pretty different values for Beijing’s air quality compared to the Chinese government’s records

Poaching and Conservation

  • Amazing and awful story of tiger farms in Asia
  • Ecuador may have referendum on whether or not to drill for oil in Yasuni National Park
  • Asshole meth-heads cut burls off redwoods to sell for drugs, f–k you a–hole poachers

Your Moment of Zen

Joshua Busby is a Professor in the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas-Austin. From 2021-2023, he served as a Senior Advisor for Climate at the U.S. Department of Defense. His most recent book is States and Nature: The Effects of Climate Change on Security (Cambridge, 2023). He is also the author of Moral Movements and Foreign Policy (Cambridge, 2010) and the co-author, with Ethan Kapstein, of AIDS Drugs for All: Social Movements and Market Transformations (Cambridge, 2013). His main research interests include transnational advocacy and social movements, international security and climate change, global public health and HIV/ AIDS, energy and environmental policy, and U.S. foreign policy.

Joshua Busby is a Professor in the LBJ School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas-Austin. From 2021-2023, he served as a Senior Advisor for Climate at the U.S. Department of Defense. His most recent book is States and Nature: The Effects of Climate Change on Security (Cambridge, 2023). He is also the author of Moral Movements and Foreign Policy (Cambridge, 2010) and the co-author, with Ethan Kapstein, of AIDS Drugs for All: Social Movements and Market Transformations (Cambridge, 2013). His main research interests include transnational advocacy and social movements, international security and climate change, global public health and HIV/ AIDS, energy and environmental policy, and U.S. foreign policy.

1 Comment

  1. Johannes Urpelainen
    Johannes Urpelainen on 18 April 2014 at 08.23 EDT

    On the IPCC report, it seems to me that the Economist is also criticizing the cost-benefit calculations that went into it. Here, I tend to agree with the Economist. It’s schitzophrenic that the report first goes to emphasize the uncertainties around different mitigation technologies, and then suddenly announces that the world economy will collapse without these technologies. The IPCC should drop the cost-benefit calculations altogether and focus on the evaluation of the prospects and trajectories of individual technologies.