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Thursday Morning Linkage

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by Josh Busby

14 March 2013, 0001 EDT

Here is your Thursday morning linkage:

– Breakthrough in the ongoing CITES meeting on the trade in endangered species, five shark species are listed, providing greater protection as shark finning for wedding soups in Asia threatens many species of shark with extinction

– Vietnam and Mozambique are warned at CITES meeting to curb their consumption and poaching of rhino horn respectively or face trade sanctions

– White House petition on behalf of Omid Kokabee, University of Texas graduate student I blogged about a couple of weeks ago

– Stephen Walt reminds us that the reason the U.S. is so adventurist is because we are actually quite secure at home (and other trenchant observations)

– Scientists reconfirm the climate “hockey stick,” Earth now warmer than it has been for 75% of the last 11,000 yearsmarcott-B-1000-500x342

– New York Times comes out against the Keystone XL pipeline, suggesting that even if the Canadians develop the tar sands anyway, it will take longer and force Canadians to decide how much they really want to have those pipelines crisscrossing their country

– Tom Friedman in moment of sense notes that even if the Obama administration approves the pipeline that climate activists should up the civil disobedience so that O bargains hard to get some major climate commitment in return

– Chinese pollution takes on a frightening turn, as thousands of dead pigs are found dead in main river that provides water to the city of Shanghai: “The water quality of Shanghai has not been affected by the floating dead pigs.”

– USG spends $463 million for 2 million doses to combat smallpox, eradicated globally in 1980

– Kenya votes and there is no election violence as feared; president-elect Kenyatta still under indictment at ICC

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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. LFC
    LFC on 14 March 2013 at 12.32 EDT

    Re: “Chinese pollution takes on a frightening turn, as thousands of dead pigs are found in main river that provides water to the city of Shanghai”

    Water quality is of course a problem in other mega-cities too, such as Lahore, at least if this rooted-in-reality novel is any indication.