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Thursday Morning Linkage

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by Josh Busby

24 October 2013, 1239 EDT

Here is your morning linkage with stories on energy and the environment,  conservation, conflict in Africa, and health.

Energy and Environment

  • Alex Wang on the really bad air in the Chinese city of Harbin, buses getting lost, school canceled, video here
  • 4.5% drop in GHG emissions in the U.S. between 2011 and 2012, but methane rising in shale gas producing states?
  • Questions about whether China is last best hope for carbon capture and storage
  • Newish IEA report on what is needed for redrawing the climate and energy map

Conservation

  • EU Parliament rejects additional subsidies for fishing fleets in win for conservation
  • Shark fin soup demand tailing off in China after successful advocacy campaign
  • Amphibian die-off around the world due to fungal infection, scientists understanding it better, but can they figure out a way to save beloved salamanders and frogs before it’s too late?

Conflict in Africa

  • Acemoglu and Robinson opine on why states are weak in Africa, focusing on the problem of indirect rule. Draw some contrasts between Sierra Leone and seemingly successful Uganda which leads Laura Seay to tweet
  • Daniel Compagnon unpacks clan violence in Somalia and how Siad Barre used clan violence as a means of control
  • US to train African countries in counterterror, is this going to turn out well?
  • A Westgate attacker was Norweigan of Somali origin

Health

  • Laurie Garrett documents the return of polio, heroic efforts to avert the spread in Saudi Arabia, and the fallout from the CIA Bin Laden vaccine ruse

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.

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