The Duck of Minerva

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...

Yay, pointless self-inflicted global catastrophe avoided. In between all the gnashing of teeth about whether the United States Congress would act to forestall a default on the country's national debt and actually reopen the government, some other things were happening around the world. I've been meaning to write about the energy and environment front for weeks, but my attention has been captured by the awful spectacle that was the U.S. Congress, namely the machinations of the radical Tea Party right. Before I delve into links about energy and environment, let me give conservative New York...

We continue to degrade the U.S. brand, weakening America's ability to serve as a force for attraction around the world. Why would anyone want to emulate this particular crappy model of democracy? In terms of security, 70% of our intelligence community at the NSA and CIA have been furloughed (James Clapper and the WaPo raised the specter of a possible increased threat from terrorism and depending on your view of how active plotters are against America and its interests, you might find this logic persuasive). In terms of doing the nation's international business, staff at U.S. government...

I was transfixed this week by the week's events in Kenya, the attacks by Al-Shabaab on the Westgate shopping center that resulted in the deaths of at least 60 people. With friends just a stone's throw away from that mall, it was hard to turn away from that unfolding set of events. So, this week, to give you some context, I've linked a number of stories that try to explain how the attack could have happened, why al-Shabaab appears intent on this kind of action, and what this means for security in East Africa. At the same time as we have witnessed this horrific tragedy, there appears a...

After last week's diplomatic overtures on Syria, we've entered a period of relative calm and back to our mixed bag of stories of interest. NPR is running a fabulous series on Brazil in the lead up to the World Cup, which is also timely since the Brazilian president cancelled her plans to visit the United States as a result of U.S. spying on her and other Brazilians, a revelation that came out of the Snowden affair. In other news, I'm going to link to stories on Chinese extraordinary measures to address pollution, how much energy electricity your average refrigerator uses, Nathan Jensen's...

If you are like me, you have been transfixed by the unfolding story on Syria, the diplomatic gambit that has forestalled an imminent military strike. Alongside this important news has been the more picayune question of a Syria intervention advocate falsely claiming her academic credentials from my alma mater. Lost in the midst of all this Syria drama is the fact that the United States Men's National Team qualified for the World Cup. In my one vaguely nationalist refrain, we are going to Brazil! Read on about all of these things... It's an open question whether the Obama administration has...

It's morning somewhere right? With military action possibly pending in Syria amidst a horrible ongoing civil war, I needed a more hopeful photo to accompany this post of news links (hence the duck and the kitten). But, the news out there is pretty grim so here are some links on Syria, the links between drought and the war in Syria, climate change and violence, and what happened to Al Gore on climate change. Aaron David Miller makes the case that Obama had to go to Congress and made a virtue out of necessity Under these circumstances, Obama has been risk-averse not because he's flawed,...