140 nations meeting in Geneva have concluded an accord to limit mercury emissions, which must now be ratified by individual nations. It has implications for coal-fired power plants, among the most serious contributors to mercury pollution, as well as cement factories The treaty also seeks an end to mercury use in thermometers and batteries, and […]
Algerian Military Retakes Gas Plant: 16 Hostages, 32 terrorists Dead
The Algerian military took back the Ayn Imnas gas plant on Saturday, invading it and killing 32 radical fundamentalists, including their leader, Abdul Rahmani al-Nijeri, from Niger. Some of the 16 Western hostages who were killed may have been executed by the radicals as the Algerian troops closed in. Algiers announced that 107 foreign hostages […]
13 gigawatts of New Wind power in US in 2012, Renewables Half of all New Energy
The US put in 13 gigawatts of new wind energy capacity in 2012, 5 of it in December alone, according to a Bloomberg study. The Office of Energy Projects report was a bit more conservative, but confirmed the general trend. h/t Grist Wind alone now accounts for 6% of US electricity generation! Even the government […]
Syrian Kurds Battle Extremist Fundamentalists
In a potentially very bad sign for the Syrian Revolution, Agence France Presse Arabic reports that in the town of Ra’s al-Ain in the province of Hasaka on the border with Turkey, heavy fighting has been raging between local Syrian Kurds and an invading force of Muslim fundamentalist Arabs that deployed tanks and artillery against […]
Was Aaron Swartz a Cyber-Criminal or a Martin Luther King, Jr. of the Internet? (Thompson)
Christie Thompson writes at ProPublica: When Reddit co-founder and internet freedom activist Aaron Swartz committed suicide last Friday, he was facing up to 13 felony counts, 50 years in prison, and millions of dollars in fines. His alleged crime? Pulling millions of academic articles from the digital archive JSTOR. Prosecutors allege that Swartz downloaded the articles because he […]
Omar Khayyam (162) “Be happy, since once you’re upset it goes on forever”
Be happy, since once you’re upset it goes on forever– as stars move into conjunction in the sky, it will go on. The brick they will one day mold from your clay will be lodged in the portico of someone else’s palace. Translated by Juan Cole from Omar Khayyam’s Rubaiyat, [pdf] Whinfield 162
How Lance Armstrong’s Lies & Doping are Just like Climate Change Denial & CO2
Understanding how performance-enhancing drugs raise the odds of success in sports helps us understand how dumping greenhouse gases into the atmosphere raises the chances of heat waves: It is the same form of reasoning in both cases. This analogy also helps us understand how the lies of Big Oil-backed outfits like the Heartland Institute about […]
Algeria’s Botched Rescue Leaves Dozens of Hostages Dead, Angers West
Reuters reports that the Algerian government’s intervention against the hostage crisis at a BP natural gas plant in southern Algeria has left 30 of the hostages dead. British Prime Minister David Cameron seemed visibly upset with the hamfisted Algerian operation, and British foreign ministry officials complained about not having been warned the operation was coming. […]
Ansar Dine and How Climate Change Contributed to the Algeria-Mali Crisis
The destabilization of Mali and southern Algeria is a complex political and social process that does not have only one cause. But a changing ecology forced by climate change is a major contributor to the region’s problems. This region is part of a Saharan and sub-Saharan band across Africa called the Sahel. I have traveled […]
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