April 2009

Weekly news update on climate change: May 1

Journal

Obama Looks to Protect Reefs From Souring Seas - Science - 4/15/09
Archaeology: A New Look at the Mayas' End - Science - 4/24/09
Atmospheric Science: Shifting Gear, Quickly - Science - 4/24/09
Temperature sensitivity of drought-induced tree mortality portends increased regional die-off under global-change-type drought - PNAS - 4/29/09
Changes in biogenic carbon flow in response to sea surface warming - PNAS - 4/29/09
Time to act - Nature - 4/30/09
Impact of historical land cover change on daily indices of climate extremes including droughts in eastern Australia - Gephysical Research Letters - 2009
California in clean-fuel drive: State rule says biofuels aren't so green - Nature - 4/30/09
Japan goes for the sun: Government pushes to regain national lead in solar-energy research - Nature - 4/30/09
New UK coal must be partly 'clean' - Nature - 4/30/09
Climate crunch: A burden beyond bearing - Nature - 4/30/09
Climate crunch: Sucking it up - Nature - 4/30/09
Overshoot, adapt and recover - Nature - 4/30/09
The worst-case scenario - Nature - 4/30/09
Climate change: Too much of a bad thing - Nature - 4/30/09
Greenhouse-gas emission targets for limiting global warming to 2 °C - Nature - 4/30/09
Warming caused by cumulative carbon emissions towards the trillionth tonne - Nature - 4/30/09

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News Update

Thomas Schelling meets weight loss

Thomas Schelling, one of the fathers of game theory, would be proud. There are now websites that allow people to place bets with themselves over whether they will achieve certain weight loss goals:

Facing traffic and pollution, Philippines city invests in bicycles

During the Martial Law years in the Philippines (1970s to early 1980s), there was a story widely shared (discreetly) about a popular TV variety show host who was made to ride the bicycle all day in a military camp. According to accounts, he apparently displeased the rulers at the time for making a quip about the government's running slogan that goes, "sa ika-uunlad ng bayan, disiplina ang kailangan."Loosely translated, it means, "for the country to progress, discipline is what is needed."

What the TV host jokingly proclaimed was – "sa ika-uunlad ng bayan, bisikleta ang kailangan" ("what the country needs for progress is the bicycle"). True or not, the story fascinates me to this day. First, because some people just can't take a good joke. More importantly, because I thought the TV host must be a real visionary! He may have foreseen the traffic and pollution conditions some 15 years in the future and the need for cheaper alternatives for mobility.

Also Delighted

A reader's comment to the blog post What a Difference an 'S' makes:

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Media Development

Network Marketing: An Option for Development from the Bottom Up

One of the things I have been doing for the past year and a half is working on my business skills. The reason? Well, I feel that skills like leadership, team-work, orientation to goals, financial intelligence and time management, among others, are part of what we need if we want to achieve those great things we dream of, even if they’re not business related. If you’re an assiduous reader of Youthink! blog, chances are that you have great dreams about our world becoming a better place to live, so business skills may also be important for you.

Blogs from the Earth Institute

Columbia University’s Earth Institute has created a site grouping four different blogs from its researchers and staff: State of the Planet, Climate and Energy, Water, and Millennium Villages.

Its Director, Jeffrey Sachs, is blogging there occasionally among many others. Worth visiting.

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Advances in Development Economics

When the storm comes, most build walls while others build windmills!

This Chinese proverb is my recent favorite! In my previous blog, I drew a very pessimistic picture of the future due to the financial crisis. Of course it is a crisis and its negative, but here I will talk about some quintessential optimists, who are in search of the silver lining.

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blog

People in Transit

The Mediterranean—a basin of cultures, the demographics of which, it seems, invite both appeal and criticism…

Gone seem to be the days when water was the key in a process of communication; where those living along the coasts would be absorbing, assimilating and partaking in diversity and exchange. Routes were sea, not land. Trade was linked to ports, transport to ships, and movement to waves.

(Development) Communication: The Lubricant for Running the Development Engine Smoothly

The third of the ten key issues about development communication is a crucial one and it asserts that there is a significant difference between development communication and other types of communication. What is the difference and why is important? Let us start by defining communication’s most renowned function; i.e.

Do banks discriminate against women entrepreneurs?

Some studies such as Carter and Shaw (2006) show that the share of women among the self-employed is disproportionately small, that they run smaller businesses, that they are less likely to rely on venture capital and that their firms have lower debt-equity ratios. These differences in financing patterns could be due to two sorts of factors.