- NASA Finds 2011 Ninth-Warmest Year on Record: Nice video, plus Jim Hansen: Hansen said he expects record-breaking global average temperature in the next two to three years because solar activity is on the upswing and the next El Niño will increase tropical Pacific temperatures. The warmest years on record were 2005 and 2010, in a virtual tie. “It’s always dangerous to make predictions about El Niño, but it’s safe to say we’ll see one in the next three years,” Hansen said. “It won’t take a very strong El Niño to push temperatures above 2010.”
- Activists Crack China’s Wall of Denial About Air Pollution: One mother of a 6-year-old awaiting treatment for her child’s chronic cough said: “I think it’s good for the child’s immune system to be exposed to tough weather like today’s. It will make them tougher.”
- Commentary in Nature: Can economy bear what oil prices have in store? From the peak oil folks at UW; I’m skeptical.
- A Ballot Push to Legalize Marijuana, With Alcohol as the Role Model: The specter of California’s vote in 2010, when voters said no to legalization, and 2006, when a similar measure failed in Colorado, hangs over this year’s debate.
- In China, Human Costs Are Built Into an iPad; see also the previous article about Apple, plus Chinese Readers on the ‘iEconomy’ and Q. and A. With Li Qiang of China Labor Watch.
- Saudi Arabia. Nigeria. Venezuela. Canada? My joke about Canada becoming the bad boy of the 21st century may not be a joke for long.
- Preserved in Tar, Relics From Long Before Freeways. About the La Brea Tar Pits in Los Angeles.
- Make a carbon tax part of reform effort: Douglas Holtz-Eakin talks with the editorial board of the Condord Monitor about revenue neutral carbon taxes: Holtz-Eakin believes that to pass, a carbon tax would have to be revenue neutral. The money the tax raises should be offset by reductions in things like payroll tax, income tax and corporate tax rate. If some of the money is diverted to another purpose, even one so worthy as energy conservation measures, he believes, it will fail. We hope he’s wrong, because using some of the money to, say, subsidize the insulation of homes, would reduce carbon emissions even more, but we suspect he’s right.
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