A brilliant and inspiring summation by Jeremy Rankin
Tag: Global Governance
Krugman: Worried About Oligarchy? You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet | Common Dreams
The world in fact has moved on a long way in the last 25 years and not in a direction you’re going to like because we are seeing not only great disparities in income and wealth, but we’re seeing them get entrenched. We’re seeing them become inequalities that will be transferred across generations. We are becoming very much the kind of society we imagine we’re nothing like.”
via Krugman: Worried About Oligarchy? You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet | Common Dreams.
NASA: Earth Could Warm 20 Percent More Than Earlier Estimates | EcoWatch
According to a statement on the study from NASA, researchers developing warming estimates by calculating the Earth’s “transient climate response.” This measure determines how much global temperatures will change as carbon dioxide’s atmospheric presence grows at about 1 percent per year until the total amount of atmospheric carbon dioxide has doubled. Transient climate responses have range from near 2.52 degrees in recent research, to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) estimate of 1.8 degrees. Shindell’s study estimates a transient climate response of 3.06 degrees. He says it is unlikely values would cool below 2.34 degrees.
The global mean temperature change estimates from a new NASA report. The dashed line shows estimates assuming uniform sensitivity to all forcings, while the solid line shows results including the enhanced sensitivity to the inhomogeneous aerosol and ozone forcings. Graphic credit: Nature Climate Change journal
His study also considers how aerosols, or airborne particles contribute to climate change in the Northern Hemisphere. Aerosols are produced by both natural sources like volcanoes and wildfires, as well as by manufacturing, driving automobiles, producing energy and more. Some aerosols cause warming, depending on their components, while some create a cooling effect. According to NASA, it is necessary to account for atmospheric aerosols in order to understand the role carbon dioxide emissions have on global warming.
via NASA: Earth Could Warm 20 Percent More Than Earlier Estimates | EcoWatch.
The Global Elite: Rigging the Rules That Fuel Inequality | Common Dreams
The global elite have rigged the rules so that \”economic growth looks more like a winner-take-all system\” that undermines democracy and threatens future generations with a \”cascade of privilege and disadvantage,\” a new report from Oxfam states.
Image: Oxfam
The report, Working for the Few: Political capture and economic inequality, states that just 85 of the world\’s richest people own the wealth of half of the world’s population.
via The Global Elite: Rigging the Rules That Fuel Inequality | Common Dreams.
Davos Elite Message Deserves Fierce Resistance Not Applause | Common Dreams
Even amid seemingly thoughtful discussions about climate change, economic inequality, water scarcity and other key global issues, whats important to remember, says Alex Jensen, an expert on globalization and development at the International Society for Ecology and Culture ISEC, is that a critical look at any of these crises shows \”the complicity of the very corporations that the WEF represents.\”Beyond its glossy \”veneer,\” Jensen says, the Davos summit acts as a stage \”for multinational corporations, among them human rights abusers, political racketeers, property thieves and international environmental criminals.\”
via Davos Elite Message Deserves Fierce Resistance Not Applause | Common Dreams.
Daily digest for August 2, 2013 – makere@ualberta.ca – University of Alberta Mail
n August 2007, the Case-Shiller Home Price Index was beginning to decline, after being stuck at a plateau for most of the preceding year. In France, BNP Paribas was about to close two investment vehicles that were heavily exposed to the US housing market. And Northern Rock Bank was days away from the first British bank run in more than a century. The world was on the edge of the largest economic crisis in a generation. From the pages of Governance, here is a reading list on the crisis so far.
via Daily digest for August 2, 2013 – makere@ualberta.ca – University of Alberta Mail.
Missing links in Global Water Governance: a Process-Oriented Analysis – the anthropo.scene
ABSTRACT:
Over the past decade, the policy and scholarly communities have increasingly recognized the need for governance of water-related issues at the global level. There has been major progress in the achievement of international goals related to the provision of basic water and some progress on sanitation services. However, the water challenge is much broader than securing supply. Doubts have been raised about the effectiveness of some of the existing governance processes, in the face of trends such as the unsustainable use of water resources, the increasing pressure imposed by climate change, or the implications of population growth for water use in food and energy production. Conflicts between different water uses and users are increasing, and the state of the aquatic environment is further declining. Inequity in access to basic water and sanitation services is still an issue. We argue that missing links in the trajectories of policy development are one major reason for the relative ineffectiveness of global water governance. To identify these critical links, a framework is used to examine how core governance processes are performed and linked. Special attention is given to the role of leadership, representativeness, legitimacy, and comprehensiveness, which we take to be critical characteristics of the processes that underpin effective trajectories of policy development and implementation. The relevance of the identified categories is illustrated with examples from three important policy arenas in global water governance: the effort to address access to water and sanitation, currently through the Millennium Development Goals; the controversy over large dams; and the links between climate change and water resources management. Exploratory analyses of successes and failures in each domain are used to identify implications and propose improvements for more effective and legitimate action.
via Missing links in Global Water Governance: a Process-Oriented Analysis – the anthropo.scene.
Earth System Governance – Navigating Water in the Anthropocene – IHDP
Earth System Governance – Navigating Water in the Anthropocene – IHDP.
The Earth System Governance Project will convene a special session “Earth system governance – navigating water in the anthropocene” at the Water in the Anthropocene: Challenges for Science and Governance Conference. The session will be held Thursday 23 may 2013, 13:30-15:00.
The focus of the conference is to address the global dimensions of water system changes due to anthropogenic as well as natural influences.
The conference will provide the platform to present global and regional perspectives of world wide experiences on the responses of water management to global change in order to address issues such as variability in supply, increasing demands for water, environmental flows, and land use change. It will help to build links between science and policy and practice in the area of water resources management and governance, related institutional and technological innovations and identify in which ways research can assist policy and practice in the field of sustainable freshwater management.
PERI: : Economics, The Environment and Our Common Wealth
PERI: : Economics, The Environment and Our Common Wealth.
This important book is definitely on my ‘order this week’ list
Study finds unsafe mercury levels in 84 percent of all fish – CBS News
Study finds unsafe mercury levels in 84 percent of all fish – CBS News.
A new study from the Biodiversity Research Institute in Maine found that 84 percent of fish have unsafe levels of mercury. That poses a health risk for humans, exceeding the guidelines for eating certain kinds of fish more than once a month.
The report, a collaboration between IPEN and Biodiversity Research Institute (BRI), highlights the urgent need for an overall reduction in mercury emissions when government delegates convene next week in Geneva in their final negotiating session to establish an international mercury treaty – the first global treaty on the environment in more than a decade by the United Nations Environment Programme.
The Spiral Turns 