Where, exactly, does his message fit in with promoting world peace? According to the Nobel committee, climate change “may induce large-scale migration and lead to greater competition for the Earth’s resources. Such changes will place particularly heavy burdens on the world’s most vulnerable countries. There may be increased danger of violent conflicts and wars, within and between states.” Cut greenhouse emissions, in other words, and climate change will be averted and peace will be preserved.

There is a problem with this thesis, in that the process of cutting greenhouse emissions itself has the potential to burden the world’s most vulnerable countries and to induce violent conflicts and wars. Nothing would be so damaging for world peace than if developing nations were hindered in their efforts to industrialise, thereby reducing their ability to cope with natural disaster.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article2648448.ece

Indonesia wants to be paid $US5-$US20 ($A5.50-$A22.20) per hectare not to destroy its remaining forests, the environment minister says, for the first time giving an actual figure that he wants the world’s rich countries to pay.

Participants from 189 countries are expected to gather in Bali for global climate talks at a UN-led summit in December.

They will hear a report on Reduced Emissions from Deforestation (RED) - a new scheme that aims to make emission cuts from forest areas eligible for global carbon trading.

But apart from carbon trading, Indonesia also wants big emitters such as the United States and the European Union to pay the country to preserve its pristine rainforests.

“We will ask for a compensation of $5-20 per hectare. It’s not fixed; it is open to negotiation,” Environment Minister Rachmat Witoelar told reporters after a cabinet meeting at …

I see a bright future for the biotechnology industry when it follows the path of the computer industry, the path that von Neumann failed to foresee, becoming small and domesticated rather than big and centralized. The first step in this direction was already taken recently, when genetically modified tropical fish with new and brilliant colors appeared in pet stores. For biotechnology to become domesticated, the next step is to become user-friendly. I recently spent a happy day at the Philadelphia Flower Show, the biggest indoor flower show in the world, where flower breeders from all over the world show off the results of their efforts. I have also visited the Reptile Show in San Diego, an equally impressive show displaying the work of another set of breeders. Philadelphia excels in orchids and roses, San Diego excels in lizards and snakes. The main problem for a grandparent visiting the reptile show …

http://remotecentral.blogspot.com/2007/10/ted-talks-ray-kurzweil-how-technologys.html

Al Gore has won the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. This choice, more than any other Nobel Committee selection, marks the end of a 105-year era. In direct contradiction of Alfred Nobel’s last will and testament, the selection of Gore essentially means the Peace Prize can no longer be said to be an award for improving the condition of humankind. Looking at Gore’s writing, it’s far from clear that Gore even believes that humanity is his most important priority.

Not that there haven’t been controversial or dubious selections before. Jimmy Carter was selected by the committee in 2002 in what was partly a political swipe at the Bush administration’s foreign policy. Yasser Arafat was given the Peace Prize despite his ordering the killing of scores of innocent civilians.

But, at the very least, the stated aims of Carter and even Arafat were the improvement of human life. …

Jürgen Krönig hat in der ZEIT eine erhellende Analyse vorgelegt, in der er das Scheitern der britischen Medien vor der islamischen Herausforderung darlegt. Das längere Eassy findet sich hier:

Die Gesetze, nach denen die Medienindustrie funktioniert, verlangen es, bis zu einem gewissen Grad das Spiel der Terroristen mitzuspielen. Doch müssen sich die Medien fragen, ob sie sich nicht allzu häufig gedankenlos von bin Laden und al-Zawahiri manipulieren lassen, während sie doch auf jeden vermuteten Spin ihrer eigenen Regierungen mit heller Empörung reagieren.
http://www.zeit.de/online/2007/41/islamismus-medien-demokratie

Al Gore’s environmental documentary An Inconvenient Truth contains nine key scientific errors, a High Court judge ruled yesterday.

The judge declined to ban the Academy Award-winning film from British schools, but ruled that it can only be shown with guidance notes to prevent political indoctrination.

In the documentary, directed by Davis Guggenheim, the former US vice president and environmental activist calls on people to fight global warming because “humanity is sitting on a ticking time bomb”.

But Judge Michael Burton ruled yesterday that errors had arisen “in the context of alarmism and exaggeration” in order to support Mr Gore’s thesis on global warming.

His criticism followed an unsuccessful attempt by Stewart Dimmock, a Kent school governor, to block the Government’s plan to screen the documentary in more than 3,500 secondary schools in England and Wales.

The father of …

October 10 is the 50th anniversary of the publication of Ayn Rand’s classic novel Atlas Shrugged, so in the coming week we can expect to see a flurry of articles about the novel--many of which will, unfortunately, offer highly inaccurate descriptions of its meaning and significance.

That’s a shame, because Atlas Shrugged is a novel that everyone ought to discover and grapple with, because it succeeds at something too few artists and intellectuals have had the courage to do.

The purpose of art and philosophy is to show us truths about human nature, about the nature of the world and our place in it. Philosophy names these truths explicitly, in literal terms; literature dramatizes these truths in concrete terms, revealing its insights through the actions and statements of the characters created by the novelist. A philosophical novel, like Atlas Shrugged, is supposed to do both of …