lightblueline

Last night we heard writer/activist (the slash is rather new, he would admit) Bill McKibben offer a vision of what a civilization-wide response to the challenge of global heating might look like. This is the fourth, and last, talk in the series organized by liner (and UCSB professor) David Lea. Much of what McKibben offered could be described as an antidote to the economics of growth. We need an economics based on an understanding of what makes humans happy. He noted that a survey of happiness in the US had this commodity peaking in 1956.

Think Globally, Act Neighborly

The Washington Post (February 2, 2007), like a thousand other news outlets, reviewed the latest report by the IPCC. This report offers the highest confidence to date that humans are affecting the global climate. On the topic of sea-level rise the Post says,

"The report was the first of four to be released this year by the panel, which was created by the United Nations in 1988. It found:

_Global warming is "very likely" caused by man, meaning more than 90 percent certain. That's the strongest expression of certainty to date from the panel.