For those of you in the North Carolina Research Triangle area wanting to extend your weekend as much as possible, you'll want to catch a a local music showcase at The Berkeley Café in Raleigh (217 W Martin St, 27601) tonight, Sunday 12 July at 7 pm. Yours truly will be playing a 30 min solo acoustic set of mostly original songs.
You know I have been following the "death of newspapers" debate, as well as "bloggers vs. journalists" debate, and "do we need science reporters" debate for a long time now. What I have found - and it is frustrating to watch - is that different people use different definitions for the same set of words and phrases.
Summary: Climate change is a clear example of how decisions by small numbers of powerful humans, not population size, drive environmental degradation. The richest 1% of the world, about 63 million people, is responsible for more than twice as much greenhouse gas emissions as the 3.1 billion people who made up the poorest half of humanity. Just 20 fossil fuel companies can be directly linked to more than one-third of all greenhouse gas emissions in the modern era. Regulating population size, as some have recommended to lower emissions, would infringe on the liberties of billions of people while failing to ameliorate climate change.