Most Americans believe global warming is real but a moderate and distant risk. While they strongly support policies like investing in renewable energy, higher fuel economy standards and international treaties, they strongly oppose carbon taxes on energy sources that put carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. These results were reported by Anthony Leiserowitz, a courtesy professor of environmental studies at the University of Oregon, in a talk during the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in San Francisco. His conclusions, based on a national survey conducted in 2003 are detailed in a new book, ‘Creating a Climate for Change: Communicating Climate Change – Facilitating Social Change.’ The study by Leiserowitz, also a scientist at Decision Research, a non-profit research institute in Eugene, Ore., looked at the risk perceptions, policy views and behavior of Americans in regards to global warming. Although the data demonstrating climate change have grown stronger in recent years, Americans rank global warming as a low priority compared to other national issues such as the Iraq war, the economy, health care and education, and environmental issues such as air and water pollution, Leiserowitz said. Using affective-image analysis, Leiserowitz also […]
CHICAGO – There’s an open secret in medicine: Patients lie. They lie about how much they smoke and whether they’re taking their medicine. They understate how much they drink and overstate how much they exercise. They feign symptoms to get appointments quicker and ask doctors to hide the truth from insurance companies. ‘Doctors have a rule of thumb. Whatever the patient says they’re drinking, multiply it by three,’ said Dr. Bruce Rowe, a family doctor in suburban Milwaukee. ‘If they say two drinks a day, assume they have six.’ Hippocrates, the father of medicine, is said to have warned his students in about 400 B.C. that patients often dissemble when they say they’ve taken their medicine. TV’s fictional Dr. Gregory House repeats the same message to his crack team: ‘Everybody lies.’ But lying can lead to expensive diagnostic procedures and unneeded referrals to specialists. It also can have disastrous results. ‘I could have ended up in a coma’ ‘I definitely learned my lesson. I could have ended up in a coma,’ said Michael Levine, a 28-year-old financial adviser in Los Angeles who lied to a specialist he saw for a wrist injury. Misguided pride, he said, […]
WASHINGTON — Democrats in Congress are moving quickly to impose their economic agenda now that they’ve returned to power on Capitol Hill. They’re shrugging off strong macro-economic indicators to spotlight sluggish wage growth and a rise in mortgage defaults, and they’re even pressuring the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates. Many Democrats campaigned against the trend of widening income inequality, and they’re trying to make good on promises to push economic policy to better serve the poor and middle classes. Democrats don’t dispute that 4.8 percent unemployment is near historic lows. And they acknowledge that the economy continues to grow at nearly its potential, despite a housing recession. Even so, they’re homing in on narrower issues, such as a rise in mortgage defaults by holders of sub-prime loans, who tend to be minorities and working-class Americans. And they’re addressing the job insecurity and general unease many Americans feel over how much the global economy now influences the U.S. economy. ‘They’re trying to tap into pockets of discontent,’ said Brian Bethune, chief U.S. economist for Global Insight, a consultancy in Lexington, Mass. ‘From a point of view of the economy as a whole, the performance of the […]
A meeting in Washington of global political leaders has reached a new agreement on tackling climate change. Delegates agreed that developing countries will have to face targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions as well as rich countries. The informal meeting also agreed that a global market should be formed to cap and trade carbon dioxide emissions. The non-binding declaration is seen as vital in influencing a replacement for the Kyoto Protocol, correspondents say. The forum’s closing statement said man-made climate change was now ‘beyond doubt’. ‘Climate change is a global issue and there is an obligation on us all to take action, in line with our capabilities and historic responsibilities,’ said the statement from the Global Legislators Organisation for a Balanced Environment (Globe). ‘Tipping point’ The two-day meeting brought together legislators from countries including the Group of Eight rich nations plus Brazil, China, India, Mexico and South Africa. The BBC’s environment analyst Roger Harrabin was at the meeting and says that although the declaration carries no formal weight it indicates a real change in mood. The legislators agreed that developing countries had to face targets on greenhouse gas emissions as well […]
Spanish police arrested the hijacker of a Mauritanian aircraft last night after he was overpowered by passengers as the plane landed. The Air Mauritania Boeing 737 was on an internal flight in the African country when the hijacker, armed with pistols, demanded to be flown to France, officials said. The pilot landed in the Canary Islands instead. A source close to the Mauritanian president said: ‘When the pilot landed he deliberately braked very hard. The man fell to the ground and was jumped on by passengers. He fired two bullets but there are no serious injuries.’ It was not known last night what were the motives of the hijacker, who was reported to be north African. Air Mauritania’s director general, Mohamed Ould El Moctar, said the man had acted alone. ‘The lone hijacker was armed with two pistols but it is not clear whether these were real or not,’ he said. A spokeswoman for the Spanish emergency services said 20 people suffered minor cuts and bruises in the incident. She knew nothing of earlier reports that passengers had been injured during gunfire. Spain’s interior ministry said security forces arrested the hijacker and freed all […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
