BRUSSELS, Belgium — An international global warming conference approved a report Friday warning of dire threats to the Earth and to mankind – from increased hunger to the extinction of species – unless the world adapts to climate change and halts its progress. Agreement came after an all-night session during which key sections were deleted from the draft and scientists angrily confronted government negotiators who they feared were watering down their findings. ‘It has been a complex exercise,’ said Rajendra Pachauri, chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Several scientists objected to the editing of the final draft by government negotiators but in the end agreed to compromises. However, some scientists vowed never to take part in the process again. The climax of five days of negotiations was reached when the delegates removed parts of a key chart highlighting devastating effects of climate change that kick in with every rise of 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit, and in a tussle over the level of scientific reliability attached to key statements. There was little doubt about the science, which was based on 29,000 sets of data, much of it collected in the last five years. ‘For the […]
NEW YORK — Despite claims by some critics that the Bush administration invaded Iraq to take control of its oil, the first contracts with major oil firms from Iraq’s new government are likely to go not to U.S. companies, but rather to companies from China, India, Vietnam, and Indonesia. While Iraqi lawmakers struggle to pass an agreement on exactly who will award the contracts and how the revenue will be shared, experts say a draft version that passed the cabinet earlier this year will likely uphold agreements previously signed by those countries under Saddam Hussein’s government. ‘The Chinese could announce something within the next few months’ if all goes well with the oil law, said James Placke, a senior associate at Cambridge Energy Research Associates who specializes in the Middle East. Behind high oil and gas prices The Asian firms are at an advantage for several reasons. First, less constrained by Western sanctions during the Hussein regime, they’ve been operating in Iraq and know the country’s oilfields, said Falah Aljibury, an energy analyst who has advised several Iraqi oil ministers as well as other OPEC nations. Aljibury said the first contracts likely awarded will […]
Hundreds of scientists struggled to find compromise wording Thursday on a landmark report set to declare that climate change is already discernible and could wreak devastation to human settlement and wildlife this century. Grouped in national delegations, the climate specialists remained huddled in a European Commission conference room late into the night, hammering out the document’s all-important summary for policy makers — a guideline for government action — only hours before its scheduled release Friday morning. Several sharp disagreements impeded progress, one Western delegate said. Whereas Europeans sought to include stronger language and hard numbers warning about the dangers of global warming, the United States favored general statements about trends, he said. ‘The Europeans want to send a strong signal. The US does not want as much quantification,’ he said during a break in the negotiations, which have been underway since Monday. China and Russia, he continued, have sought to excise some passages from the summary asserting that climate change had already had negative effects around the globe, arguing that the data in the 1,400 word main study is not solid enough to be included in the key policy document. China, which is set […]
It’s Thursday, and that means it’s time for the Public Eye Chat. This week’s subject is Rome-based CBS News Correspondent Allen Pizzey. You can read excerpts, and listen to the full interview, below. Brian Montopoli: You’ve got a lot of experience covering Africa, even before you came to CBS. Are Africa’s stories getting told in Western media? Allen Pizzey: No, I don’t think they are – I think we ignore Africa to a large extent. The only crisis that really gets any attention is the crisis in Darfur, and I don’t think we have enough people going there. It’s all basically a lot of second hand information. Somalia – you can’t cover Somalia. It’s simply too dangerous for somebody to go. But there are a lot of stories in Africa that ought to be covered. Zimbabwe is a catastrophe in the making, and no one’s paying a lot of attention, partly because Mugabe won’t let people in there. But also because people simply say, ‘well, you can’t go,’ so we don’t go, so we ignore it. And then there’s the whole West Africa Nigeria crisis. For example, the Niger delta supplies a fairly large percentage of […]
What’s the secret of those who survive into the triple-digits? It might be that they are keen on keeping up the latest trends, including iPods, current events and even MTV, a new survey finds. In its second annual 100 at 100 Survey, Evercare, a health insurance plan that specializes in older people, polled 100 centenarians about their secrets of successful aging. One of the respondents, George Reed, age 103, attributes his health and longevity to luck. But he has also spent much of his life being active, and remains so today. Once an avid baseball player and cyclist, Reed still practices T’ai Chi daily, plays bingo and keeps up with news and current events. ‘I read the newspaper rather regularly and manage to keep up with what’s going on,’ Reed said. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that there are now more than 80,000 Americans 100 years of age or older. That number is expected to rise to more than 580,000 by 2040. Among the main findings of the survey were the tendencies of centenarians to tune into trends and current events, lead healthy lifestyles and hold faith and spirituality in high regard, Dr. John […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
