WASHINGTON — To fairly divide the climate change fight between rich and poor, a new study suggests basing targets for emission cuts on the number of wealthy people, who are also the biggest greenhouse gas emitters, in a country. Since about half the planet’s climate-warming emissions come from less than a billion of its people, it makes sense to follow these rich folks when setting national targets to cut carbon dioxide emissions, the authors wrote on Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. As it stands now, under the carbon-capping Kyoto Protocol, rich countries shoulder most of the burden for cutting the emissions that spur global warming, while developing countries — including fast-growing economies China and India — are not required to curb greenhouse pollution. Rich countries, notably the United States, have said this gives developing countries an unfair economic advantage; China, India and other developing countries argue that developed countries have historically spewed more climate-warming gases, and developing countries need time to catch up. The study suggests setting a uniform international cap on how much carbon dioxide each person could emit in order to limit global emissions; since rich people emit more, they […]
SAND FRANCISCO and WASHINGTON — The Department of Justice has started an informal review of the exclusive arrangements that limit handsets such as Apple’s iPhone to particular wireless communications companies, according to people familiar with the matter. The inquiry follows consolidation in the US wireless industry that has left four operators accounting for more than 90 per cent of the country’s wireless subscribers. This has left them with the market power to carve out exclusive deals with makers of the most popular handsets, making it hard for smaller rivals to compete and leading to higher prices for mobile services, according to rivals. AT&T and Verizon Wireless, which dominate the US mobile industry with more than 60 per cent of subscribers, said they had not been contacted by regulators and were unaware of any review. The Department of Justice declined to comment. AT&T said: ‘The US wireless industry is highly competitive and, as a result, delivers terrific innovation, many choices and attractive pricing for all customer segments. However, in recent days DoJ officials have contacted smaller operators to seek their views, according to people familiar with the situation. News of the antitrust regulators’ interest comes more than […]
SACRAMENTO — At the beginning, Alejandro Maybuena lost the house he bought in April 2005 for $350,000. At the end, in early 2009, Kim Gish bought it for $109,000. Stories like this have happened more than 40,000 times in the Sacramento area. Still, the tale in particular of one house in California’s capital region shows the sweeping change in a real estate industry that once involved mainly a mom-and-pop seller, a buyer and two real estate agents. Today, an alternate universe - the repo business - dominates. And business is very good. As the U.S. foreclosure crisis grinds on, the detailed work of processing, repairing and selling thousands of homes repossessed by banks is real estate’s new gold. In the past year, repo-related business has rapidly grown to national scale, fueling job growth in Colorado, Texas, Ohio and elsewhere to service the meltdown in markets like Sacramento and the Central Valley along with Phoenix, Las Vegas and Florida. The nation’s housing collapse also has upended the pecking order of real estate agents. Former top earners are on the sidelines, unable to move expensive homes. The new royalty is making good money in a real estate economy […]
Is the Christian Right retooling, regrouping or just rebranding? Leaders of two dozen organizations announced this past week the latest alliteration iteration of concerned conservative Christians. They are calling it the Freedom Federation, a direct descendant of the Moral Majority, the Christian Coalition and Values Voters. Founders say the new group will have a broader membership and a kinder, gentler, more nonpartisan approach than its ancestors. ‘The stereotypical media-exacerbated image of the angry white evangelical will be replaced by an evangelical movement that will reconcile uncompromised values of compassion, truth with mercy, and righteousness with justice,’ Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference, told reporters last week. We shall see. But what’s most interesting about the Freedom Federation isn’t who’s participating. It’s the conspicuous absence of evangelical America’s three most influential organizations — Focus on the Family, the National Association of Evangelicals, and Rick Warren’s Saddleback Church network, all of which seem to be making new and sincere efforts to take a more inclusive, less judgmental approach to social and political issues. Jim Daly, the man who is following James Dobson as president of Focus on the Family, recently praised President […]
A major conservation survey assessed 64 species of open ocean sharks and rays and found that one third of them face extinction, including the great white shark. The study by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reported that species hunted on the high seas are particularly at great risk, with over half in danger of extinction. The IUNC named tuna and swordfish fisheries as the main culprits for their accidental ‘by-catch of sharks. Sharks are also being increasingly targeted themselves to supply growing demand for shark meat and fins. The valuable fins are used for the Asian delicacy of shark fin soup, which is believed to offer great health benefits. As a lucrative sideline, the fisheries often take part in ‘finning whereby they cut off the fins and return the rest of the body to the sea. The Spanish fleet of surface ‘long-line’ fishing boats supposedly only seeks swordfish, but open ocean sharks accounted for 70% of the weight of its catch from 2000 to 2004. Though there are bans being introduced in the majority of international waters, they are rarely enforced, according to deputy chairwoman Sonja Fordham of the IUCN shark […]
Remote Viewing the Year 2060
