Of all the climate change issues that have been melodramatically dubbed a “carbon bomb” in recent years—tar sands projects in Alberta, catastrophic wildfires in Indonesia, holes in Australia’s seagrass meadows—it seems the thawing of permafrost in the Arctic is most likely to live up to the hype. There’s a staggering amount of methane and carbon dioxide, like hundreds of gigatons …
Greenland ice sheet melts more when it’s cloudy
Clouds play a bigger role in the melting of the Greenland ice sheet than was previously assumed. Compared to clear skies, clouds enhance the meltwater runoff by a third. Those are the findings of an international study that was coordinated by KU Leuven and published in Nature Communications. Greenland’s ice sheet is the second largest ice mass in the world …
Thomas S. Harrington – Are US Relations With Israel a Proprietary Matter? The People at PBS’ Frontline Seem to Think So
There are numerous templates available for the making of effective propaganda. One extremely crude approach, pioneered by the Nazis, and used to great effect but the Bush Administration in the lead-up to its calculated destruction of Iraq, is to have “authorities” and their usually quite willing media accomplices (despite their constant braying about being “fiercely independent”, this is all too …
From Seabirds to Starfish: Climate Change Driving Unprecedented Die-Offs
From seabirds to whales to antelopes to starfish, animal die-offs across the globe are raising alarm about the deadly impact of climate change on the world’s ecosystems and their vulnerable inhabitants. An estimated 8,000 black-and-white common murres were found dead on the beaches of Alaska’s Prince William Sound over the weekend, joining thousands more that have washed up on beaches …
Isaiah J. Poole – Millennials in Poll Fake Right, Go Left
At first glance, a poll released this week by USA Today and Rock the Vote, done by Ipsos, seems to confound our narrative that a majority of millennials identify more with progressives than conservatives. In fact, when asked that question point-blank when it comes to economic policy, 38 percent of respondents in the poll identified as conservative to some degree, …
Patrick Martin – Obama’s final State of the Union: Lies, evasions and threats
The final State of the Union speech delivered Tuesday night by President Barack Obama was a demonstration of the incapacity of the American political system to deal honestly or seriously with a single social question. Obama evaded the real issues that affect tens of millions of working people in America every day of their lives. He painted a ludicrous picture …
Jan-Emmanuel De Neve – Income Inequality Makes Whole Countries Less Happy
Most talk of income inequality focuses on the problems of the very poor or the broader socioeconomic implications of rising inequality. What is less well-known is that income inequality makes us all less happy with our lives, even if we’re relatively well-off. We examined data from the Gallup World Poll and the World Top Incomes Database and found that the …
Robert Parry – What Hillary Knew about Libya
To justify U.S. “regime changes,” the U.S. government has routinely spread rumors and made other dubious claims which – even when later doubted or debunked – are left in place indefinitely as corrosive propaganda, eating away at the image of various “enemies” and deforming public opinion. Even though this discredited propaganda can have a long half-life – continuing to contaminate …
Norman Pollack – Privatization: National Descent into Hell
One does not have to be a Marxist to say that property in our times, i.e., in a system of modern capitalism, is a curse on human intelligence and the endeavor to lead a meaningful life when it has been set against the concept, practice, and reality of the PUBLIC realm as such, whether the moral obligation of government to …
Janet Cotter & Ricarda Steinbrecher – GM 2.0? ‘Gene-editing’ produces GMOs that must be regulated as GMOs
* The EU is considering the exclusion of gene-edited plants and animals from GM regulations, write Janet Cotter and Ricarda Steinbrecher. However gene-edited organisms clearly fall within the definition of GMOs in both European and international law. They also present real risks to the environment and human health – and must be regulated like any other GMOs. There has been …










