Major Critic of Global Warming Changes Course

If true, this change will place many climate change doubters to rethink their views.

The world’s most high-profile climate change sceptic is to declare that global warming is “undoubtedly one of the chief concerns facing the world today” and “a challenge humanity must confront”, in an apparent U-turn that will give a huge boost to the embattled environmental lobby.

Bjørn Lomborg, the self-styled “sceptical environmentalist”…is famous for attacking climate scientists, campaigners, the media and others for exaggerating the rate of global warming and its effects on humans, and the costly waste of policies to stop the problem.

But in a new book to be published next month, Lomborg will call for tens of billions of dollars a year to be invested in tackling climate change. “Investing $100bn annually would mean that we could essentially resolve the climate change problem by the end of this century,” the book concludes.

via Bjørn Lomborg: $100bn a year needed to fight climate change | Environment | The Guardian.

Pakistan floods: UN urges world to step up aid

Hopefully, the World will do a better job now of helping so many victims.  This is a large-scale disaster indeed.

With more than 1,600 people confirmed dead and as many as 20 million made homeless, the country is reeling from the scale of the catastrophe brrought by torrential monsoon rains.

[Prime Minister] Gilani said Pakistan now faced challenges similar to those during the 1947 partition of the subcontinent, when as many as 500,000 people were killed.

His warning came amid amid growing fears of social unrest or even a military takeover after the government’s shambolic response to the floods.

via Pakistan floods: UN urges world to step up aid efforts | World news | The Guardian.

US Debt–The Real Numbers (Are You Surprised?)

Who do we owe?  Is it China, or not?

You would think so from the news. But not really!

As of March 2010, total US government debt was $12.8 trillion, of which $8.89 trillion was owed to domestic holders and $3.88 trillion was owed to foreigners.  Of the foreign holders,  the two biggest are China and Japan each with less that $1.0 trillion each.  And the rest is owed to many, many countries.

On the Hanging

There is no great solace from the comments of Deepak Chopra on The Huntington Post, as follows:

The sad truth is that America’s moral position in Iraq–and the world
at large– hangs by a thread, and the execution of Saddam made the
thread thinner than ever.