Ask Beatty – 11.16.15

What must we do to try and create a more loving and tolerant society worldwide, despite our differences? The terrorism that occurred in Paris and around the world should be wake up calls for all of us. How do we educate people to embrace or at least accept diversity and political and religious differences rather than destroy one another? Hear Beatty’s analysis of the problems and possible solutions.
Sexting and Texting in High Schools and Colleges….. Don’t miss Beatty’s conversation with her guest Jonathan Zimmerman, Professor of Education and History at NYU and author of Too Hot to Handle: A Global History of Sex Education.

BRIAN PALMER – THE HOUSE ANTI-SCIENCE COMMITTEE

The House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space, and Technology wants to know what government scientists say about climate change. Not what they say in public, of course—you don’t need a subpoena to read the many reports the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration has published on the pressing problem of global warming. No, the congressional body tasked with overseeing the nation’s …

Michael T. Klare – Why the Paris Climate Summit Will Be a Peace Conference

At the end of November, delegations from nearly 200 countries will convene in Paris for what is billed as the most important climate meeting ever held.  Officially known as the 21st Conference of the Parties (COP-21) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (the 1992 treaty that designated that phenomenon a threat to planetary health and human survival), …

The REDD+ and its carbon trade will not resolve the climate crisis

As with other mechanisms supported by “world climate governance”, we doubted from the beginning that the Reduction of Emissions caused by Deforestation and the Degradation of Forests (REDD) mechanism would be likely to resolve the global climate crisis, ever since it was introduced in discussions on climate change. Now more than ever, the hidden face of this mechanism is revealed …

JAMES HODGKISS – CRACKED! Top Climate Scientist Admits to Ongoing Geoengineering

Professor Tim Lenton (Chair in Climate Change/Earth Systems Science, University of Exeter) provided one of the many positive outcomes of this summer’s climate change conference in Paris. You may have missed this major admission from Professor Lenton which we originally broke in our Paris Report, so we revisit it here and round off with a little more discussion. His “revelations” occurred …

Paris Climate Talks A Failure Even Before It Starts

The 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference, COP 21 to be held in Paris, from November 30 to December 11 is already a failure even before it starts. Intended Nationally Determined Contributions, or INDCs were submitted by 155 nations by the October 1 dealine. Analysis of the INDCs reveal that the pledges made by the nations can limit temperature increase …

Henry A. Giroux – Murder, Incorporated: Guns and the Growing Culture of Violence in the US

Nine people were killed and seven wounded recently in a mass shooting at a community college in Roseburg, Oregon. Such shootings are more than another tragic expression of unchecked violence in the United States; they are symptomatic of a society engulfed in fear, militarism, a survival-of-the-fittest ethos and a growing disdain for human life. Sadly, this shooting is not an …

Corey Robin – Aggrieved students find books dangerous; neoliberal administrators say they’re useless. I’d take the former any day

No one knows the power of literature better than the censor. That’s why he burns books: to fight fire with fire, to stop them from setting the world aflame. Or becomes an editor: Stalin, we now know, excised words from texts with about as much energy and attention as he excised men and women from the world. As Bertolt Brecht …

Jean-Marie Matagne – You don’t cure the plague by spreading cholera

In the lead-up to COP21, a hundred French and international personalities are signing an appeal on Mediapart, entitled : “Let’s leave the fossil fuels in the ground. That’s how to put an end to climate crimes”. And we, simple citizens, are invited to sign too. One would like to be able to sign, but alas, the text is not suitable : not …