Bookmarks 01/28/2012

• ‫كاذبون – Kazeboon – Revolution Records‬‎ – YouTube

  tags: revolution youtube music hiphop arabic kazeboon military noscaf scaf jan25 jan25two

• ‫كاذبون – Kazeboon – Revolution Records‬‎ – YouTube

  tags: revolution youtube music hiphop arabic kazeboon military noscaf scaf jan25 jan25two

• NASA GISS: Research News: NASA Finds 2011 Ninth Warmest Year on Record

  tags: environment climate climatechange ghg energy science

  • The average temperature around the globe in 2011 was 0.92°F (0.51°C) warmer than the mid-20th century baseline.
  • The first 11 years of the 21st century experienced notably higher temperatures compared to the middle and late 20th century, Hansen said. The only year from the 20th century in the top 10 warmest years on record is 1998.

• Fossil fuel subsidies and global warming: We could cut the climate change problem in half simply by abolishing inefficient fossil fuel subsidies. – Slate Magazine

  tags: energy energy-policy environment subsidies climatechange oil coal renewable poverty development politics economy economics

  • Fatih Birol, chief economist of the International Energy Agency is telling you exactly that. In data released this month as part of the IEA’s latest World Energy Outlook report, he shows that in 2010 the world spent $409 billion on subsidizing the production and consumption of fossil fuels, dwarfing the word’s $66 billion or so of subsidies for renewable energy
  • 
    • I dont know about that. In an economy based on energy, there is a justice, empowerment, positive discrimination aspect to things. While it makes no sense to subsidize energy for steel or cement, it DOES make sense to subsidize heating and cooking fuel. or fuel used in (private/informal) public transport. The vast majority of such subsidy is of the nonsensical crony capitalist sort. But to say none make sense, is to fall into a typical hole of the privileged arm-chair intellectual. 
  • In no case do these subsidies make sense.
  • f roughly half of what needs to be done can be achieved simply by eliminating economic distortions—economic distortions that would be unwise even if there were no concern about pollution—then the whole framework of a trade-off between prosperity and sustainability is largely misguided.
  • At the end of the day, pure laissez faire can never meet the world’s environmental challenges. If you want to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, you need to cap them and then you need to reduce the cap. But a surprisingly large step toward that target can occur by simply allowing the market to do its work by removing the subsidies that encourage lavish and inefficient consumption of fossil fuels.

Posted from Diigo. The rest of my favorite links are here.