Bonn Climate Change Talks: Developing Countries Fight With Rich Nations In Stalled Negotiations

AMSTERDAM -- Developing countries said Friday that rich nations are refusing to negotiate an extension of their commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, charging that they sought to "maintain their privileges and levels of consumption" at the expense of the poor.

Two-week climate negotiations among 183 nations in Bonn, Germany, which reached their halfway point Friday, were stalled for three days this week in a fight over the agenda. Structured in four bodies, formal talks only began in two of them on Thursday as countries haggled over what should be discussed.

On Climate Change, GOP Candidates Race to the Fringe - Conor Friedersdorf - Politics - The Atlantic

The issue demonstrates how Republicans are encouraged to take needlessly extreme positions with little real world benefit

iCloud = iCoal | Greenpeace International

On Monday Steve Jobs announced Apple's latest offering, "the new way to store and access your content" no less. The company's new service, iCloud, may be an ambitious step forward for Apple in computing terms, but look closer and you'll find that it's tarnished by that Victorian-era power supply (and source of global warming pollution!) we know too well -- coal.

Simply Madness - Opinion - PatriotPost.US

Either way, the problem becomes clear: When people start talking about capping or halting or managing economic growth, what they really mean is capping, halting and managing freedom. Hence Thomas Friedman, New York Times columnist and avowed envier of China's authoritarian regime, declares that "The Earth is Full" and we must therefore embrace a version of the steady-state economy.

Economic growth is an enemy of all central planners for the simple reason that growth jumps the guardrails of The Plan; it changes the aesthetically appealing flatline of the steady state and makes it jagged. Growth creates new products, destroys old ones and allows people to behave in ways that render PowerPoint projections dismayingly obsolete. Worse, it takes power from the planners.