Tonight I'll be back on the J/120 Heron doing the Governor's Cup. So far this season we have taken first in our class and first overall in both the Annapolis to Newport Race and the Solomon Islands Race. Tonight we'll be going for the three-peat.
Race description:
We at St. Mary’s College of Maryland are looking forward to hosting the 36th Governor’s Cup and making it a great race for you! The Governor’s Cup has enjoyed a tremendous tradition of beautiful night racing on the Chesapeake, and we want as many competitors to safely enjoy the race as possible. Several competitors have expressed an interest in extending the 21 hour time limit. We understand and share their desire to see the maximum number of boats complete the race as good sportsmen in the Corinthian spirit.
Forecast:
TODAY SW WINDS 10 TO 15 KT WITH GUSTS TO 25 KT...BECOMING S 20 KT WITH GUSTS TO 35 KT LATE. WAVES 1 FT. SHOWERS AND TSTMS LIKELY...MAINLY THIS AFTERNOON. VSBY 1 TO 3 NM.
TONIGHT SW WINDS 15 TO 20 KT WITH GUSTS TO 35 KT...BECOMING W 10 TO 15 KT WITH GUSTS TO 20 KT AFTER MIDNIGHT. WAVES 1 FT. SHOWERS AND TSTMS. VSBY 1 TO 3 NM.
Virgin Islands duo, Rock City, pay their respect to the culture they love with this video, "Hip Hop Props." Made up of two brothers (Timothy & Theron), they freak the whole rapping/singing ish pretty well.
I've been slacking hard recently, and will step it up next week, but in the mean time, enjoy this CLASSIC interview. Funniest thing I've seen all month.
Here's dead prez' new video, "Summer Time," off of their collabo album with DJ Green Lantern, Pulse of The People (in stores now!). This video is their ode to summer in the inner city. The jam is a real good look, we've been fairly void of good summer time music so far.
The man on the moon just dropped his latest video, "Make Her Say," and he brought Kanye and Common along for the help out. The vid is cool and I'll definitely be checking for the album. Man On The Moon: The End Of Day, will be out this September.
Late last week, the Los Angeles rapper the Game launched a blistering attack against the legendary New York blogger rapper :>) Jay-Z. At a series of European shows, the Game led crowds in cheers of "F*** Jay-Z" and "Old Ass N*****", and at one point went into an obsenity laced (but rather wickedly funny) rampage against Jay-Z's fiance' (wife?) Beyonce. Over the weekend, he released "I'm So Wavy [Too Hardcore to be a Jay-Z]" an inconsistent but catchy attack on Jay-Z (note: all links are to songs which are almost certainly NSFW and which you might find offensive; you've been warned). When I started feeding this stuff to my friend Spencer Ackerman last week, his first take was that "the countdown to the end of the Game's career starts today." Mine, me being a professor of international relations, was to start thinking about how this could be turned into a story about the nature of hegemony and the debate over the exercise of American power. (That, and how I could waste time that I should be spending on real work.)
See, Jay-Z (Shawn Carter) is the closest thing to a hegemon which the rap world has known for a long time. He's #1 on the Forbes list of the top earning rappers. He has an unimpeachable reputation, both artistic and commercial, and has produced some of the all-time best (and best-selling) hip hop albums including standouts Reasonable Doubt, The Blueprint and the Black Album. He spent several successful years as the CEO of Def Jam Records before buying out his contract a few months ago to release his new album on his own label. And he's got Beyonce. Nobody, but nobody, in the hip hop world has his combination of hard power and soft power. If there be hegemony, then this is it. Heck, when he tried to retire after the Black Album, he found himself dragged back into the game (shades of America's inward turn during the Clinton years?).
But the limits on his ability to use this power recalls the debates about U.S. primacy. Should he use this power to its fullest extent, as neo-conservatives would advise, imposing his will to reshape the world, forcing others to adapt to his values and leadership? Or should he fear a backlash against the unilateral use of power, as realists such as my colleague Steve Walt or liberals such as John Ikenberry would warn, and instead exercise self-restraint?
The changes in Jay-Z's approach over the years suggest that he recognizes the realist and liberal logic... but is sorely tempted by the neo-conservative impulse. Back when he was younger, Jay-Z was a merciless, ruthless killer in the "beefs" which define hip hop politics. He never would have gotten to the top without that. But since then he's changed his style and has instead largely chosen to stand above the fray. As Jay-Z got older and more powerful, the marginal benefits of such battles declined and the costs increased even as the number of would-be rivals escalated. Just as the U.S. attracts resentment and rhetorical anti-Americanism simply by virtue of being on top, so did Jay-Z attract a disproportionate number of attackers. "I got beefs with like a hundred children" he bragged/complained on one track.
His ability to respond actually declined as his power and enemies list grew, though. As a young 50 Cent spat at him (twisting one of Jay's own famous lines), "if I shoot you I'm famous, if you shoot me you're brainless." He's generally avoided getting embroiled in beefs since reaching the top, only occasionally and briefly hitting back at provocations from rising contenders like 50 Cent, Lil Wayne, and others. Responding to every challenge does not become a hegemon. Indeed, it would be counter-productive and exhausting, and would likely trigger even greater resentment among other rising rappers. Better as hegemon to rise above the fray and accept the sniping of the less powerful while reaping the rewards of a status quo which he dominates and profits from excessively. And that's what happened: his wealth, status, and structural power rose inexorably despite the potshots and abuse and unmet challenges -- indeed, the only real hit he's taken was self-inflicted, the critical shrug given to the middling "Kingdom Come" album.
When he learnt this lesson might also offer insights into how great powers in IR learn. He changed his style after his most famous beef, and the only one which he lost: his battle with the Queensbridge legend Nas. The reasons for his loss are instructive. Jay-Z launched what Nas later described as a "sneak attack" at a time when the latter's mother was ailing. Why? Because Nas was at the time recognized widely as the king of NYC rap, and Jay-Z (the rising power) saw that only by knocking off the king could he seize the crown for himself. A few brief skirmishes -- a Jay-Z freestyle mentioning Nas, the first "Stillmatic" response from Nas -- then led to the full blast of "The Takeover". Rather than fold, Nas hit back with the instant legend "Ether". It went back and forth, and then, crucially, Jay-Z misplayed his hand. In "Super Ugly", about 2 minutes in to a pretty good track, he escalated to a crude personal revelation about his sexual exploits with the mother of Nas's child -- prompting Jay's mother to call in to a radio station to complain and forcing Jay to apologize. The lesson: just because you've got an ace card doesn't mean you should play it... better to keep it in reserve, for fear of triggering a backlash.
But what happened next is even more interesting. The beef actually helped both: it lit a fire under Nas, who renewed his career, while Jay-Z continued to ascend to his current position (with the Black Album probably still standing as the pinnacle). Jay-Z acknowledged his defeat (on Blueprint 2) and learned lessons from it (while taking a few last shots, and claiming credit for reviging his rival's career ("I gave you life when n**** had forgotten you MC'd"). Nas opted to settle the beef, reconcile, and sign on with Def Jam Records -- where he became one of Jay's leading and most valuable artists. In a world of unipolarity, both win through co-optation, reconciliation between enemies, and the demonstration that the gains of cooperation outweigh the gains of resistance.
Which brings us back to the Game. The Game (Jayceon Taylor) is a wildly erratic, brilliantly talented L.A. gangsta rapper, a protege of Dr. Dre who started off with 50 Cent and G-Unit. After an ugly break with them, he unleashed a barrage of brutal attacks on G-Unit and 50 Cent culminating in an epic 300 bars freestyle. The Game clearly won the battle on its merits, but 50 Cent's career continued relatively unharmed (he was #1 on last year's Forbes list before being displaced by Jay-Z this year, though his reputation as a rapper has declined significantly after some mediocre albums and a humiliating defeat in a public showdown over album sales at the hands of Kanye West, of all people). Meanwhile, the Game established himself as a solid solo act. In that war between a rising power and a upper-echelon middle power, both ultimately benefited.
Jay-Z is a bit different, given his hegemonic status and the absence of a prior relationship. The Game has always had a particularly odd, passive-aggressive relationship with Jay-Z. His first hit "Westside Story" contained a line about not driving Maybachs (Jay's signature car) which everyone took as a diss. The Game panicked, and spliced into the title track of his debut album "The Documentary" a radio interview explaining that he had meant it as a shot against Ja Rule (everyone's favorite hip hop punching bag) and that he "never takes shots at legends, that's just not something I do." Yeah, right. Over the next few years, he would routinely go out of his way to say that he was not dissing Jay-Z even when it sounded like he was ("before you call this a diss, and you make Hova pissed, why would I do that, when I'm just the new cat, that was taught if a n****take shots to shoot back, defending his yard, yeah standing his ground, I'm sayin if you gonna retire then hand me the crown.") Think of him as a rising middle power (#13 on the Forbes list, down there with Young Jeezy, he helpfully explains on I'm So Wavy) eyeing the king, ambitious and a bit resentful, and looking for an opening.
So what prompted him to finally cross the line and attack Jay-Z? There doesn't seem to be anything in the public record to speak of -- the proximate cause was a throwaway line in a Jay-Z freestyle which didn't even attack him ("I ain't talkin' about THE GAME"). His ego has always been there, and the Jay-Z obsession (in "360" earlier this year, he memorably rapped over Jay's Million and One beat "I'm the king and you better respect it, all I need is Beyonce and a Roc-a-Fella necklace"). Maybe he really just wants to test himself (he says on his Twitter feed "I ALWAYS FELT I WAS GOOD ENUFF 2 GO BAR 4 BAR @ JAY IN A "LYRICAL BEEF"), the way rising powers do. Or maybe he just is hoping for publicity... wouldn't be the first. But none of that explains the timing, even if it might account for the attack itself. So let's go with the IR analogies for a moment.
The Game's own account suggests that he saw vulnerability in Jay-Z's over-extension. First, supposedly Jay-Z got Chris Brown blackballed from the BET Video Awards by threatening to stay home if he performed. Second, D.O.A., the first single off of Blueprint 3, attacked a whole generation of rappers using the Autotune program to sing (including such great powers as Lil Wayne, Snoop Dogg, and Kanye West as well as the hapless T-Pain). Taken together, that might add up to a growing resentment which could be exploited. Maybe he calculated that now was the moment to strike, and that the rest of the middle powers will ally with him to topple the tyrant.
But still, the timing is odd for a "power transition" narrative, given that Jay-Z is set to release his new Blueprint 3 album in September and has done a whole series of verses with other leading rappers in recent years (including Nas, Lil Wayne, and T.I.) which is to hip hop as "alliances" are to International Relations. He may be old, but hardly looks like a declining power.... although perhaps Game simply detects weakness in Jay-Z's age. After all, he tweeted at one point that he "really don't hate jay's old music, but this new sh!t is convalescent home elevator music." He clearly understands the extent of Jay-Z's structural power, daring a long list of influential DJs to play I'm So Wavy.
So what does Jay-Z do? If he hits back hard in public, the Game will gain in publicity even if he loses... the classic problem of a great power confronted by a smaller annoying challenger. And given his demonstrated skills and talent, and his track record against G-Unit, the Game may well score some points. At the least, it would bring Jay-Z down to his level -- bogging him down in an asymmetric war negating the hegemon's primary advantages. If Jay-Z tries to use his structural power to kill Game's career (block him from releasing albums or booking tour dates or appearing at the Grammy Awards), it could be seen as a wimpy and pathetic operation -- especially since it would be exposed on Twitter and the hip hop blogs.
The Realist advice? His best hope is probably to sit back and let the Game self-destruct, something of which he's quite capable (he's already backing away from the hit on Beyonce) -- while working behind the scenes to maintain his own alliance structure and to prevent any defections over to the Game's camp. And it seems that thus far, that's exactly what he's doing. We'll see if that's a winning strategy.... or if he's just biding his time getting ready for a counter-attack. Either way, I've succeeded in wasting a lot of time so... mission accomplished!
John Forte's new EP, StyleFree, just dropped today. You can take a listen to the project here. The project is "... a collection of seven songs chronicling my experience (for better and worse). Since I came home in December...." This is John's first commercial release in EIGHT YEARS, and his first official offering since coming out of prison, so head over to his website and make that purchase. Look for John's LP, Water, Light, Sound, to drop in 2010.
Climate change could ignite wars in volatile regions
THE Matterhorn, an iconic emblem of the Alps, has two peaks: one on its Swiss side and one on its Italian side. Between them, the boundary separating the two countries traces the mountain ridge until it reaches the glacier at its base. According to a convention agreed long ago between Switzerland and Italy, the ridge of the glacier marks the border between the two countries. But the glacier is now receding, so a draft agreement has been proposed to create a new border that coincides with the ridge of the underlying rock.
The proposed change to this particular international border is unlikely to result in war. As the world warms up, however, more and more countries will need to renegotiate their boundaries. Your correspondent is concerned that a peaceful outcome is by no means assured.
Indeed, two recent reports from the Centre for Naval Analysis, an American military-research institute, suggest that border-related conflicts are a growing threat. In its report on “National Security and the Threat of Climate Change”, published in 2007, it warns that “Climate change can act as a threat multiplier for instability in some of the most volatile regions of the world.”
Nowhere is this truer than along the disputed sections of India’s border with Pakistan and China. India and Pakistan have been locked in occasionally violent competition for control of Kashmir since their bloody partition in 1947. James Lee of the American University in Washington, DC, reckons “it is a very good bet that the Kashmir glaciers will get caught up in the India/Pakistan dispute.”
India’s border with China is also unresolved. The two countries fought a brief war over it in 1962. In early June, India signalled that it would boost its military presence close to the border. China responded on June 9th, when the Chinese Global Times published an editorial entitled “India’s Unwise Military Moves” denouncing India’s troop deployment.
At the same time, the melting of sea ice around the north pole is causing old rivalries to heat up over conflicting claims to what could be valuable stretches of seabed that are becoming accessible as a result. The same report from the Centre for Naval Analysis warns that “an Arctic with less sea ice could bring more competition for resources, as well as more commercial and military activity.” And at the other end of the world Chile and Argentina, which last had an armed standoff in 1978, have yet to agree formally on a borderline through the southern Patagonian ice fields, which will affect their overlapping seabed claims.
Rising sea levels will also eat away at all coastal communities, especially large, densely populated portions of many South and South-East Asian countries as well as tiny island nations in the South Pacific. In Bangladesh, where about 10% of the country is less than a metre above sea level, tens of millions could be displaced by global warming. India has already constructed a 4,100 kilometre (2,560 mile) fence along the border in an attempt to curb illegal immigration.
As the Centre for Naval Analysis states in its most recent report, “Powering America’s Defence”, which was published in May, “climate change could increasingly drive military missions in this century.” Many of these missions could involve environmental refugees fleeing marginal cropland, the productivity of which is likely to be reduced by global warming. It is worth noting that the report also found the American border to be at risk.
For environmental activists like Jessica Miller, 31, the passage of a major climate bill by the House last month should have been cause for euphoria. Instead she felt cheated.
Ms. Miller, an activist with Greenpeace, had worked hard on her own time to elect Barack Obama because he directly and urgently addressed the issue nearest her heart: climate change.
But over the last few months, as the ambitious climate legislation was watered down in the House without criticism from the president, Ms. Miller became disillusioned. She worried that the bill had been rendered meaningless — or had even undermined some goals Greenpeace had fought for. And she felt that the man she had thought of as her champion seemed oddly prone to compromise.
“I voted for the president, I canvassed for him, but we just haven’t seen leadership from him,” said Ms. Miller, who rappelled down Mount Rushmore on Wednesday with colleagues to unfurl a banner protesting what they called President Obama’s acquiescence to the compromises. (They were arrested and charged with trespassing.)
While most environmental groups formally supported the House bill, the road to passage proved unsettling for the movement. Friends of the Earth, Greenpeace and Public Citizen opposed the bill; members of some other groups privately berated their leaders for going along with it. And some, like Ms. Miller, have shifted to open protest.
Few politicians make the transition from campaign trail to White House without sacrificing a few starry-eyed supporters along the way, of course.
And Mr. Obama’s early record on environmental issues suggests that he is more aggressive than any of his predecessors in supporting causes like combating global warming and shifting to renewable energy sources.
In an interview last month, Mr. Obama defended the House bill as “a good start.”
Referring to European leaders and others who said the bill was not strong enough, Mr. Obama said, “We don’t want to make the best the enemy of the good.”
He went on: “By putting a framework in place that is realistic, that is commonsensical, that protects consumers from huge spikes in electricity costs while setting real, meaningful targets — what we are doing is changing the political conversation and the incentive structures for businesses in this country.”
Still, the compromises that were made to win House approval by a 219-to-212 vote have left the president’s “green” base in some disarray.
For some environmental groups and individuals, the bill’s perceived shortcomings — like generous pollution allowances to coal utilities and the usurping of the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory authority over carbon emissions — were more than mere setbacks.
“This bill was worse than what we were expecting, even knowing we wouldn’t get the best bill,” said Nick Berning, a spokesman for the group Friends of the Earth.
The overriding of the E.P.A.’s regulatory authority over carbon emissions was particularly startling, Mr. Berning said.
The president clearly shares the blame, he said, adding, “He is not engaged enough.”
On the campaign trail, Mr. Obama used forceful and direct language on climate change, calling carbon emissions from human activity an “immediate threat” to the climate. His environmental critics say they miss that urgent tone.
“He was far too quiet during the House debate,” said Jessy Tolkan, the executive director of the Energy Action Coalition, a youth group in Washington that campaigns for clean energy. “He needs to live up to the promises he made to us when we poured our heart and soul into electing him.”
Ms. Tolkan said that her organization was hoping to take that point home to the Democratic Party before the midterm elections. “Those who played a leadership role in weakening this bill will feel the wrath of youth political power across the country,” she said. “2010 is not that far away.”
Democratic lawmakers have also drawn fire. Jill Stein, co-founder of the Massachusetts Coalition for Healthy Communities, which usually lobbies on local environmental issues, said she felt “betrayed” by the Democratic-controlled House. “If this is a political reality, we have to change our political leaders,” Ms. Stein said.
In a statement, Representative Henry A. Waxman, Democrat of California and an architect of the bill, defended the legislation. “We worked hard to craft legislation that would achieve our environmental goals while addressing the regional concerns of members of Congress,” he said. Politicians are not the only targets of dejected environmentalists.
The Clean, a collaborative grass-roots groups that encourages the use of renewable fuels, posted a critique of the climate bill on its Web site that asked at one point: “Why has this energy legislation become so bad?”
It blames “corporate polluters” for spending tens of millions of dollars on lobbying, but environmental groups, too.
“Several of the national ‘green’ groups decided to cooperate with industry and members of Congress in getting a bill through,” the Web site reads. “N.R.D.C., the Environmental Defense Fund and Pew all sat at the table and, whether or not it was their intent to do so, provided ‘cover’ for these bad policies.”
Daniel A. Lashof, director of the climate center for the Natural Resources Defense Council, an advocacy group in Washington, said that if his group had not come to the table, there might not have been any climate-change legislation at all. And he pointed out that Congressional support for environmental action was at a record high.
“We are not saying this is perfect,” Mr. Lashof said, “but we cannot hope for stronger environmental champions in Congress. If not now, when?”
I'm working on a paper and presentation about climate change refugees, so this John Lee Hooker classic seems appropriate. I wanna just kick it with Hooker, drink a whiskey, smoke a cigarette, and pick on a few rusty guitar strings.
WHEN argument fails, try metaphor. Shyam Saran, who heads India’s international negotiating team on climate change, says that greenhouse gases are taking up “carbon space” in the atmosphere. Past emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases from rich countries have taken up much of that space. Now the poor countries are standing up for their right to a little bit of that space too.
Put in those terms, it seems a matter of plain justice. Mr Saran is merely defending India’s right to industrialise. But as a negotiating position, it is one of the reasons why the talks on climate change at the G8 meeting in Italy this week have proved so fractious. Mr Saran says that the only limit India will accept on greenhouse-gas emissions is the same per-person amount enjoyed by citizens of developed countries. From the planet’s point of view that would mean a huge, and possibly catastrophic, increase in overall emissions.
India’s tough approach is supported by other developing countries. China, now the world’s biggest greenhouse-gas emitter, is particularly annoyed about a provision in America’s new cap-and-trade legislation on carbon emissions that would let America impose tariffs on goods from countries that do nothing to control emissions. The bill’s drafters reckon that China and similarly energy-thirsty countries are in effect subsidising their exports by allowing their firms to dodge costly environmental standards. But the Chinese say the measure could lead to a trade war.
Brazil takes a similar position. The cutting down of trees in the Amazon alone releases 700m tonnes of carbon dioxide into the air annually, fully half of the country’s total emissions. Brazil says it wants to curb deforestation, but it is reluctant to let outsiders’ rules tie its hands on the management of its sovereign territory.
The rich countries think they have already done a lot to meet the poor world halfway. At the G8 meeting in L’Aquila they proposed a “vision” in which the industrialised countries would by mid-century cut their emissions by 80% (against which base year is unclear), as part of a global effort to reduce emissions by half. The developing countries could burn more carbon as they got richer, but far less than the rich countries did in the 20th century. If the sums are correct, this would cap the rise in average global temperatures at 2°C (though that may still cause a lot of harm). If the poor countries do nothing, the rich countries argue, their own expensive efforts will be in vain. But with no interim targets, by mid-week the “vision” was fading from the draft deal at the summit.
This failure threatens to unravel a flimsy diplomatic consensus that dates back to the 1997 Kyoto protocol. Signed by most rich countries, this spoke of “common but differentiated” responsibilities for cutting emissions. This was diplomatic language that required nothing binding of developing countries and was the main reason why America never signed up for Kyoto. Barack Obama’s green-minded administration has changed that. So the spotlight is now on the poor countries. Their past position, of denouncing the previous American administration for inaction and hypocrisy, was enjoyable while it lasted but looks flimsy now. Instead they are being pressed to explain what if anything they are willing to do to save the planet.
The rich-world coalition is getting rickety too. America’s new seriousness turns unwelcome attention on countries such as Canada, Japan and Australia. They are seen as having fallen behind by the Europeans, the leaders (relatively speaking) in clean green growth
A dose of Mr Obama’s eloquence may bring a breakthrough by the end of the week. But the departure of the Chinese leader, Hu Jintao, to deal with unrest at home, seemed set to jinx the meeting’s chances. If the L’Aquila summit fails, the deadlock will threaten the climate summit to be held in Copenhagen in December. Governments’ efforts to deal with what many voters see as the world’s biggest problem will look pretty feeble.
Fresh thinking, instead of stale arguments, has rarely been so badly needed. A new paper published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences this week offered a contribution, based on the idea that it is rich people, rather than rich countries, who need to change the most. The authors suggest setting a cap on total emissions, and then converting that cap into a global per-person limit. This would be low enough that if everyone stuck to it, the worldwide target would be met.
Each country would then have the task of reducing its national consumption according to its number of “high emitters”—people with an extravagant output of carbon. Such individuals are scarce in India, more common in China, and common in America. If the goal were to cap emissions at 30 billion tonnes in 2030, say, that would mean squeezing the behaviour of some 1.1 billion “high emitters” worldwide. So the high-living, carbon-guzzling rich minority in India and China would not be able to hide behind their poor and carbon-thrifty compatriots.
The paper suggests that the personal emissions target would be set at around 10.8 tonnes of CO2 per year. China would have 300m emitters over this level by 2030, meaning that the country’s 4 billion tonnes of carbon emissions in 2003 should rise to no more than 8.5 billion in 2030, as opposed to a predicted 11.4 billion if China does nothing. The cuts required in Brazil and India would be far smaller, as they have fewer rich people. America’s cuts would have to be greater than those in the administration’s cap-and-trade bill.
It sounds a rather elegant idea—if implausibly complex to carry out. But as a thought experiment, it shows how even Mr Saran’s definition of “fair” falls short of the mark.
Soon, Air Force One will touch down in Accra, Ghana; Africans will be welcoming the first African-American president. Press coverage on the continent is placing equal weight on both sides of the hyphen.
And we thought it was big when President Kennedy visited Ireland in 1963. (It was big, though I was small. Where I come from, J.F.K. is remembered as a local boy made very, very good.)
But President Obama’s African-ness is only part (a thrilling part) of the story today. Cable news may think it’s all about him — but my guess is that he doesn’t. If he was in it for a sentimental journey he’d have gone to Kenya, chased down some of those dreams from his father.
He’s made a different choice, and he’s been quite straight about the reason. Despite Kenya’s unspeakable beauty and its recent victories against the anopheles mosquito, the country’s still-stinging corruption and political unrest confirms too many of the headlines we in the West read about Africa. Ghana confounds them.
Not defiantly or angrily, but in that cool, offhand Ghanaian way. This is a country whose music of choice is jazz; a country that long ago invented a genre called highlife that spread across Africa — and, more recently, hiplife, which is what happens when hip-hop meets reggaetón meets rhythm and blues meets Ghanaian melody, if you’re keeping track (and you really should be). On a visit there, I met the minister for tourism and pitched the idea of marketing the country as the “birthplace of cool.” (Just think, the music of Miles, the conversation of Kofi.) He demurred ... too cool, I guess.
Quietly, modestly — but also heroically — Ghana’s going about the business of rebranding a continent. New face of America, meet the new face of Africa.
Ghana is well governed. After a close election, power changed hands peacefully. Civil society is becoming stronger. The country’s economy was growing at a good clip even before oil was found off the coast a few years ago. Though it has been a little battered by the global economic meltdown, Ghana appears to be weathering the storm. I don’t normally give investment tips — sound the alarm at Times headquarters — but here is one: buy Ghanaian.
So it’s not a coincidence that Ghana’s making steady progress toward achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Right now it’s one of the few African nations that has a shot at getting there by 2015.
No one’s leaked me a copy of the president’s speech in Ghana, but it’s pretty clear he’s going to focus not on the problems that afflict the continent but on the opportunities of an Africa on the rise. If that’s what he does, the biggest cheers will come from members of the growing African middle class, who are fed up with being patronized and hearing the song of their majestic continent in a minor key.
I’ve played that tune. I’ve talked of tragedy, of emergency. And it is an emergency when almost 2,000 children in Africa a day die of a mosquito bite; this kind of hemorrhaging of human capital is not something we can accept as normal.
But as the example of Ghana makes clear, that’s only one chord. Amid poverty and disease are opportunities for investment and growth — investment and growth that won’t eliminate overnight the need for assistance, much as we and Africans yearn for it to end, but that in time can build roads, schools and power grids and propel commerce to the point where aid is replaced by trade pacts, business deals and home-grown income.
President Obama can hasten that day. He knows change won’t come easily. Corruption stalks Africa’s reformers. “If you fight corruption, it fights you back,” a former Nigerian anti-corruption official has said.
From his bully pulpit, the president can take aim at the bullies. Without accountability — no opportunity. If that’s not a maxim, it ought to be. It’s a truism, anyway. The work of the American government’s Millennium Challenge Corporation is founded on that principle, even if it doesn’t put it that bluntly. United States aid dollars increasingly go to countries that use them and don’t blow them. Ghana is one. There’s a growing number of others.
That’s thanks to Africans like John Githongo, the former anticorruption chief of Kenya — a hero of mine who is pioneering a new brand of bottom-up accountability. Efforts like his, which are taking place across the continent, deserve more support. The presidential kind. Then there’s Nigeria’s moral and financial fist — Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, a managing director of the World Bank and the country’s former finance minister — who is on a quest to help African countries recover stolen assets looted by corrupt officials. And the Extractive Industries Transparency Initiative, which is helping countries like Ghana clean up the oil, gas and mining business, to make sure that profits don’t wind up in the hands of kleptocrats.
Presidential attention would be a shot in the arm for these efforts — an infusion of moral and political amino acids that, by the way, will make aid dollars go further. That should be welcome news to the Group of 8 leaders gathered in Italy to whom Mr. Obama bids a Hawaii-via-Chicago-inflected “arrivederci,” as he leaves for Africa.
This week’s summit meeting looks as if it will yield some welcome new G-8 promises on agriculture. (So far, new money: America. Old money: everyone else.) This is the good news that President Obama will bring from Europe to Ghana.
The not-so-good news — that countries like Italy and France are not meeting their Africa commitments — makes the president’s visit all the more essential. The United States is one of the countries on track to keep its promises, and Mr. Obama has already said he’ll more than build on the impressive Bush legacy.
President Obama plans to return to Africa for the World Cup in 2010. Between now and then he’s got the chance to lead others in building — from the bottom up — on the successes of recent efforts within Africa and to learn from the failures. There’s been plenty of both. We’ve witnessed the good, the bad and the ugly in our fraught relationship with this dynamic continent.
The president can facilitate the new, the fresh and the different. Many existing promises are expiring in 2010, some of old age and others of chronic neglect. New promises from usual and unusual partners, from the G-8 to the G-20, need to be made — and this time kept. If more African nations (not just Ghana) are going to meet the millennium goals, they are going to need smart partners in business and development. That’s Smart as in sustainable, measurable, accountable, responsive and transparent.
Africa is not just Barack Obama’s homeland. It’s ours, too. The birthplace of humanity. Wherever our journeys have taken us, they all began there. The word Desmond Tutu uses is “ubuntu”: I am because we are. As he says, until we accept and appreciate this we cannot be fully whole.
Could it be that all Americans are, in that sense, African-Americans?
Bono, the lead singer of the band U2 and a co-founder of the advocacy group ONE and (Product)RED, is a contributing columnist for The Times.
Check out this new documentary, Whitewash. The doc explores race in America through the struggles and history of black surfers, and is narrated by Ben Harper and Black Thought. The movie also features music by The Roots and Erykah Badu.
I'm not a surfer yet, but I've always wanted to get into it. I am however, a lover of surfing documentaries, Blackthought, Ben Harper, Erykah Badu, etc.
Dr. James Hansen, Director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, wrote this editorial in the Huffington Post:
It didn't take long for the counterfeit climate bill known as Waxman-Markey to push back against President Obama's agenda. As the president was arriving in Italy for his first Group of Eight summit, the New York Times was reporting that efforts to close ranks on global warming between the G-8 and the emerging economies had already tanked:
The world's major industrial nations and emerging powers failed to agree Wednesday on significant cuts in heat-trapping gases by 2050, unraveling an effort to build a global consensus to fight climate change, according to people following the talks. Of course, emission targets in 2050 have limited practical meaning -- present leaders will be dead or doddering by then -- so these differences may be patched up. The important point is that other nations are unlikely to make real concessions on emissions if the United States is not addressing the climate matter seriously.
With a workable climate bill in his pocket, President Obama might have been able to begin building that global consensus in Italy. Instead, it looks as if the delegates from other nations may have done what 219 U.S. House members who voted up Waxman-Markey last month did not: critically read the 1,400-page American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009 and deduce that it's no more fit to rescue our climate than a V-2 rocket was to land a man on the moon.
I share that conclusion, and have explained why to members of Congress before and will again at a Capitol Hill briefing on July 13. Science has exposed the climate threat and revealed this inconvenient truth: If we burn even half of Earth's remaining fossil fuels we will destroy the planet as humanity knows it. The added emissions of heat-trapping carbon dioxide will set our Earth irreversibly onto a course toward an ice-free state, a course that will initiate a chain reaction of irreversible and catastrophic climate changes.
The concentration of CO2 in our atmosphere now stands at 387 parts per million, the highest level in 600,000 years and more than 100 ppm higher than the amount at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. Burning just the oil and gas sitting in known fields will drive atmospheric CO2 well over 400 ppm and ignite a devil's cauldron of melted icecaps, bubbling permafrost, and combustible forests from which there will be no turning back. But if we cut off the largest source of carbon dioxide, coal, we have a chance to bring CO2 back to 350 ppm and still lower through agricultural and forestry practices that increase carbon storage in trees and soil.
The essential step, then, is to phase out coal emissions over the next two decades. And to declare off limits artificial high-carbon fuels such as tar sands and shale while moving to phase out dependence on conventional petroleum as well.
This requires nothing less than an energy revolution based on efficiency and carbon-free energy sources. Alas, we won't get there with the Waxman-Markey bill, a monstrous absurdity hatched in Washington after energetic insemination by special interests.
For all its "green" aura, Waxman-Markey locks in fossil fuel business-as-usual and garlands it with a Ponzi-like "cap-and-trade" scheme. Here are a few of the bill's egregious flaws:
It guts the Clean Air Act, removing EPA's ability to regulate CO2 emissions from power plants. -It sets meager targets -- 2020 emissions are to be a paltry 13% less than this year's level -- and sabotages even these by permitting fictitious "offsets," by which other nations are paid to preserve forests - while logging and food production will simply move elsewhere to meet market demand. -Its cap-and-trade system, reports former U.S. Undersecretary of Commerce for Economic Affairs Robert Shapiro, "has no provisions to prevent insider trading by utilities and energy companies or a financial meltdown from speculators trading frantically in the permits and their derivatives." -It fails to set predictable prices for carbon, without which, Shapiro notes, "businesses and households won't be able to calculate whether developing and using less carbon-intensive energy and technologies makes economic sense," thus ensuring that millions of carbon-critical decisions fall short. -There is an alternative, of course, and that is a carbon fee, applied at the source (mine or port of entry) that rises continually. I prefer the "fee-and-dividend" version of this approach in which all revenues are returned to the public on an equal, per capita basis, so those with below-average carbon footprints come out ahead.
A carbon fee-and-dividend would be an economic stimulus and boon for the public. By the time the fee reached the equivalent of $1/gallon of gasoline ($115/ton of CO2) the rebate in the United States would be $2000-3000 per adult or $6000-9000 for a family with two children.
Fee-and-dividend would work hand-in-glove with new building, appliance, and vehicle efficiency standards. A rising carbon fee is the best enforcement mechanism for building standards, and it provides an incentive to move to ever higher energy efficiencies and carbon-free energy sources. As engineering and cultural tipping points are reached, the phase-over to post-fossil energy sources will accelerate. Tar sands and shale would be dead and there would be no need to drill Earth's pristine extremes for the last drops of oil.
Some leaders of big environmental organizations have said I'm naïve to posit an alternative to cap-and-trade, and have suggested I stick to climate modeling. Let's pass a bill, any bill, now and improve it later, they say. The real naïveté is their belief that they, and not the fossil-fuel interests, are driving the legislative process.
The fact is that the climate course set by Waxman-Markey is a disaster course. Their bill is an astoundingly inefficient way to get a tiny reduction of emissions. It's less than worthless, because it will delay by at least a decade starting on a path that is fundamentally sound from the standpoints of both economics and climate preservation.
Former Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, who died this week, suffered for 40 years -- as did our country -- from his failure to turn back from a failed policy. As grave as the blunders of the Vietnam War were, the consequences of a failed climate policy will be more severe by orders of magnitude.
With the Senate debate over climate now beginning, there is still time to turn back from cap-and-trade and toward fee-and-dividend. We need to start now. Without political leadership creating a truly viable policy like a carbon fee, not only won't we get meaningful climate legislation through the Senate, we won't be able to create the concerted approach we need globally to prevent catastrophic climate change.
Plantagon is more than just another vertical farm. PSFK says that it "will dramatically change the way we produce ecological and functional food. It allows us to produce ecological with clean air and water inside urban environments, even major cities, cutting costs and environmental damage by eliminating transportation and deliver directly to consumers. This is due to the efficiency and productivity of the Plantagon® greenhouse which makes it economically possible to finance each greenhouse from its own sales."
Do domes make good greenhouses?
There are no specifications on the site, but it appears to be a spiral ramp inside a geodesic dome. The amount of sunlight that penetrates glass varies according to the angle of incidence, so much is reflected away from steep angles. In a dome, a portion of the glass will always be pretty close to perpendicular to the sun, but it will fall off pretty quickly.
In winter when the sun angles are low, it will penetrate deep into the building, but will it reach the ramps on the north side? One would have to see the numbers.
The animation shows a different picture than the rendering, a wide, flat series of ramps without too much clearance, connected to some conventional greenhouse forms. It appears to be robotically controlled.
Is it "economically possible to finance each greenhouse from its own sales."?
They show it sitting on some pretty prime real estate, and all those robots cost a lot of money. It has been pointed out that the economics of vertical farms are questionable.
But they make a case for it below:
Hans Hassle, founder and CEO of Plantagon, is quoted on Engineering firm SWECO's website:
While the global population continues to expand at a rapid rate, 80% of all land suitable for crop production is already being used for other purposes. With traditional farming practices, the Earth’s arable land will not be sufficient to produce enough food for this growing population. In response to this challenge, Plantagon has collaborated with the consulting engineering company Sweco to develop a vertical greenhouse for the urban environment. “We need to find alternative ways to farm locally and space-efficiently. By the year 2050, 80% of people on Earth will live in urban centres,”
We have therefore developed a greenhouse that enables us to farm ecologically in the middle of an urban environment. Sweco has helped us to study the technical systems that will make the greenhouse work. Within three years we plan to have the first facility up and running in a major city."
It evidently can be inserted just about anywhere.
They continue on the Sweco site:
“It has been a considerable challenge for us at Sweco. Our goal has been to find technical solutions that make it possible to grow crops with high quality and good operating economy,” says Stephan Stålered, a consultant at Sweco. The concept behind Plantagon’s vertical greenhouse was created by the Swedish innovator and eco-farming expert Åke Olsson, and has been further developed by the consulting company SWECORP Citizenship AB together with North American Indians of the Onondaga Nation.
It's only 37 days till the 2009 Barclaycard World Freerunning Championships in London. This shit is so fucking slick. I gotta learn to do some of this. I'll most likely wait till my broken hip heals, but then I'm all over it.
Free running is a form of urban acrobatics in which participants, known as free runners, use the city and rural landscape to perform movements through its structures. It incorporates efficient movements from parkour, adds aesthetic vaults and other acrobatics, such as tricking and street stunts, creating an athletic and aesthetically pleasing way of moving. It is commonly practiced at gymnasiums and in urban areas that are cluttered with obstacles. The term free running was coined during the filming of Jump London, as a way to present parkour to the English-speaking world. However, free running and parkour are separate, distinct concepts — a distinction which is often missed due to the aesthetic similarities. Parkour as a discipline emphasizes efficiency, whilst free running embodies complete freedom of movement — and includes many acrobatic maneuvers. Although the two are often physically similar, the mindsets of each are vastly different. The founder Sébastien Foucan, who you may recognize from the beginning of Casino Royale, defines free running as a discipline to self development, following your own way.
"She is my lover. That's right. She's my liberal, hippy-dippy mama; my groovy chick; my old lady. She was our chief adversary during the Sheinhardt Wig hearings. She wants to tax us all to death and make it legal for a man to marry his own dog. But I think what we have is special, and I'm proud of her. And I'm not going to hide it any longer. I'm Jack Donaghy, damn it! And this is my woman." -Jack Donaghy
Emmy Award winner Alec Baldwin is eyeing a post-acting career that could take him off a Hollywood soundstage into the halls of Congress.
Baldwin, who currently stars in the NBC comedy "30 Rock," told Playboy magazine that he is seriously considering running for Congress. But he acknowledged his opponents would have plenty of fodder to use against him.
"I'll put it this way," he told the magazine. "The desire is there; that's one component. The other component is opportunity."
A native New Yorker, Baldwin said he has been approached by an unnamed Democratic law firm who wanted him to run for governor of Ohio, and he has also considered moving to New Jersey or Connecticut to run for office. "I'd love to run against Joe Lieberman," Baldwin said of the Independent Democratic senator who is no favorite of the liberal wing of the Democratic Party. But Baldwin dismissed the idea, saying "It's all fantasy."
In the interview, he emphasized his New York roots, and noted the unpredictable nature of politics, citing Gov. Eliot Spitzer and Sen. Hillary Clinton's resignations.
He also asked hypothetical questions about the future of Sen. Chuck Schumer, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, and Rep. Tim Bishop.
"How much longer will Chuck Schumer stay as senator? After 2013 Bloomberg will be gone. What happens then? Do I run for Congress on Long Island? What's Tim Bishop going to do? He represents my district. People get sick, die. They're offered lucrative deals and want to cash in and make money for their retirement. People misstep," he said. "Unfortunately, an opportunity for me may mean bad things for someone else. I don't wish that."
Asked if he had ever turned down a sketch on Saturday Night Live, because it was too outrageous, Baldwin responded, "Probably a few. It's hard to remember. I'm often asked if I think about going into politics. If I do, these guys will have a field day. I've given them so much crap to use against me… If I run for political office, they'll have a forest of material to kill me with."
Was looking to see if I posted this John Forte song, which I evidently haven't. This was his first track he put out after getting out of prison (pardoned by Bush).
So I spent an hour today in class arguing against nearly everyone about how globalization actually is bad. While I understand that it has beneficial factors, those could have been achieved through controlled, non-exploitive means.
Whole thing made me think of the Battle in Seattle. Check out the movie.
John Forte, fellow alumni of Phillips Exeter, continues to be active and productive since his release from prison this past December. Taking full advantage of his freedom, Forte has been teaching at the City College of New York, recording with Talib Kweli, working on his memoirs, as well as working with Harlem-based initiative "In Arms Reach," which works with at-risk youth who have incarcerated parents. Next Tuesday, John will be releasing an EP entitled, StyleFREE. The seven songs on the EP were written during the seven and a half years he was incarcerated. Here is one song off of the project, "Play My Cards For Me." Of the song, John says: "['Play My Cards For Me'] is about the journey of a man (in this case me), and the willingness to relinquish control to his (my) loved one in the event of his (my) demise." Look for a full length album, Water, Light, Sound, to drop in 2010. StyleFREE will be available for purchase next Tuesday from John's site. Here is his song "Style Free":
Here is former J5 member, Chali 2na is stepping out and releasing his solo album, Fish Outta Water, via Decon. The LP is in stores today and features the likes of Talib Kweli, Anthony Hamilton, Beenie Man, Damian & Stephen Marley, and more. To give y'all a sample, here is the video for his lead single "Lock Shit Down" featuring Talib Kweli. The dope visuals you're watching were brought to you by Decon's Yoram Benz and Jason Goldwatch.
Yeah, I hear ya, this actually isn't that old. I think this came out in 2006? But........IRRELEVANT! This is a hot track that SOUNDS is a throwback in style.
Here is further analysis of todays PNAS study for climate equity. I'm about halfway through it, trying to compare it to other emissions frameworks. So far I've heart the commentary that it would be difficult if not impossible to negotiate something based on “universal formula” among all nations. It could be more practical if modified for G-20 or OECD+BRIC.
As nations duke it out over whether and how much to reduce emissions, a group of researchers is looking at climate change responsibility in a whole new light.
In a study published today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers argue that wealthy, greenhouse gas-spewing individuals from America to Angola are responsible for abating climate change.
By tracking emissions from individuals in all countries rather than nations as a whole, the report has the potential to move the international global warming debate beyond entrenched skirmishes between developed and developing nations over the burden of slashing greenhouse gas output.
"This approach gives responsibilities to different countries based on the number of high emitters," said Shoibal Chakravarty, lead author of the study and part of the Carbon Mitigation Initiative at Princeton University.
Chakravarty noted that emerging countries like China and India, in particular, still have millions of people living in poverty. At the same time, he said, a sizable portion are wealthy and are driving up those countries' emissions levels.
"Even if the average emissions are still low, a large enough population would be contributing to global warming," he said. "They should be doing something about it, as well." The idea of holding high emitters responsible for their CO2 output, no matter from where they hail, is a fairly new one. It essentially calls for a new way of looking at the concept of "common but differentiated responsibilities."
That fairness principle has been chiseled into international climate deals and has guided discussions among countries over climate actions. It also is at the core of the current Kyoto Protocol obligations, which require nothing of fast-growing developing countries like China and India.
The PNAS study loosely builds on the idea of "greenhouse development rights" outlined by nonprofit groups that creates a system in which payments for emissions reductions are based on a country's level of responsibility for emissions and its capacity to pay for them. The Heinrich Böll Foundation also produced a report last year laying out how the wealthiest and biggest emitters -- whether in the United States or Bangladesh -- can contribute to a goal of keeping warming below a 2 degrees Celsius rise in global temperatures.
'No one gets a pass' The newest research uses individual emissions rather than income to reward improvements in national carbon intensity.
Assuming a global fossil fuel target of 30 billion tons of CO2 for 2030, the researchers estimated that the individual emissions cap would be 10.8 tons of CO2. That would leave about 1.13 billion people above the cap. If a country develops faster and has a rising number of high emitters, it would then have to do more.
"In our interpretation of fairness, individuals who emit similar amounts of CO2, regardless of where they live, are expected to contribute to fossil-fuel CO2 emission reductions in similar ways," the authors wrote.
"In principle, no country gets a pass, because even in the poorest countries some individuals have CO2 emissions above the universal emission cap."
The scheme does not specify how any nation would meet its responsibilities. But it shows that the United States and middle-income countries defined as part of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) -- both with high numbers of individual emitters above the threshold -- must address rising emissions immediately. China, by contrast, doesn't currently have as many people spewing greenhouse gases over that threshold, and responsibility for climate action under this scenario wouldn't start until about 2020.
Chakravarty said he and other scientists discussed the research at a March U.N. climate conference in Bonn, Germany, and currently are holding several briefings as negotiators work to hammer out an international treaty. Arne Jungjohann, who directs the Heinrich Böll Foundation's Environment and Global Dialogue Program, said he believes the notion of holding individuals responsible for high emissions is gaining traction.
The Mexican government, which has been at the forefront of helping rich and poor nations bridge the gap on climate change responsibilities, is working to integrate the concept into its negotiating position, he said.
It appears that Mark as raised a challenge. I will response with some more environmentally friendly dream cars.
The Aero EV has a twin motor AESP producing a jaw-dropping 1,000 hp, 60 mph in 2.5 seconds, and its top speed is 208 mph. It can be charged and ready to go in 10 minutes on a standard 110 outlet has a range of 200 miles.
The GreenGT is hoping to kick butt at the 2011 Le Mans. It gets 400 hp and has a top speed of 171 mph. It has 1,475 lb-ft of torque up to 100 mph, where it then eases to 590 lb-ft for high-speed traction. And if that doesn't make you drool, its powered by lithium-ion batteries charged by flexcell photovoltaic solar panels.
Supercar maker Gumpert brought a moded version of their Apollo racer to the 24 Hours Nürburgring (inspired by the famous 24 Hours of Le Mans) this past May. The racecar has a 630 hp twin-turbo 3.3-liter V8 paired with a 134 hp electric motor that can recharge by regenerative braking.
Ronn Motor Company's Scorpion is as controversial as it is hot. According to the manufacturer, their hydrogen injection powertrain (H2GO) which injects small amounts of hydrogen--generated on board--into the fuel line improves mileage by 30-percent. This process also reduces CO2 output.
The RORMaxx Formula AE is a wind-assisted supercar concept designed by two high school students. With a 200 kW electric motor and lithium ion batteries, the RORMaxx gets a 50% boost in efficiency from its wind recovery system. It has a top speed of 155 mph and is covered flexible photovoltaic panels.
Peugeot's RC HYmotion4 is business in front and all party in the back. It has a 1.6L gas engine in the back driving the rear wheels with 218 hp and 206 lb-ft of torque, where a 70 kW electric motor provides up to another 132 lb-ft for the front wheels. The car can operate in either internal combustion, electric only or blended modes. All this, and a miles per gallon of 52.3.
Rinspeed's iChange is a one-seat sports car that can transform to a three-seat coupe thanks to a pop-up rear end. It's fully-electric drivetrain is also powered by solar panels on the roof, which also assist with the interior's climate. The iChange has a top speed of 137 mph and reaches 62 mph in just over 4 seconds.
The 2025 Sunbeam Tiger LSR Tribute, designed by British student Ryan Skelley, honors the 1925 Sunbeam Tiger land speed record car. The original Tiger used a V12 engine to hit a record 145 miles-per-hour where this concept would reach 160 mph. The concept uses lithium titanate batteries and reaches 60 mph in just 2.3 seconds.
Frazer-Nash collaborated with Italdesign Giugiaro to create this hybrid concept. Called the Namir, the supercar gets 362 hp from a pair of electric motors at each axle. It has a top speed of 187 mph, goes 0-62 in 3.5 seconds, and gets 91.7 mpg.
Honda's FC Sport is a three-seat sports car that use a V-Flow fuel cell stack and an electric drivetrain from the FCX Clarity.
The Climax is more than just a name that will make 14-yr-old boys giggle. The Speed Racer-esque British concept that is powered by a flex-fuel capable four cylinder engine tuned to run on ethanol. It gets up to 60 mph in less than 4 seconds and has a top speed of 170 mph. All that while maintaining a combined fuel economy of 27.4 mpg.
The Dodge Circuit EV uses a 200 kW (268 hp) electric motor and has 480 lb-ft of torque. Along with reaching 60 mph in under 5 seconds, the lithium-ion batteries provide enough juice for a 200 mile range and can be charged in four hours via a 220 V outlet.
Ruf--a Porsche high performance tuning specialist--built this prototype electric sports car based on the 911. Coined as the eRuf Greenster, the battery-powered 911 has a 270 kW Siemens electric motor with 695 lb-ft of torque. Along with regenerative braking, the car can be charged in an hour from a 400 V outlet.
I personally would go with the Tesla Roadster: The Tesla Roadster is also all-electric. Compared to the TZero above, you could say that it is the new generation of electric cars. More refined and higher-technology. Using a lithium-ion battery pack and a 248 hp (185 kW) electric motor designed to spin at 14,000 RPM, the Tesla Roadster can accelerate from 0 to 60 mph in 3.9 seconds. Unfortunately, the credit crunch is affecting Tesla Motors and it has delayed its next model of electric car.
Here is Joel Ortiz's video for "How To Change" featuring The Kickdrums off of the upcoming Inside A Change mixtape. The premise of the video, directed by my man Rik Cordero, is as follows: "a full band playing in the courtyard of Brooklyn’s Cooper Houses. Like I said before, the hood needs more horn sections."
To fairly divide the climate change fight between rich and poor, a new study suggests basing targets for emission cuts on the number of wealthy people, who are also the biggest greenhouse gas emitters, in a country.
Since about half the planet's climate-warming emissions come from less than a billion of its people, it makes sense to follow these rich folks when setting national targets to cut carbon dioxide emissions, the authors wrote on Monday in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
As it stands now, under the carbon-capping Kyoto Protocol, rich countries shoulder most of the burden for cutting the emissions that spur global warming, while developing countries -- including fast-growing economies China and India -- are not required to curb greenhouse pollution.
Rich countries, notably the United States, have said this gives developing countries an unfair economic advantage; China, India and other developing countries argue that developed countries have historically spewed more climate-warming gases, and developing countries need time to catch up.
The study suggests setting a uniform international cap on how much carbon dioxide each person could emit in order to limit global emissions; since rich people emit more, they are the ones likely to reach or exceed this cap, whether they live in a rich country or a poor one.
For example, if world leaders agree to keep carbon emissions in 2030 at the same level they are now, no one person's emissions could exceed 11 tons of carbon each year. That means there would be about a billion "high emitters" in 2030 out of a projected world population of 8.1 billion.
EACH PERSON'S EMISSIONS
By counting the emissions of all the individuals likely to exceed this level, world leaders could provide target emissions cuts for each country. Currently, the world average for individual annual carbon emissions is about 5 tons; each European produces 10 tons and each American produces 20 tons.
With international climate talks set to start this week in Italy among the countries that pollute the most, the authors hope policymakers will look at the strong link between how rich people are and how much carbon dioxide they emit.
"You're distributing the task of doing something about emissions reduction based on the proportion of the population in the country that's actually doing the most damage," said Shoibal Chakravarty of the Princeton Environment Institute, one of the study's authors.
Rich people's lives tend to give off more greenhouse gases because they drive more fossil-fueled vehicles, travel frequently by air and live in big houses that take more fuel to heat and cool.
By focusing on rich people everywhere, rather than rich countries and poor ones, the system of setting carbon-cutting targets based on the number of wealthy individuals in various countries would ease developing countries into any new climate change framework, Chakravarty said by telephone.
"As countries develop -- India, China, Brazil and others -- over time, they'll have more and more of these (wealthy) individuals and they'll have a higher share of carbon reductions to do in the future," he said.
These obligations, based on the increasing number of rich people in various countries, would kick in as each developing country hit a certain overall level of carbon emissions. This level would be set fairly high, so that economic development would not be hampered in the poorest countries, no matter how many rich people live there.
Is this a limousine-and-yacht tax on the rich? Not necessarily, Chakravarty said, but he did not rule it out: "We are not by any means proposing that. If some country finds a way of doing that, it's great."
This week's climate talks in Italy are a prelude to an international forum in December in Copenhagen aimed at crafting an agreement to follow the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. At the same time, the U.S. Congress is working on legislation to curb U.S. carbon emissions.
