Speed Blogging VIII
Submitted by Aguanomics Blog
- The short version of Lester Brown’s plan to save civilization [a new book] is well-worth a look. He wants to cut population, reduce GHG emissions, and conserve other resources. He provides cost estimates, but I expect the real trouble is finding a way to get the programs going AND share the costs (only $200 billion or so…)
- “Fish caught near wastewater treatment plants serving five major U.S. cities had residues of pharmaceuticals in them… Findings from this first nationwide study of human drugs in fish tissue have prompted the Environmental Protection Agency to significantly expand similar ongoing research to more than 150 different locations.”
- The Nature Conservancy kills a bunch of animals for a higher good: “A quarter of a century after conservation work began, and with the killing of nearly 50,000 sheep and 5,000 pigs, and the relocation of 44 golden eagles, the orgy of eradication is over…. the removal of invaders is a harsh necessity… to protect and preserve some of the world’s rarest species.”
- Frito Lay — yes, the corn chip guys — sponsored an insert (”Solutions for a Better World”) in the April 2009 National Geographic. On water, they say typical stuff, e.g., drip irrigation saves water and increases yield, but farmers have no incentive to save water when governments subsidize it. Interestingly, the insert is NOT available online. Why the low profile?
- “Appalachian By Design (ABD), a US rural non-profit venture, developed a social enterprise to creatively address the isolation and lack of job opportunities that have been a persistent problem in rural Appalachia, particularly for women. The organization introduced a trade into the region, machine knitting, because of market opportunities, and built the infrastructure to support it… The findings from the field show that it is one thing to design such a program, quite another to make it sustainable. At the end of the 2005, the founder of ABD, Diane Browning, with a bank loan due and a financial turnaround needed, faced a difficult decision.”
- “This article explores the psychological literature on rationalization and connects it with contemporary questions about the role of in-house lawyers in ethical dilemmas. Using the case study of AWB Ltd, the exclusive marketer of Australian wheat exports overseas, it suggests that rationalizations were influential in the perpetuation by in-house lawyers of AWB’s payment of kickbacks to the Iraqi regime. The article explores how lawyers’ professional rationalizations can work together with commercial imperatives to prevent in-house lawyers from seeing ethical issues as those outside the organisation would see them.”
- Speaking of that (?!), “This paper provides a theoretical analysis regarding the rationality of suicide attacks from an economist’s point of view. It is argued that although a terrorist gives up future utility from consumption by committing a suicide attack, this loss can be overcompensated by the utility he derives from the attack.” Clever economists! They’ve got a model that leads them to conclude that suicide bombers rather die than live.
- “This paper exploits variations in the timing and size of oil discoveries to identify the impact of oil wealth on democracy… On average, discovering 100 billion barrels pushes a country’s democracy level almost 20 percentage points below trend.”
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