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Noteworthy: prescriptions on inequality

Worth reading:  A joint American-British report today prescribed new policies aimed at reducing the growing gulf between haves and have-nots in Western democracies, using case studies from several countries. The middle class has not fared well lately in advanced economies roiled by globalization, technological change and a shift in economic power from people to corporations, said the report. Headed by Lawrence Summers and Lawrence Balls, it said “economic growth, even coupled with productivity growth, is no longer enough to ensure middle-class income growth.” It called for “progressive public policy choices … to ensure that all of their citizens share in economic

Artists call for ban on fracking near national park

Thirty two well known artists sent an open letter to Canadian Prime Minster Stephen Harper, and  Newfoundland & Labrador Premier Paul Davis, calling on them to establish a permanent buffer zone free of industrial activity around Gros Morn National Park  and UNESCO World Heritage Site on the west coast of the island of Newfoundland. The area has been the target of many unsuccessful oil exploration attempt over the past two decades. In 2012 a number of companies proposed to conduct hydraulic fracturing (“fracking”) drilling right up to the park’s boundaries. Last summer, UNESCO called on Canada to do more to

Research adds a weapon in our war between germs and drugs

A research breakthrough in a report in Nature  this week, A new antibiotic kills pathogens without detectable resistance,  may turn out to be the biggest and most hopeful medical news of the year.  It’s been decades since scientists made significant progress on new weapons against deadly microbes. Antibiotics have been, numerous studies show, over-used and abused to the point even the most powerful are no longer effective. As Nature noted, “Antibiotic resistance is spreading faster than the introduction of new compounds into clinical practice, causing a public health crisis.” The cost of antibiotic resistance is devastating. A major new British review warns, “a continued rise in resistance by

New on F&O: From Peak Civilization to Birdman

   Are We at Peak Civilization? By Chris Wood (subscription required) Will 2015 be the end of our capitalist consumer cornucopia world? That world cannot go on. And as some bright person once said (the words are variously attributed to Henry Ford and economist Herb Stein): “What cannot go on, will stop.” The ultimate foundation of that world, just as it was for the worlds of the Greeks, the Ming and the Maya, is our natural security: the supply of ecoservices like food, water and air — to name only the crudest — which constitute our biological habitat, which keep us alive,

Saudi Arabia upheaval will soon rock Middle East and beyond

Politics are heating up in Saudi Arabia, a key player in the three-cornered contest in the Middle East between modernity, theocracy and absolutism, a contest waged between warring proxies in Iraq, Syria, Yemen and Libya, and felt in corners of the world from Paris to Nigeria. International Affairs columnist Jonathan Manthorpe notes that, like many countries of the Middle East, Saudi Arabia was born out of the destruction of the Ottoman Turkish empire in the First World War. The turmoil that will soon wrack the country will reverberate far beyond its borders, due to its wealth and its influence as the leading

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