Thursday, October 30, 2008

OMG - climate change is for real!

OK, can we now please put to rest the naysayers - no respected scientists among them - that claim humans have not materially contributed to global warming?
We really can't claim anymore that it's natural variations that are driving these very large changes.
- Peter Stott, Met Office

Here's a BBC article that references work published in Nature Geoscience.

Wednesday, October 22, 2008

Hard times if these forecasts play out.

America, and Americans face a stark decision - and a choice that must be made now. Not next month at the polls, not next week. Today.

We now sit literally days away, with a high probability, of a credit market "dislocation" that will change American finance and decimate the stock market. That is, worse - far worse - than what has happened thus far.

Try on for size 2-3,000 points down on the Dow from here. 25% more than has been lost thus far, more-or-less "all at once." The probability of this event is now in excess of 70% - within the next few days to two weeks.

Read the engaging piece here, in its entirety.

Thursday, October 16, 2008

Voting by the numbers - a win (sort of) for Greens.

On election night Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he was happy to see more Canadians finding a home with his party. In reality, the number of people who voted for the Conservatives was down by 168,737.

The Green Party may not have won any seats in this election but it is still the only party which actually saw the number of people vote for it go up. The Green Party saw its raw vote increase by 276,679 people. The Greens garnered 6.8 per cent of the total votes cast nationwide. In 2006, the Greens got 4.5 per cent of the national vote.
The Greens also saw 41 of their candidates achieve more than 10 per cent of the vote in their riding. In 2006 there were just seven Green candidates who hit that point.

Five Green Party candidates also finished second in their riding. Three of those were in Alberta where overall the Greens got 8.8 per cent of the vote. Their best finish came in B.C. with 9.4 per cent of the vote, but they didn’t finish second in any B.C. ridings.

Data and more here.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

Join the record attempt of people standing up against poverty.

October 17-19, activists from over 100 countries will Stand Up and Take Action against extreme poverty and hopefully set a new world record of 67 million people—or 1% of humanity—standing up against poverty (prev record is 43.7 million).

Link here to be counted and indicate you are also standing up.

This is probably the easiest thing we can all do in the fight against poverty, and it’s crucial that we do it to demonstrate to our leaders how many people around the world are ready to act together for this cause.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Play this all-too-real game of predicting the future

Q: What is Superstruct?
A: Superstruct is the world's first massively multiplayer forecasting game. By playing the game, you'll help us chronicle the world of 2019--and imagine how we might solve the problems we'll face. Because this is about more than just envisioning the future. It's about making the future, inventing new ways to organize the human race and augment our collective human potential.

Visit/play here.

Tuesday, October 7, 2008

Harper's Auto-Pilot Economy [not] At Work

Government stewardship in today's economic climate? While asleep at the wheel, Stevie H has destroyed Canada's surpluses, eroded our infrastructure and exposed us to the risks of national privatization and closer financial ties to the US. All this while deregulating in Ft. McMurray and ignoring the urgent need to modernize Canada's economic strategies and priorities.

Read Dobbin's original piece in the Tyee.