Petition To World Leaders:

"Climate change is the greatest threat facing our world today - and we are almost out of time to stop it. You must tackle this problem now, decisively and together. Start working toward a new global agreement this year. Set binding global targets for emissions to avert catastrophic climate change. Take bold action immediately - and we will join our efforts with yours."
G8 5: FEEL THE HEAT, ACT NOW!:

The benefits of being 'nice'

Recent research seems to show pretty conclusively that

the more hostile one’s personality—characterized by aggression or anger, for example—the lower levels one’s of lung function even after controlling for age, height, socioeconomic status, smoking status and presence of asthma.

Just now, the difficulty is establishing which way the causal flow goes: is it aggresiveness causing poor lung function or vice versa, or something else?

Right now, we can’t say if having a hostile personality causes lung function decline, though we now know that these things happen together. More research is needed to establish whether hostility is associated with change in pulmonary function during young adulthood

The kinds of things that I've seen done and done in training, therapy and meditation make me think that biofeedback could be implicated here, though; that is it can work either way.
ScienceDaily: Harboring Hostility May Be Linked To Unhealthy Lungs

Technorati Tags: research, aggression, psycho-somatic

Don't you just love this evolving thing we call English?

I just loved these that I'd not come across before. Looking for opportunities to use them in blogging! "Some words are lovely additions - I'm particularly fond of whataboutery ('the practice of repeatedly blaming the other side'), and silver, which enters as a verb, meaning 'to age'.
Others, meanwhile, just make you despair. Has it really been necessary to cultivate masstige ('the impression of exclusivity in goods that are affordable for many')? Or preneed ('arranged or made available in advance of eventual requirements: preneed funeral arrangements')? Now that's a barbecue-stopper."Aida Edemariam: More new words (most of which we could do without) | News | Guardian Unlimited Books:

Prospects for a green Brown premiership: nuking our energy

The prognosisi on Brown's premiership seems well laid-out here. In the light of which the following would be the truly worthwhile (except for the road pricing one, imho).

Brown could take a few quick tricks merely by undoing some of his predecessor's most unpopular policies - Iraq, ID cards, road pricing, though the last seems as deserving of support as nuclear power stations. He may come up with some new answers about pensions and saving. Nothing would play better with swing voters, though not of course with Labour's huge payroll vote, than to reverse Alan Johnson's disgraceful surrender to the public-service unions on early retirement.

However, the main point of the article is to say what a good idea nuke power is and how we need to fast track the planning process. I have to say that part of me agrees, but part of me suspects that not doing anything will really concentrate minds in about 7 years and all of a sudden we'll have domestic power generation solutions being sold to us rapidly and developing very rapidly. The real argument for government planning here is to protect the weak and financially challenged. You can bet pricing and gadget-selling will respond.
The author concludes thus in favour of his preferred policy of nuking our power supply:

I suspect that Gordon Brown will enjoy being prime minister much less than he thinks he will, because the right decisions will also be his most politically thankless ones.

Actually, that's always the case: the central problem of democratic politics is just this: that some decisions will always hurt someone. Parents know this. The problem systemically is to allow enough time so that the benefits of good but not-so-pop decisions can become clear and to build in supports for long-term planning that aren't going to be derailed by short-term vote-winning without losing democratic accountability.
PS The first few comments are really good, too
Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | Brown's defining moment

Technorati Tags: Brown, UK, policy, Labour

Shopping? They just don't buy it

Interesting idea; this articcle explores an anti-conusumerist action in the USA "six months into a one-year pledge not to buy anything new - underwear and a few other essentials aside. Kesel and 10 of her friends bought no new items in 2006, and many have renewed the 'compact', as their pledge is called, this year."Apparently, it's growing and people are finding it easier than they thought they might.
One of the founding figures responding with disgust to the "show 'em you're not afraid: shop" response to the fall of the Twin Towers;

She decided to try 'an experiment' not to shop. 'One of the long-term effects was that it showed me that I could happily live on a lot less, and that has made me better able to save and to plan my financial future without thinking "to hell with it, I'll never retire".' She also cleared her $8,000 Visa bill.

Here's the basics info.

The rule
· Don't buy new products - borrow or buy used. The exceptions are food, drink, medicine (no elective treatments like Viagra or Botox), necessary cleaning products but not equipment (a new Dyson, for example, is not allowed), socks and underwear (utilitarian only) and pyjamas for the children.
To find out more about the compact http://sfcompact.blogspot.com/

Shopping? They just don't buy it | Cash | The Observer:

Oh dear ... 90 days interment

Brown has disappointed already: macho posturing which is dangerous for civil liberties: interment in Northern Ireland while I was growing up actually made things worse as it increased the 'gripe' against British rule among the nationalist community. Now, there does appear to be a justification, however, there is an acknowledgement that there are civil liberties issues and so ...

The Chancellor believes it is possible to win support for increasing the 28-day limit if there is stronger judicial oversight of any decisions to extend an individual's detention on a week-by-week basis and an annual report to parliament on the use of the powers. But Brown believes there is a need to extend detention because of the volume of international evidence which accrues in such investigations, most of which can be difficult to obtain from computers.

Personally I think that it might concentrate minds if part of the proposal was to compensate suspects for loss of earnings and esteem and to do so from the wages/salaries of the officers in charge and government ministers in oversight if they are subsequently released without charge -or that those responsible have to serve time in detention (or better: hours of service to the community of the suspect) equivalent to the loss of liberty.

Brown sets out plan for tough new terror laws | Politics | The Observer

Make wealth history

A new-to-me blog with an in-your-face title which I think I'm going to sub to. Here's what they are about.

we’ve chosen the pretty brash Make Wealth History as our name, mainly because it’s bold and memorable. It gets an immediate reaction and catches people’s imagination, but it does slightly overstate our case. There’s nothing wrong with wealth per se. In the right hands wealth can be a real power for good. ‘Money is the root of all evil’ is, after all, a common misquote. It’s derived from something the Apostle Paul said in the Bible, but what he actually said was ‘the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil’. I agree with that. It’s that ‘love’ that makes the difference - greed, avarice, the compulsion to aqcuire - that’s where wealth becomes harmful.

We’re not really against wealth. We want to see equality and justice, and an end to poverty and the abuse of the environment. In order for that to happen, we’re going to have to fight greed, unsustainable consumer habits, and wealth that is generated by exploiting others. And we’re not all negative either. We need to learn and promote new ways of using wealth well, to redistribute it, give it away, invest it in sustainable development and job creation, find ways to make that money go further and do more good.

wealth is not the enemy « MAKE WEALTH HISTORY

Technorati Tags: bligs, wealth, poverty, Christian