Politics & Current Affairs — December 8, 2009

Not Hot Air

At the Copenhagen Summit the US government declared that greenhouse gases threaten human health – a move that could allow a bypassing of Congress in order to enforce emission cuts

bigthinkeditor

“The US government has declared that greenhouse gases threaten human health. The move could allow the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to order cuts in emissions without the approval of Congress. EPA administrator Lisa Jackson said the agency was now ‘authorised and obligated to make reasonable efforts’ to cut greenhouse gases. The news came as global climate talks got under way in Copenhagen aimed at forging a deal on major emissions cuts. Ms Jackson said that the scientific evidence surrounding climate change clearly showed that greenhouse gases ‘threaten the public health and welfare of the American people’. She said the EPA’s so-called endangerment finding would ‘cement 2009’s place in history as the year when the United States government began addressing the challenge of greenhouse-gas pollution’.”

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

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7 min

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with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

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