Oil prices, climate change, etc.
On the energy and global warming front:
Globalization may have met its match in the form of high energy prices, according to this NY Times story.
Cheap oil, the lubricant of quick, inexpensive transportation links across the world, may not return anytime soon, upsetting the logic of diffuse global supply chains that treat geography as a footnote in the pursuit of lower wages ...
Many economists argue that globalization will not shift into reverse even if oil prices continue their rising trend. But many see evidence that companies looking to keep prices low will have to move some production closer to consumers.
The Jet Propulsion Laborary at the California Institute of Technology has put up a catchy, informative site on climate change. The lab is a NASA center staffed and managed by Caltech, as it is known.
Gristmill, the environmental blog, describes the site like this:
It offers a nice summary of the relevant science in a variety of areas: key indicators, evidence, causes, effects, uncertainties, and solutions. The website is a good place to send people who are uninformed on global warming, but looking for basic information.
NY Times columnist Paul Krugman on the politics behind the debate over what to do about global warming.
In themselves, limits on offshore drilling are only a modest-sized issue. But the skirmish over drilling is the opening stage of a much bigger fight over environmental policy. What’s at stake in that fight, above all, is the question of whether we’ll take action against climate change before it’s utterly too late.
Read and react.
