The UN wants to limit global warming to 2C, but international co-operation has been slow in coming
Tom Bawden Environment Editor
@BawdenTom
Almost 150 heads of state, including David Cameron, Barack Obama and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, are heading to Paris for the start of the most important environmental meeting for decades.
Ahead of the summit, more than 175 countries have tabled pledges (known as intended nationally determined contributions, or INDCs) to cut their carbon emissions which, if enacted, would be enough to limit global warming to 2.7C. But the United Nations has pledged to limit climate change to 2C – and would much prefer it to be 1.5C.
This means there is much work to be done in Paris. Although nobody is expecting an agreement that will guarantee to limit global warming to 2C, the UN climate chief Christiana Figueres is determined to enshrine a process that paves the way for the world to be able to meet that target further down the line. Here are some of the different interest groups and what they want from Paris:
NOVEMBER 25, 2015 LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 25, 2015, 1:21 AM
BY JOHN BRENNAN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
The sale of $1 billion in government bonds — a key financing element to ensure there is sufficient funding to complete the American Dream Meadowlands shopping and entertainment complex — may not be issued until early next year, officials said.
Tony Armlin, vice president of development and construction for Triple Five, the Canada-based conglomerate that is building American Dream, had said in an interview in September that the bonds would be issued “in the next several weeks.” But Debbie Patire, a Triple Five spokeswoman, confirmed Tuesday a revised timeline for issuing the bonds that executives at the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority first described last week.
That state agency is expected to issue about $350 million in bonds that will be repaid to institutional investors via the transfer of Triple Five’s annual tax savings through a state grant.
“We continue to work aggressively toward a sale of the bonds prior to the New Year — but, given the holidays, there is a potential that this could shift to after the new year,” Patire said.
Triple Five, which built and operates the Mall of America in Minnesota, was brought in to revive construction on the long-dormant American Dream project, then known as Meadowlands Xanadu, in mid-2011; company executives have projected as recently as September that it will open in the fall of 2017. It is unclear if that opening date will have to be pushed back in light of the revised timetable for issuing the bonds.
The sports authority agreed in August to replace the Bergen County Improvement Authority as the issuer of those bonds, with Armlin of Triple Five saying at the time that the sports authority was better positioned to issue them “within 30 to 60 days,” or by mid-October.
Social dysfunction can be traced to the abandonment of reason
Post published by David Niose on Jun 23, 2015 in Our Humanity, Naturally
The tragedy in Charleston last week will no doubt lead to more discussion of several important and recurring issues in American culture—particularly racism and gun violence—but these dialogues are unlikely to bear much fruit until the nation undertakes a serious self-examination. Decrying racism and gun violence is fine, but for too long America’s social dysfunction has continued to intensify as the nation has ignored a key underlying pathology: anti-intellectualism.
America is killing itself through its embrace and exaltation of ignorance, and the evidence is all around us. Dylann Roof, the Charleston shooter who used race as a basis for hate and mass murder, is just the latest horrific example. Many will correctly blame Roof’s actions on America’s culture of racism and gun violence, but it’s time to realize that such phenomena are directly tied to the nation’s culture of ignorance.
In a country where a sitting congressman told a crowd that evolution and the Big Bang are“lies straight from the pit of hell,”(link is external) where the chairman of a Senate environmental panelbrought a snowball(link is external) into the chamber as evidence that climate change is a hoax, where almost one in three citizens can’t name the vice president(link is external), it is beyond dispute that critical thinking has been abandoned as a cultural value. Our failure as a society to connect the dots, to see that such anti-intellectualism comes with a huge price, could eventually be our downfall.
In considering the senseless loss of nine lives in Charleston, of course racism jumps out as the main issue. But isn’t ignorance at the root of racism? And it’s true that the bloodshed is a reflection of America’s violent, gun-crazed culture, but it is only our aversion to reason as a society that has allowed violence to define the culture. Rational public policy, including policies that allow reasonable restraints on gun access, simply isn’t possible without an informed, engaged, and rationally thinking public.
This week, an impressive list of scholars across the nation published a letter opposing the new framework for the College Board’s Advanced Placement (AP) exam in U.S. History. You can read the full letter here.
As you may know, millions of U.S. high school students take an AP U.S. History course and exam each year in the hopes of earning college credit. The new framework of the exam is designed to shape the course curriculum.
The scholars’ problems with the new framework include the following:
It takes away teachers’ previous freedom with the curriculum and “centralizes control, deemphasizes content, and promotes a particular interpretation of American history.”
The historical view it promotes “downplays American citizenship and American world leadership in favor of a more global and transnational perspective.”
The framework is organized around the theme of “identity-group conflict… while downplaying essential subjects, such as the sources, meaning, and development of America’s ideals and political institutions, notably the Constitution.”
It shifts away from the previous framework’s emphasis on American exceptionalism and national character in favor of an emphasis on “the formation of gender, class, racial and ethnic identities.”
Those with similar concerns are often met with the straw man argument that they wish to turn a blind eye to the past sins committed by Americans. Fortunately, the scholars anticipated this argument in their letter:
“We do not seek to reduce the education of our young to the inculcation of fairy tales, or of a simple, whitewashed, heroic, even hagiographical nationalist narrative. Instead, we support a course that fosters informed and reflective civic awareness, while providing a vivid sense of the grandeur and drama of its subject.”
The concerns raised in the scholars’ letter are not new to me. I brought up similar ones in an article last year on Minnesota’s U.S. history standards, which you can read here. I have provided these standards below:
The city got the full brunt of state coercion, decade after decade
JEFFREY A. TUCKER
April 29, 2015
If you have seen The Wire, you know the score. There are consequences to state management of any social order. Baltimore is a paradigmatic case. How long can people continue to evade the obvious lessons?
It began more than 100 years ago with the imposition of state segregation. This was the original sin that created a second-class of citizenship and racial ghettos for the first time since the end of the Civil War. Every policy response follows from there, with one coercive mistake following another. This town became the backyard playground for the ruling-class planners in Washington, DC. The intellectuals and lawmakers behind these policies cannot reasonably claim to escape responsibility.
Baltimore blew up in riots and fires in the days following the astonishinglycruel death of Freddie Gray (and the stonewalling of the police department about how and why he was killed). But it is a mistake to focus the blame on this incident alone.
What happened in Baltimore is the product of the drug war, a racially punitive policing system, failed public services, segregated public housing, urban renewal, endless rounds of progressive education reform, a highly regulated labor market that cuts off economic opportunity, occupational licensure, gun control, and permanent martial law that makes everyone feel like prisoners.
Baltimore got the full brunt of it all, at every stage, decade after decade.
What do all these policies have in common? They represent the fatal error, common for the better part of a century, of believing that policy elites can manage the social order better than the social order can manage itself. Only the ruling class can decide where and how people should live, how they will be educated, what they can buy and sell, the terms of labor contracts, what businesses come and go, and who gets to enter into certain occupations and the terms under which they may do so. The government would do it all: build and maintain the housing, provide the education, make the jobs, set the pay, enable the security, and administer the justice.
From pretending only Republicans oppose a deal to pretending the U.S.’ reputation is in jeopardy, the stupid on Iran is reaching new highs.
Ed Krayewski|Apr. 6, 2015 12:15 pm
U.S., Iranian, and other negotiators from around the world are going to spend the next two and a half or so months hammering out a deal over Iran’s nuclear program. They spent the last several years hammering out the “outline” which the deal will follow but that doesn’t mean it’s a done deal—within days of the announcement of an agreement on the outline of a deal, Iranian and U.S. officials exchanged accusations that the other side was lying about what exactly had been agreed to in the outline. With six countries, including Iran and the U.S., involved in negotiations, and powerful forces in the U.S. and Iran against a deal that could eventually rob them of their favorite respective stalking horses, a deal is far from certain. It could fail for a litany of reasons.
Domestic opposition to a deal, in the U.S., in Iran, or in any of the other countries participating in the talks is unlikely to scutltle a deal on its own, but would be politically useful to blame by a government reeling from a failure. Domestic opposition, of course, is real. In the U.S. a significant amount of members of Congress, Republicans and Democrats, oppose a deal. Liberals have tended to attribute domestic opposition solely to Republicans—Juan Cole laughably tried to connect billionaire donor Sheldon Adelson’s political activity to the prevailing anti-Iran atmosphere among Republican presidential candidates. Cole, like others on the left, are obsessed with Citizen’s United and corporations and other organizations of people spending money on political speech.
But the fact is an anti-Iranian mood has been around for longer than Adelson’s had an interest in presidential politics, and despite the popular media perception, is not exclusive to Republicans. Attributing Republican opposition to monied interests or to a hatred of Obama is intellectually lazy at best. If opposition to an Iran deal were limited only to Republicans then, even though Republicans now control both houses of Congress, it wouldn’t amount to much. When Fox News describes Obama and Congress on a “collision course” over Iran, that’s possible because of Democrat opposition to an Iran deal.
MARCH 31, 2015, 12:55 PM LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, MARCH 31, 2015, 12:57 PM
BY DUSTIN RACIOPPI
STATE HOUSE BUREAU |
THE RECORD
State senators are looking for answers why New Jersey has become an economic island of the Northeast as the country continues to recover from the Great Recession.
On the second day of testimony by state leaders on Governor Christie’s $33.8 budget for 2016, legislators focused Tuesday on New Jersey’s lagging comeback. David Rosen, the Office of Legislative Services’ budget officer, told the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee that just five states – all in the south or west – have had a worse recovery from the economic crisis than New Jersey, while neighboring states, like New York, have had a strong rebound.
“What is it that we are doing wrong?” Sen. Jeff Van Drew, D-Cape May, asked Rosen.
There is no clear answer and there are a host of underlying factors, but the state’s substantial losses in the pharmaceutical and telecommunications industry — two sectors that brought enormous wealth and prosperity to the Garden State — have had a significant and long-lasting impact, Rosen said. The state is creating jobs, he said, “just at a slower pace.” The national unemployment rate, for example, is 5.5 percent, while New Jersey’s is 6.4 percent.
“It seems like we just haven’t come up with the next thing to drive the economy,” Rosen said.
In his budget analysis, Rosen noted New Jersey’s sluggish revenue growth, at an average of 2.4 percent a year since 2010. Since the end of the recession only the state’s sales tax has returned to its pre-recession peak, while gross income taxes have fallen short and corporate business taxes “remain well below the peak,” he said.
Stuck on Stupid :N.J. economy not generating big bucks in state budget, lawmakers told
By Samantha Marcus | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
TRENTON — New Jersey’s mediocre economic recovery has the state Legislature’s financial analysts betting low on how much money the state will take in next year.
But that doesn’t mean there will be another big battle between the Legislature and Gov. Chris Christie’s office over revenue forecasts this year.
The nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services, known in recent years for offering a sobering take on the state’s tax collections that challenge the Christie administration’s more optimistic estimates, suggested there will be no such conflict this year.
“I am pleased that this year’s budget discussions will not feature a clash of conflicting revenue forecasts,” David Rosen, the Legislature’s budget and finance officer, told the state Assembly Budget Committee this morning. “The OLS believes the executive’s forecasts are reasonable.”
FEBRUARY 17, 2015, 9:49 PM LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 17, 2015, 9:49 PM
BY HUGH R. MORLEY
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
As the state pours billions of dollars in business tax breaks into programs aimed at strengthening New Jersey’s struggling economy, it has put the brakes on another incentive program, leaving hundreds of companies without promised payments that could total in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
Seeking to balance the state budget over the last few years, the Christie administration and the Legislature have each slashed funding for the Business Employment Incentive Program, commonly referred to as BEIP, eliminating payments to companies that were promised annual income tax rebate checks in return for moving to New Jersey or expanding here.
The affected businesses range from HighRoad Press — a small printing company that was promised $345,000 over 10 years for its move from Manhattan to Moonachie — to retail giant Bed Bath & Beyond, which is owed $2.8 million for creating jobs in 2012 and 2013. Paying out the money from these awards — estimated at $650 million according to one state estimate — would seem out of reach without an unexpected massive boost in state revenues. The state stopped awarding new grants under the program in 2013.
Some schools in North Jersey dropping midterms, finals
DECEMBER 20, 2014, 11:23 PM LAST UPDATED: SATURDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2014, 11:28 PM
BY HANNAN ADELY
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
It looked as if Wayne High School students would miss the equivalent of 30 days of new instruction this year because of tests, trips, assemblies and snow days.
So school officials did something radical; they got rid of midterm and final exams.
“Kids go to school because they enjoy learning; they want to explore and they want to learn about themselves,” said Michael Ben-David, assistant superintendent of Wayne schools. “That doesn’t come from taking [tests] that take up large chunks of the school year.”
Wayne is one of several North Jersey school districts that have dropped midterms and finals, a staple of education for as long as anyone can remember. The motive is partly to regain instruction time as standardized tests take up more days each year. But school officials say they’re also tossing out the traditional, high-stakes exams as they look at the larger issue of how to determine what students have learned.
Acting state Education Commissioner David Hespe said the decision to drop teacher-generated midterms and final exams is innovative and “makes perfect sense for districts.” All school districts in New Jersey, he noted, are already required to give end-of-course exams provided by the state, which could make midterms and finals redundant.
Another Company looks to leave High Tax Bergen County
Mercedes-Benz reportedly weighing move to Atlanta from Montvale
DECEMBER 16, 2014 LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, DECEMBER 16, 2014, 10:24 PM
BY LINDA MOSS
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
The German luxury automaker Mercedes-Benz is looking to move its 1,000-employee North American headquarters from Montvale to Atlanta, several sources said Tuesday.
The Atlanta Business Chronicle first reported on Tuesday that Mercedes-Benz USA is considering the move. A company spokesman declined to comment on the report, but several sources told The Record that Mercedes-Benz was indeed considering leaving Bergen County. One source within the company told The Record that an announcement on a move may come in January, at a company reception.
“As a matter of policy, the company does not comment on rumors or speculation,” said Mercedes-Benz spokesman Rob Moran.
If the reports are accurate, Mercedes-Benz would be the latest in a string of major companies to move their corporate headquarters from Bergen County to the South. The car-rental company Hertz moved from Park Ridge to south Florida, and the BubbleWrap maker Sealed Air is moving from Elmwood Park to Charlotte, N.C., both with the help of tax incentives from those states.
Montvale would be losing its second-largest private employer, behind the accounting giant KPMG, according to the Bergen County Economic Development Corp. Mercedes-Benz is among the top 10 corporate employers in the county and paid $916,700 in local taxes on its properties this year, according to the borough’s website.
Economist says ‘enormous’ N.J.-vs.-U.S. economic gap widening
DECEMBER 17, 2014 LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 17, 2014, 1:21 AM
BY HUGH R. MORLEY
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
* Gap between state, U.S. job gains widens, Rutgers economist says
New Jersey’s employment problems may be structural, because of factors that include the decline of key industries and the shift away from suburban corporate campuses, and are unlikely to dramatically improve even as the national economic picture brightens, Rutgers University economists said Tuesday.
The gap between the national job-creation performance and New Jersey’s is actually widening, as the national jobs market strengthens and New Jersey’s flounders, said Nancy Mantell, director of the Rutgers Economic Advisory Service, which compiles an economic forecast for the state.
Mantell’s comments, made in New Brunswick at the economic forum organized by R/ECON every six months, offered a dose of grim reality to the hopes that New Jersey’s economy would bounce back as the nation’s does.
The R/ECON predictions came as New Jersey prepares to release the employment figures for November on Thursday. The state lost 4,500 jobs in October, and the jobless rate of 6.6 percent remains above the national rate of 5.8 percent.
Only in government and on union jobs does a no-show get paid. Now, the Assembly has codified the practice, allowing members to phone in their presence in order to obtain a quorum for the transaction of business.
Caught by The Star-Ledger with their absentee hands in the cookie jar as being “present” when they were nowhere near Trenton, the Assembly unanimously passed a measure to legitimize the shady practice of being recorded as attending a session you didn’t.
Irrespective of what’s on the agenda, voters elect representatives to be physically on the job when there is business to transact, not to not be on the job. If you can’t commit 100 percent, then find a new hobby.
Dumb as a box of Rocks ,I believe the Union called it “Cadillac healthcare plans “
Federal Employees Union Says Obamacare Could ‘Hurt’ Members
12:05 PM, Aug 15, 2014 • By MICHAEL WARREN
The National Treasury Employees Union is an independent union representing, according to its own figures, “some 150,000” federal workers from many different agencies. The union claims to fight for the “dignity and respect” of its members, and it maintains a “legislative action center” to keep tabs on what Congress is up to.
With a Republican-controlled House of Representatives that was elected on a message of reining in federal spending, the NTEU’s been on alert for any and all legislation that proposes reducing pay and benefits for federal workers. In fact, on the union’s website, there’s a handy list of 13 active pieces of legislation (all sponsored by Republicans) that the NTEU says it wants to stop. “Warning!” reads the top of the fact sheet. “Which of these bills could hurt you? ALL OF THEM.”
Among the bills is H.R. 1780, sponsored by Michigan Republican Dave Camp. The NTEU says the bill could hurt workers because it would “require most federal employees to leave the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program…and instead join health plans established under the Affordable Care Act.”
It’s official: You hate the media because we’re stupid By Jon Friedman, MarketWatch
Opinion: News companies exploit tragedies and treat celebrities like royalty
NEW YORK (MarketWatch) — The Gallup polling organization has reported that Americans’ confidence in the media remains frightfully low. If you’re in the news business, this development should shake you to your core.
It boils down to this: What you’re selling, the public ain’t buying.
In fact, its belief in television news, newspapers and news found on the Internet is currently at or tied with record lows in the polling organization’s long-running confidence-in-institutions surveys. This is not a new occurrence.
Those findings build on a decades-long nose-dive. And what about the media industry’s savior, the Web, you ask? The trust in Internet news remains low since the previous survey, conducted in 1999. But that was so long ago that the tech-stock bubble hadn’t even burst yet.
The survey scrutinized Americans’ trust in 17 institutions; and newspapers, television news and Internet news ranked in the bottom third. The only institution all three outpolled was Congress. (That’s something to cheer about, eh?)
The Poynter media organization notes that, according to Gallup, “confidence in newspapers has declined by more than half since its 1979 peak of 51%, while TV news has seen confidence ebb from its high of 46% in 1993, the first year that Gallup asked this question.”
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