From Time, he has fallen out of love with politics. But friends, moneymen and an army of green activists are begging Al Gore to run; and an excerpt from The Assault on Reason. From Seed, can the power of the moving image save the environment? From New Scientist, a series of articles on climate change: A guide for the perplexed. From Mute, a series of articles on climate change: It's not easy being green. An interview with renowned climate scientist James Hansen.
Until global warming, the hidden cost of the growth-is-good myth was only clear to party-pooper ecologists. A look at how city-dwellers are far more likely to be green than their rural counterparts. An excerpt from Mike Davis's Planet of Slums (and a review). An impoverished ghetto will be impossible for a comfortable world to tolerate, says the author of The Bottom Billion (and a review).
From FT, big cities get a bad rap — they’re more congested, they create more pollution, and they have more crime, but a study shows bigger is better. In the slums of Rio, special forces soldiers fight a dangerous daily battle against armed drug gangs. The Numbers Guy goes in search of the world’s most livable cities.
From The Nation, the Third World was never imagined as a place but rather a project, one that was ultimately doomed by globalization—it awaits a resurrection. A review of Poor Story: An Insider Uncovers How Globalisation and Good Intentions Have Failed the World's Poor. A review of Bound Together: How Traders, Preachers, Adventurers, and Warriors Shaped Globalization.
From Contemporary Politics, an essay on globalization and the new world order; and an article on Stefan Collini's Absent Minds: Intellectuals in Britain, Harold Pinter and Bob Dylan (and more on Dylan and the ageing of the West). Saving globalization from itself: There are concrete ways to counter the fears of change and increasing inequality that are fueling the current backlash against trade liberation pdf. An essay on globalized corporations and the erosion of state power.
From The Globalist, an article on the IMF’s role in fostering global prosperity. Whoever succeeds Paul Wolfowitz faces a delicate balancing act. He must restore the morale of the bank’s staff while retaining the confidence of its American donors. From Financial Times, Henry Paulson on why the key test of accurate financial reporting is trust; and are the big three — Standard & Poor's, Moody's Investors Service and Fitch Ratings — up to the job, particularly in the huge, fast-growing and complex market for "structured finance"?
From The Economist, speaking in tongues: Dragging America down the rocky road to a set of global accounting rules; and on the alchemists of finance: Global investment banks are taking ever more risk, and are devising ever more sophisticated ways of spreading it. Is that reassuring or worrying? And Daniel Gross and Daniel Altman debate Connected: 24 Hours in the Global Economy
