BACKGROUND: The Muslim Brotherhood; Islamism
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- Written by Mark Jensen
DOCUMENT: World Bank climate warming warning
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- Written by Marie Neptune
A recently released report on climate change commissioned by the World Bank is entitled Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4oC Warmer World Must Be Avoided. -- The report, by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research and Climate Analytics, warns that "without serious policy changes" the average global temperature will rise by 4 degrees Celsius by the end of the century, causing "the inundation of coastal cities; increasing risks for food production potentially leading to higher malnutrition rates; many dry regions becoming dryer, wet regions wetter; unprecedented heat waves in many regions, especially in the tropics; substantially exacerbated water scarcity in many regions; increased frequency of high-intensity tropical cyclones; and irreversible loss of biodiversity, including coral reef systems," in the words of 52-year-old World Bank President Jim Yong Kim in his foreword (p. ix).[1] -- The 84-page report is a detailed depiction of the consequences of these changes. -- It concludes: "This report . . . challenges an often-implicit assumption that climate change will not significantly undermine economic growth. . . . The burden of climate change in the future will very likely be borne differentially by those in regions already highly vulnerable to climate change and variability. . . . [T]he projected 4 degrees Celsius warming simply must not be allowed to occur -- the heat must be turned down. Only early, cooperative, international actions can make that happen." ...
BOOK EXCERPT: 'Blind alleys of selfishness, darkness, cruelty, and pain in which our race must die'
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- Written by Fran Lucientes
In his 1919 novel The Undying Fire, a modern retelling of the story of Job, H.G. Wells develops at some length the conceit of the submarine as a metaphor for how humans live their lives. -- "Is there any one of us," his protagonist, Job Huss, asks, "who is not in some fashion aboard a submarine, doing evil and driving towards an evil end?"[1] ...