Does the US/China Emissions Deal Make a Difference?

Recently the United States and China agreed to a carbon emissions reduction deal to combat global warming. Under the terms of the deal, the US agrees to reduce emissions by 26% to 28% from 2005 levels by 2025, while China agrees to reach peak emissions by 2030, and to generate 20% of its energy with zero-emissions technology by that year. Diplomacy is notoriously difficult, and consequently any deal on climate change heartens those who watch international politics. But are these emissions reductions sufficient to avert the worst of what global warming potentially has to offer? I’m not seeing much coverage of the deal from a climate science perspective, so I decided to look into it.

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Ted Cruz is Wrong about Net Neutrality

Yesterday, US President Barack Obama came out in favor of net neutrality, urging the FCC to classify the internet as a utility for regulatory purposes:

Immediately thereafter, Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) came out against net neutrality, tweeting:

“Net Neutrality” is Obamacare for the Internet; the Internet should not operate at the speed of government.

This analogy between net neutrality and Obamacare does not work on any level and is deeply misleading. Here’s why.

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Misconceptions: “Minimum Wage Jobs Aren’t Supposed to be Careers”

The other day, I saw one of my Facebook friends post this image:

The claim that minimum wage jobs aren’t supposed to be careers, and that consequently any adult who still has one deserves a wage that cannot be lived on, is dangerously misleading. Here’s why.

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3 Reasons We Should Stop Watching TV News

Over the past several months, I’ve been paying increasing attention to an interesting phenomenon–voter tunnel vision. You may have noticed in recent months that mainstream media–particularly cable news networks–have devoted a remarkable amount of air time to a very narrow list of political issues:

  1. Russia/Ukraine Conflict
  2. Israel/Palestine Conflict
  3. Michael Brown Shooting/Ferguson Protests
  4. ISIS
  5. Ebola

Now, these issues are, to varying degrees, important. But why do they get so much coverage compared with more severe long-term problems like heart disease, malaria, poverty, climate change, education, and so on? Essentially, it’s because TV is a terrible medium for news, and I can show you why.

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Why Congress Will Not Declare War on ISIS

In recent days, a lot of commentators have been deeply upset by the fact that Barack Obama has been ordering military strikes against ISIS (the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria) without congressional authorization, and that congress has not held a vote on the issue. Indeed, even house speaker John Boehner does not think the administration legally requires further authorization. The US constitution says that:

The Congress shall have Power To… declare War

So what’s going on here?

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