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Lastest Musing BUSINESS DISCOVERS THE COSTS OF EXTREME WEATHER -- THAT'S GOOD NEWS!         The weather has become the go-to excuse for economists and businessmen who want to explain poor performance. “Unusually, disruptive weather across large stretches of the country kept people indoors,” explained Lawrence Yun, the chief econo... continue Featured Book The Ragged Edge of the World Buy from Amazon more info Articles by Category endangered animals rapid climate change global deforestation fragging Books Winds of Change Buy from Amazon more info Afterword to the softbound edition. The Octopus and the Orangutan more info The Future In Plain Sight more info The Parrot's Lament more info Silent Partners more info Affluence and Discontent more info The Alms Race more info Apes, Men, & Language more info

Musings February 15, 2014 BUSINESS DISCOVERS THE COSTS OF EXTREME WEATHER -- THAT'S GOOD NEWS!         The weather has become the go-to excuse for economists and businessmen who want to explain poor performance. “Unusually, disruptive weather across large stretches of the country kept people indoors,&rdqu... Read More February 3, 2014 America's Game Note: I published the following some years back, but every Super Bowl I can't help but wonder what a Martian anthropologist might make of our annual ritual of ceremonial warfare.    As we make fateful decisions during the coming w... Read More January 31, 2014 Another Whiff by the Network News The NBC Evening News featured the California drought and the newly declared state of emergency as their second item in the program tonight (Jan. 31, 2014). They covered all the bases – an orange grower worrying that his trees would die, the exper... Read More December 10, 2013 Bloomberg's Choice Just published this op-ed in the Los Angeles Times. We won't realize how much we need a credible press that reports without fear or favor until we lose it, and that is happening gradually so that we may never notice the moment when we pass some fat... Read More November 15, 2013 SO MUCH FOR THE PAUSE That didn’t take long. Recall that just a few weeks ago climate change deniers were crowing about the "missing" global warming because the latest draft IPCC report on the state of the climate noted that in the years since 1997 the rate ... Read More November 6, 2013 KARMA KICBACK If anyone ever deserved to lose an election it was Ken Cuccinelli in his bid to be governor of Virginia. In a repulsive display of abuse of power, he had earlier used his position as the state's attorney general to pursue a witch hunt against the d... Read More October 19, 2013 EDITORIAL MISCHIEF Every now and then, the editors of The Wall Street Journal take flight to remind us of the meaning of the word casuistry. One such day was Oct. 1, the lead editorial jumped all over the latest IPCC report (a massive consensus document on climate change... Read More October 18, 2013 GRAVITY I hugely enjoyed the movie Gravity. The vistas and effects, particularly in 3-D, are nothing less than stunning. Great survival story. But, there was one thing that bothered me, and it was not a little thing. In the film’s crucial scene, as Georg... Read More September 20, 2013 The Crisis Six Years On Because the collapse of Lehman in Sept. 2008 serves as such a convenient inflection point, it's easy to forget that the Great Recession started at least nine months earlier, and that the shadow banking system started to unravel more than a year ear... Read More August 21, 2013 today's rant this is today's rant. what I said. this is ... Read More August 21, 2013 ... Read More April 12, 2013 Climate Change is Here, Ready or Not. So What Now? Part 2  So how should we respond? Most obviously, we should stop making things worse. Tax penalties, tax credits, and import tariffs can nudge consumers, producers, and exporters towards reducing emissions without wasting more years on fruitless internat... Read More April 9, 2013 Climate Change is Here, Ready or Not. So What Now? Welcome to a warmer, wilder world! We need to stop debating and start accepting that climate change is happening. Eugene Linden on how adaptation and market forces (hint: insurance companies) might temper the coming catastrophe.  This musing ran... Read More November 30, 2012 SANDY AND THE WINDS OF CHANGE: You don't need a climate scientist to see which way the wind blows   by EUGENE LINDEN   Even as Sandy underwent its bizarre metamorphosis from hurricane to winter storm, the question arose in many inquiring minds (at least those not beholden to a solemn oath of climate-change denial): Was this hi... Read More September 17, 2012 IN A WORLD OF UNDERPRICED RISK, WHAT COULD POSSIBLY GO WRONG?   EUGENE LINDEN   On a recent conference call, the strategist of a major international bank (it was an off-the-record call for clients only) laid out the bare bones of what he called the world’s “giant experiment&rdquo... Read More October 26, 2011 OCCUPY WALL STREET IS THE TIP OF THE ICEBERG EUGENE LINDEN           But for the housing bubble that temporarily camouflaged our “winner take all” economy, the resentments that produced Occupy Wall Street might have bubbled to the surf... Read More September 9, 2011 Betting the farm against climate change Global warming is extracting real costs, even in states where the governors are in denial. Footprints mark the bank of a partially dried-up pond near downtown Dallas, Texas August 1. Scorchi... Read More August 30, 2011 IS OUR BRAND OF CAPITALISM MAKING US STUPID   Eugene Linden            How can a society that contains so much individual brilliance act so collectively dumb? Does it matter that we know that there is a cliff ahead if we still go... Read More March 8, 2011 THE BAY OF PIGS: DISASTER AND TRIUMPH   Eugene Linden   At first I thought it was a version of the granfalloon, the term Kurt Vonnegut invented to describe a striking but meaningless encounter: my brother-in-law, Jim Rasenberger and I both have books comi... Read More February 3, 2011 THE MATRIX MARKET Eugene Linden A well-trodden meme of TV and cinema has been the plot in which someone or something uses tantalizing illusions to sap humans of their will to resist while simultaneously pursing hostile ends. In The Martian Chronicles, the subtle race of M... Read More July 29, 2010 How to Reconcile July’s Rising Markets with July’s Dismal Economic News -Eugene Linden The question has been posed many times recently: Why are the markets rising when the economy seems to be heading back into the tank. Simple, the markets have been going up in part because the economy is going back into the tank. One majo... Read More February 21, 2010 INSIDE THE MIND OF A CLIMATE CHANGE DENIER -EUGENE LINDEN     THE SCENE: THE WASHINGTON MALL ON A SNOWY FEBRUARY DAY. BOB AND JOE ARE STANDING IN FRONT OF AN IGLOO CONSTRUCTED BY THE GRANDCHILDREN OF SENATOR JIM INHOFE (R-OK).  IN FRONT OF THE IGLOO IS A SIGN THAT READS: ... Read More December 4, 2009 THE DECADE IN ONE PAGE Eugene Linden • STOLEN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION! (DEFINITELY – FLORIDA!) • TECH BUBBLE BURSTS, CREDIT BUBBLE BEGINS • 9/11 • INVADE WRONG COUNTRY, FAIL TO CATCH/KILL PERPETRATORS OF 9/11, SPEND $1-2 TRILLION WE DON’T HAVE, AMERICANS URGED TO FI... Read More April 19, 2009 IT’S NOT OVER – HERE’S WHY (NO NUMBERS NEEDED) Eugene Linden THE U.S. CONSUMER IS STILL DROWNING IN DEBT: Job prospects are dire. Households can’t pay existing debt, much less get credit. IT WILL GET WORSE: Alt- A/Option Arm resets are just hitting. Commercial Real ... Read More January 28, 2009 RIP Credit as Money by Eugene Linden The drumbeat about the Obama administration’s plans to fix the banking crisis has reached fever pitch. Over the past week, what appears to be a carefully choreographed series of leaks has raised expectations that the administration h... Read More January 16, 2009 COMMON SENSE AT LAST! We are in the beginnings of the collapse of a fiat currency. Actually, it's the collapse of a type of credit that has been treated as though it was currency, but it's rise and fall closely mimics the natural history of fiat currencies. Back in the 19th ce... Read More November 8, 2008 PRESIDENTS OBAMA AND PALMER By EUGENE LINDEN If ever there was a year for a Democratic president to be elected, this was it - a war without end, imploding economy, the most unpopular incumbent in living memory, etc. --but a black Democrat? Even given the revulsion over the mess ... Read More August 27, 2008 THE SPEECH I'D LIKE TO HEAR ON CLIMATE CHANGE -EUGENE LINDEN As the presidential campaign enters its final months, here's an unsolicited suggestion: “As I stand here today on the shore of Lake Lanier in Georgia, I’m sure that many of you are wondering why I’ve chosen to talk about climate change wh... Read More June 14, 2008 WHAT HAPPENED TO WHAT HAPPENED -EUGENE LINDEN Former colleagues and friends hint that Scott McClellan's White House tell-all book, What Happened, reflects the influence of liberals during the editing process. "Something changed," said Ari Fleischer on NPR on May 28, "...parts of the... Read More January 24, 2008 A REPUBLIC OF BIRDS: THOUGHTS FROM MIDWAY ATOLL EUGENE LINDEN I’ve been to a number of places where wild animals are trusting of humans, but perhaps none so unlikely as Midway Atoll, smack in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. After more than a century of abuse at the hands of man -- first being slaught... Read More October 27, 2007 THE ECOLOGY OF TOXIC MORTGAGES EUGENE LINDEN [This musing ran in July on Huffington Post, but it's quite relevant today as the credit crisis continues to spread] I lead two lives. Three days a week, I'm employed as chief investment strategist for a hedge fund that specializes in di... Read More June 16, 2007 PEAK OIL AND GLOBAL WARMING [This is a slightly longer version of an essay that first appeared in Business Week]Eugene LindenWith global oil production basically stalled for the past two years, the controversial prediction that the world is fast approaching maximum oil output is loo... Read More November 23, 2006 WHAT IF THE CLIMATE SKEPTICS ARE RIGHT? THEN WE ARE REALLY IN TROUBLE! Faced with overwhelming evidence that climate is changing at an accelerating rate, the naysayers seem to be regrouping around a new meme: yes earth is warming, but humanity is not the cause. One champion of this position is Senator James Inhofe of Oklahom... Read More September 15, 2006 HE WAS LOST AND NOW HE IS FOUND. HE WAS LOST AND NOW HE IS FOUND. On Saturday, August 12, we were having a family barbecue in Pelham New York, having just moved up from Washington, DC a week earlier. It was just my wife and our two kids and her brother, his wife and their twins. The ev... Read More August 9, 2006 Global Warming Slips on Its Ski Mask Climate change is going to creep up on us. The assault might have started already. By Eugene Linden (7/30/06) I've written a good deal about global warming over the years, but like most people, I still have a hard time envisioning how we will know w... Read More June 23, 2006 THE LAWS OF PHYSICS FOR BABIES [Since a number of friends have had babies in recent months, I thought I resurrect this musing on the unique physics of the baby world] THE LAWS OF PHYSICS FOR BABIES Close observation of babies has led me to believe that the infant universe is cha... Read More April 10, 2006 5 Things To Expect Dick Cheney To Do As Global Warming Intensifies [Adapted from my contribution to Duck!, a new humorous anthology of advice for Dick Cheney] If climate turns out to be the weapon of mass destruction Vice President Cheney should have be... Read More March 29, 2006 A climate change of heart Even Bush's business allies have seen the light on global warming. But he's dug in. A BELEAGUERED president stubbornly insists on staying the course even as his staunchest allies abandon him. I'm not talking about Iraq, but global warming. Here's a c... Read More March 7, 2006 Bush, Saddam and Climate Change [I thought I would re-run this from 2003 because it is still appropriate today.] Bush, Saddam and Climate Change: What Might Have Been Wednesday, Jul. 16, 2003 As the hunt for Saddam's WMD begins to look as promising as OJ's search for the real kille... Read More January 9, 2006 [It’s probably dumb to try and put a humorous spin on the abortion issue and the Alito hearings, but here goes anyway.] -- Eugene Linden Pro-Life group says fire NASA chief By Lamatty HurstwhistleSentinel and Post Staff Writer CAPE CANAVERAL... Read More Why Corporations Will Soon Embrace Kyoto This ran in TIME.com a while back under the headline, "Who's Going to Pay for Climate Change." The essay has renewed salience as concerns about changing climate surface once again. By EUGENE LINDEN The Bush administration, so warlike in r... Read More PLEASE TREAD ON ME (Updated) A few weeks back, President Bush signed a budget measure that would effectively cut environmental protection spending by the EPA over the next year by about six percent. Score another win for the corporate Browns in their long-standing rivalry with the... Read More ECONOMIC APARTHEID? Updated Wall Street is the undertaker beetle of statistics: the markets voraciously consume, digest and then forget the numbers churned out by the keepers of vital economic statistics each week. Every now and then, however, a statistic pops up that g... Read More HOUSTON, WE HAVE A PROBLEM Erectile dysfunction is ascendant, so to speak. The Super Bowl displayed a trifecta of impotence potions as the makers of the three main drugs –- Levitra, Cialis, and Viagra-- all ponied up millions to advertise. Obscured by the debate about some of the c... Read More America's Game Eugene Linden    As we make fateful decisions during the coming weeks (no, I'm not talking about the Democratic Primaries, but whether to mute the ads or the game during the Super Bowl), we might take a moment to ponder the ways in which football really ... Read More Bush, Saddam and Climate Change Bush, Saddam and Climate Change: What Might Have Been Wednesday, Jul. 16, 2003 As the hunt for Saddam's WMD begins to look as promising as OJ's search for the real killers, it becomes tempting to think about what might have been. If only, for instance, ... Read More Forget SARS. What About the Weather? Global climate change could have a far greater impact than worries about terrorism or disease Friday, May. 02, 2003 When it comes to evaluating risks, both ordinary people and policymakers tend to be wildly inefficient. Remember that in the 1970s, int... Read More Iraqu Deserts briefly bloom...Hungrily, newborn monstersClaw towards the light by Eugene Linden... Read More BRING BACK THE DRAFT -- BUT MAKE IT EQUITABLE by Eugene Linden There is one sure-fire way to bring an eerily disengaged American public into the debate about whether to invade Iraq: bring back the draft. In 1971, even though I opposed the Vietnam War and received an honorable discharge from the ... Read More THE LAWS OF PHYSICS FOR BABIES Eugene Linden Close observation of babies has led me to believe that the infant universe is characterized by its own physics, quite distinct from particle physics or the Newtonian laws of motion. I welcome and will periodically post suggestions ab... Read More Now Let Us Praise Fat! This article ran in Forbes FYI a few years ago. It seems timely again with the ongoing debate about wether fat is good or bad. Let Us Now Praise Fat Historically, there are some good reasons why humans crave a fatty diet by Eugene Linden It is... Read More Don't Bother Me Honey, I'm Working! Don't Bother Me Honey, I'm Working! by Eugene Linden It used to be so easy for a husband to justify his working life. He went off in the morning and then returned that evening. What he did during the day constituted "work." While wives, who too... Read More contact Eugene Linden

Short Take The NBC Evening News featured the California drought and the newly declared state of emergency as their second item in the program tonight (Jan. 31, 2014). They covered all the bases – an orange grower worrying that his trees would die, the expert opining that this was the worst drought in anyone’s lifetime, one of the driest January’s ever recorded, etc – all except one that is. They never mentioned that the drought might well be related to climate change. Well over a decade ago, Richard Seager of the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory first published a study predicting that the shifting of the precipitation zones further north in a warming world would lead to extreme and persistent drought in the Mediterranean (dry summer, subtropical climate) regions of the world, including the American southwest. I was in contact with Dr. Seager a couple of years ago after an earlier report on the southwest drought on the CBS evening news because that report also failed to mentioned the global warming connection. He said that he had spoken at length about the role of global warming during the interview, but none of those comments made it into the broadcast.  If, as Richard Seager has argued in the world’s leading scientific journals, climate change will likely lead to intensifying drought in these regions over the next 100 years, don’t you think viewers of the network news broadcasts might like to hear that perspective?  Or, are we to get a drumbeat of news items over the next decades, itemizing the toll of the droughts, but never exploring why they might be happening?

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