Global Thermostat can fight climate change. Interview with Graciela Chichilnisky

Global Thermostat was founded in 2010 by Graciela Chichilnisky and Peter Eisenberger. Chichilnisky has been called an “A List Star Economist” by the Washington Post and a “Hero of the Environment” by Time Magazine; she is an economist and a mathematician. Professor at Columbia University, Chichilnisky has worked for many years with the United Nations where she was the US Lead Author of the IPCC (Working Group III) who was given the Nobel Prize for its work on Climate Change and is the designer and the author of the Carbon Market of the UN Kyoto Protocol.

Graciela Chichilnisky who started 'Global Thermostat' with Peter Eisenberger.

Peter Eisenberger is a famous material physicist who headed global R&D for EXXON  where he led the introduction of solar energy technology. Eisenberger was professor of physics and the founder of the Materials Institute at Princeton University, he founded the Earth Institute and was Vice Provost and is professor at Columbia University.

Read the Impakter story Alessandro Du Du Besse - “Global Thermostat can fight climate change. Interview with Graciela Chichilnisky.”

The Koch Brothers Get Their Very Own Secretary of State

In the Republican wave election of 2010, when Charles and David Koch emerged as defining figures in American politics, the greatest beneficiary of Koch Industries largesse was a political newcomer named Mike Pompeo. After his election to the House eight years ago, Pompeo was referred to as the “Koch Brothers’ Congressman” and “the congressman from Koch.”

Mike Pompeo testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee on February 13.

Now Pompeo is positioned to become a Koch brothers–influenced secretary of state.

After serving for a little more than a year as Donald Trump’s top yes-man at the Central Intelligence Agency, Pompeo is Trump’s pick to replace Rex Tillerson, the administration’s listless placeholder at the Department of State.

In a measure of the extent to which Trump and Tillerson had disengaged from one another, the outgoing secretary of state apparently learned of his firing via Twitter Tuesday morning—when an aide showed the nation’s top diplomat a tweet from the president announcing the transition. A statement from the department indicated that Tillerson was “unaware of the reason” for his removal.

Read The Nation story by John Nichols - “The Koch Brothers Get Their Very Own Secretary of State.”

Labor fiddled with factions while the Land of Tofu burned

In 2007, Batman was the safest Labor seat in Australia, held by a landslide-proof 76-24 against the Liberals. On March 17, when we, the burghers of Batman, cast our vote in a byelection caused by a citizenship malfunction, it's close to an even money chance that the fortress will fall.

The Greens took the seat of Melbourne in the next election of 2010 in what any amateur demographer or North Fitzroy real estate agent could see was a launching pad for a takeover of the city's progressive and rapidly gentrified inner north, so often lampooned as the land of tofu, single-origin coffee and, in recent times, “stop Adani’’ signage.

The ALP, as some party insiders explained, had higher priorities back then – such as trying to govern the country as a parliamentary minority. Batman and its neighbouring seat of Wills don't appear to have been given any strategic thought.

Read the opinion piece in The Age by Jake Niall - “Labor fiddled with factions while the Land of Tofu burned.”