"La nappe de pétrole émanant de la plateforme de BP a pratiquement disparu ces jours derniers".

Par Lorraine Millot, correspondante de Libé à Washington, qui s'attache à montrer les divergences radicales d'opinions entre "experts" dans le domaine des sciences naturelles, un clivage qui évoque immanquablement les débats sur et au sein du GIEC.

"Le 11 juin dernier, à Busan (Corée), 90 États ont donné le feu vert à la création de l'Intergovernmental science-policy platform on biodiversity and ecosystem services (IPBES). Cette «platform», calquée sur le groupe d'experts intergouvernemental sur l'évolution du climat (GIEC), est chargée de donner l'expertise scientifique en matière de biodiversité. Mais contrairement au GIEC, cette institution aura également un mandat politique pour décider des autorisations ou des interdictions d'agir au nom de la protection de la biodiversité, partout dans le monde. En outre, cette instance sera adossée à un fonds d'investissement alimenté par les contributions volontaires des États. Sa création doit être entérinée en septembre, à New York, lors de l'Assemblée générale des Nations Unies."

mediapart.fr

Conference at the "Hayek Seminar" organized in Leuven, Belgium by the Murray Rothbard Institute April 10-11, 2010

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"What is evolving in Belgium is old news. The problem now, as for divorcing couples, is how to divide up the assets, or more precisely in Belgium's case, its sovereign debt. It is noteworthy that the government is chary in producing full data on how much Brussels and Flanders subsidise the minority Walloons, but roughly speaking the national debt should probably be split about 35:65 Dutch:French. Yet relatively poor Wallonia simply could not service nearly €260bn of national debt (€175,000 per person in employment). Meanwhile, wealthy Flanders would emerge with a budget surplus, a minute structural deficit and debt to GDP the lower than any EU nation outside of Scandinavia. The imperative for Flanders, along with the scope for argument, is clear. (...) Obviously, not holding Belgian shares on a medium term basis is sensible unless valuation work has fully taken account of these unexpected risk."

businessinsider.com

"Under the 40 different Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) scenarios, Patzek found 36 of the 40 scenarios predicted future carbon production and CO2 emissions at today's rate of coal production. Credible forecasts of coal production, by contrast, predict a 50 percent reduction over the next 50 years.

"Most of the IPCC scenario writers accepted the common myth of 200-400 years of coal supply, and now their 'eternal' (100 years plus) growth of carbon dioxide emissions in turn is a part of the commonly accepted social myth," says Patzek. "It seems, therefore, that the present attempt to inject some geophysics into the debate will be an uphill battle.

"The IPCC carbon estimates, which are used by all major decision makers, are based on economic and policy considerations that appear to be unconstrained by geophysics," says Patzek. "The value of our approach is that it provides a reality check on the magnitude of carbon emissions."

utexas.edu