John Cassidy's Blog, page 38

A Skeptical Note on the Paris Climate Deal

President Obama, President Hollande, and Prime Minister Cameron are right: the climate-change agreement in Paris over the weekend was historic. Countries from the developed and developing world alike—a hundred and eighty eight of them—came together and pledged to reduce carbon emissions and limit global warming to “well below 2°C above pre-industrial levels.” After the deal was finalized, many prominent environmentalists joined the politicians in hailing it as a turning point. Joe Romm, who founded the influential Climate Progress blog, called it a “literally world-changing deal.” May Boeve, the executive director of 350.org, said, “This marks the end of the era of fossil fuels.”

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Related:
Good Reasons to Cheer the Paris Climate Deal
Signal and Noise at the Paris Climate Summit
Comment from the December 14, 2015, Issue

It’s Time to Worry About Donald Trump

For months now, there has been a disjuncture at the heart of the Republican Presidential race. The opinion polls have had Donald Trump leading handily, but the pundits and prediction (or betting) markets have been saying that it is unlikely he will win the nomination. Even today, this is true.

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Related:
Donald Trump vs. the Modern Political Campaign
Five Supreme Court Cases from the Second Trump Administration
Paul Ryan Faces the “Young Guns” Jinx

A Dow-DuPont Merger Would Raise Big Questions

The news that Dow Chemical and DuPont, two of America’s oldest industrial corporations, are close to agreeing on a merger can hardly be regarded as big surprise. In recent years, both companies have been targeted by Wall Street hedge funds looking to make a score. And, a couple of months ago, DuPont appointed a new chief executive, Edward Breen, who is known as a deal maker, having disassembled the conglomerate Tyco International after its C.E.O., Dennis Kozlowski, was arrested and jailed.

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Related:
Making Insider Trading Legal
Goodbye to Wall That: The Decline of the Trading-Desk Memoir
Can Google Become a Normal Business?

It’s Time for the TV Networks to Challenge Trump

With Donald Trump busy taking his Presidential campaign into areas previously reserved for right-wing extremist groups, other Republicans are being forced to respond to the presence of a wily hatemonger in their midst. At least on this occasion, the reaction has been less baleful than some might have expected. Within hours of Trump issuing his call, on Monday, for a complete ban on Muslims entering the United States, many of the other G.O.P. candidates had criticized him. Chris Christie called Trump’s proposal “ridiculous.” Jeb Bush labelled him “unhinged.” Marco Rubio said, “His habit of making offensive and outlandish statements will not bring Americans together.”

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Related:
Daily Cartoon: Tuesday, December 8th
Donald Trump’s Crowd Cheers His Muslim Exclusion Plan
Donald Trump’s Muslim Ban Shouldn’t Be a Surprise

Donald Trump Is Now America’s Marine Le Pen

This post was updated on Monday evening, after Donald Trump called for a ban on Muslims entering the United States.

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Related:
It’s Time for the TV Networks to Challenge Trump
Daily Cartoon: Tuesday, December 8th
Donald Trump’s Crowd Cheers His Muslim Exclusion Plan

Could Donald Trump Be America’s Marine Le Pen?

On Saturday, Donald Trump took his rabble-rousing Presidential campaign to Davenport, Iowa, and, naturally enough, he addressed the attack that took place in San Bernardino on Wednesday, and the fact that the two perpetrators appear to have been inspired by the Islamic State. “That shit is not going to happen any more,” Trump told a cheering crowd. “We’re going to be so vigilant. We’re going to be so careful. We’re going to be so tough and so mean and so nasty.”

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Related:
Obama Talks About Terrorism and Demagoguery
The Escalating Slurs of Donald Trump
The Facts About Terrorism

Domestic Terrorism and America’s Gun Dilemma

Is there anything left to say about America’s self-destructive passion for firearms? Perhaps this. From a theoretical point of view, we are faced with a classic collective-action problem. Clearly, it would be in everybody’s interest if there were far fewer guns out there, especially fewer of the military-style weapons that also lend themselves to the massacre of civilians—as we discovered yet again on Wednesday, when, according to officials, a twenty-eight-year-old man, Syed Farook, and a twenty-seven-year-old woman, Tashfeen Malik, opened fire at an office party in San Bernardino, California, killing at least fourteen people and injuring seventeen. But since there are already an estimated three hundred million guns in private hands (nobody knows the exact number), and U.S. gun laws are so lax that many Americans believe that they need a weapon, or many weapons, to defend themselves and their families.

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Related:
When Gun Violence Meets Ideology
Daily Cartoon: Monday, November 30th
The Second Amendment Is a Gun-Control Amendment

Mark Zuckerberg and the Rise of Philanthrocapitalism

The announcement by Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan, that, during their lifetimes, they will donate to philanthropic causes roughly ninety-nine per cent of their Facebook stock, which is currently valued at close to forty-five billion dollars, has already prompted a lot of comment, much of it positive. That is understandable. The fact that Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and a number of other billionaires are pledging their fortunes to charity rather than seeking to pass them down to their descendants is already having an impact.

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Related:
Daily Cartoon: Thursday, December 3rd
Famous Inventors and Their Moms
Microsoft’s Very Good Day

COP21: A Potluck Dinner in Paris

Now that the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference is under way in Paris, two main issues arise: Will an agreement to reduce carbon levels in the atmosphere be reached? And, if so, will it do any good? The answer to the first question is: almost certainly. The answer to the second question is: some, but not enough.

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Related:
Comment from the December 7, 2015, Issue
El Niño Meets the Rain Forest
Will the “Tobacco Strategy” Work Against Big Oil?

The Facts About Terrorism

On Monday, I posted a long piece about how we perceive acts of terrorism in the age of social media. Today, prompted by the publication of a new report by the London-based Institute for Economics and Peace (and by a post on the report by Richard Florida), I’d like to focus on the facts about global terrorism.

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Related:
The Rubble-Strewn Road to Damascus
The War in Syria and the Russian Jet
Three Questions About the Downed Russian Jet