If you liked Clark's bestselling, reality-based thrillers, you'll want to read his new book warning about the Cyber attacks that have already been tested by countries like North Korea as well as all the ways both states and freelance terrorists can undermine every thing we use that touches a computer or the Internet (from banking to Air Defense Radar).
Terry Gross had a fascinating interview with Clark on "Fresh Air" today, if you want to know more.
Monday, April 19, 2010
Friday, April 9, 2010
In the good news department
The Economist reports success in growing forests around the world:
Slowing the losses
Some good news from the second differential
Apr 7th 2010 | From The Economist print edition
FOR the first time since the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) started making decade-by-decade surveys of the world’s forests, it says it has evidence that efforts to slow the world’s rate of deforestation are working. The total area of forest on the planet is about 4 billion hectares (10 billion acres). In the “key findings” of its Global Forest Resources Assessment 2010 (the full report is not out for a few months) the FAO estimates that, during each of the past ten years, an average of roughly 13m hectares of forest (an area twice the size of Latvia) were either converted to other uses or lost through natural causes such as drought and fire. In the 1990s the figure was 16m hectares.
Reduced rates of deforestation in Brazil and Indonesia form a large part of the story, but the reduction was more broadly based. It was seen on all continents apart from Oceania and forest-free Antarctica—and the increased loss of forest in Oceania was caused largely by drought and fire, rather than by extra logging.
Slowing the losses
Some good news from the second differential
Apr 7th 2010 | From The Economist print edition
FOR the first time since the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) started making decade-by-decade surveys of the world’s forests, it says it has evidence that efforts to slow the world’s rate of deforestation are working. The total area of forest on the planet is about 4 billion hectares (10 billion acres). In the “key findings” of its Global Forest Resources Assessment 2010 (the full report is not out for a few months) the FAO estimates that, during each of the past ten years, an average of roughly 13m hectares of forest (an area twice the size of Latvia) were either converted to other uses or lost through natural causes such as drought and fire. In the 1990s the figure was 16m hectares.
Reduced rates of deforestation in Brazil and Indonesia form a large part of the story, but the reduction was more broadly based. It was seen on all continents apart from Oceania and forest-free Antarctica—and the increased loss of forest in Oceania was caused largely by drought and fire, rather than by extra logging.
Monday, April 5, 2010
go Butler!
If you're watching the Basketball NCAA Final tonight, I hope you'll be rooting for Butler. I have a personal reason -- beyond their miracle underdog status -- I taught Freshman English at UCLA with Butler University President, Bobby Fong.
Although we haven't kept in touch since grad school, I have always remembered him for his ethics as a teacher. At a time when tenure track jobs at universities required you to love theory and Derrida above all else, he chose, instead, to teach undergraduates at Berea College in Appalachia. When I saw the announcement of his becoming president of Butler a few years ago, I was not surprised to learn it was a school that valued "The Butler Way" of combining academics and athletics.
With stars who go to class on the day of a tournament game, and Butler's 90% graduation rate for all athletes, it certainly seems they are for real.
Although we haven't kept in touch since grad school, I have always remembered him for his ethics as a teacher. At a time when tenure track jobs at universities required you to love theory and Derrida above all else, he chose, instead, to teach undergraduates at Berea College in Appalachia. When I saw the announcement of his becoming president of Butler a few years ago, I was not surprised to learn it was a school that valued "The Butler Way" of combining academics and athletics.
With stars who go to class on the day of a tournament game, and Butler's 90% graduation rate for all athletes, it certainly seems they are for real.
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