Word: knowingly
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...authors visit Nathan Myhrvold, the brilliant former chief technology officer of Microsoft and co-founder of Intellectual Ventures, a private think tank. Myhrvold and his staff have the idea to build a giant "garden hose to the sky" that would pump liquefied sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. Scientists know that increasing SO2 in the air deflects sunlight, which cools down the earth; when Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines exploded in 1992, for instance, the SO2 sent into the atmosphere created a brief global cooling spell. Levitt and Dubner advocate pursuing this geoengineering scheme, which could potentially avert a hotter world...
That wouldn't be a bad idea, except, as many environmentalists and climatologists are quick to point out, we don't know what the potential side effects of geoengineering might be or whether the entire operation would backfire badly. Geoengineering might be a cheaper option, but followed out to at least one logical conclusion, it could be a pitfall. Say we try to use Myhrvold's giant-garden-hose scheme (after hopefully giving it a better name) without reducing carbon emissions. We could end up in a situation in which we can't abandon geoengineering without risking sudden, disastrous warming...
...keep up with rising demand, a task that will require $30 billion of investment annually. "Governments are scrambling to fix some of the problems, but it will take time," says Akmal Siddiq, a natural-resources economist at the Asian Development Bank in Manila. Farmers like Namdeo Sidam, 48, know that all too well. He, his wife and three sons live in a mud-walled shack in the fly-infested village of Marathwakadi in Vidarbha, and aside from a free plow, the government's ample funds have yet to trickle his way. Sidam gets no subsidies for his seeds, no guaranteed...
...died and the 500 or so who were partly paralyzed by Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS). Only one person died of the 1976 swine flu. It is wrong to suggest that the current vaccines being rushed to market are safe for general consumption. The public has a right to know that neurologists around the country have been alerted to watch for a rise in GBS cases. Barbara Savage, GATES...
...areas. "They are creating communal pods that cannily preserve a white-bread world," he observes, "a throwback to an imagined past with 'authentic' 1950s values." Like Sacha Baron Cohen, Benjamin can lull people into saying the most appalling things, as with a new friend who tells him, "I never know what to call you. So when I'm around my buddies, I just use the N-word." The author's conclusion: while explicit racism is no longer acceptable, segregation is on the upswing. Racial refugees won't be able to outrun reality, says the author; by 2042, whites will...