Word: protocolic
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...started when Medvedev surprised the nation by initiating a fresh debate over the state of democracy in Russia. In a breach of the usual Kremlin protocol, Medvedev wrote a policy paper - a liberal manifesto of sorts - that was published in September on the independent news website gazeta.ru. It was seen by many to be a groundbreaking document. Although Medvedev did not criticize Putin overtly - that would have been political suicide - he did lament Russia's isolationism, its vulnerable economy and its "negative democratic tendencies," all jabs at the authoritarian political system that Putin cultivated during his eight years as President...
...quick, cheap fix would turn out to be a trap. And while Levitt and Dubner say the fix is appealing at least in part because it's politically impossible to imagine the world agreeing on a common carbon cap - pointing to the problems with the Kyoto Protocol - in reality, the geopolitics of geoengineering are even tougher. Would the world stand idly by if China unilaterally decided to begin geoengineering our collective climate? What if the U.S. did? And even if we did allow geoengineering to commence, could we agree on what an acceptable global temperature would...
...language dictator like the Académie Française, whose 40 members, known as immortels, determined that the commonly used e-mail may not be accepted into the French language while un hamburger may. The closest thing here may be the copydesk of the New York Times, a stickler for protocol; yet it too is uncertain of its semiotic bearings. When the Obamas called on the Bushes after the election, the newspaper reported that "Mrs. Bush" greeted the Obamas and "Ms. Bush wore a brown suit." During the campaign, Hillary Clinton was two women in a single sentence: "Nancy B. White...
...century and found that it could end up increasing global greenhouse-gas emissions instead of reducing them. In the second paper, another team of researchers led by Tim Searchinger of Princeton University uncovered a potentially damaging flaw in the way carbon emissions from bioenergy are calculated under the Kyoto Protocol and in the carbon cap-and-trade bill currently being debated in Congress. If that error in calculation goes unfixed, a future increase in biofuel use could end up backfiring and derailing efforts to control global warming, according to the paper. "Biofuels can be an important part of the portfolio...
Given how limited the impact of the Kyoto Protocol has been, the effects of that error have been modest so far. But if the U.S. adopts a cap-and-trade system with the same mistake, or if the world agrees to a truly global successor to Kyoto, the blowback could be enormous. As long as biofuels are incorrectly treated as 100% carbon neutral, they'll represent an economical way for companies to offset their greenhouse-gas emissions and comply with a tightening carbon cap. One study estimates that if the world were to meet a 50% "cut" in global greenhouse...