Showing 71 - 80 of 237
Early extinction of fossil fuels a risk in itself
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 20/12/2021
» The "new normal", said International Energy Agency spokesperson Heymi Bahar last May, may be a far faster expansion of renewable energy than expected, driven mainly by market forces. So fast, in fact, that it raises a different kind of risk (but he didn't mention that).
Nuke deal is dead! Long live deterrence!
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 10/12/2021
» 'We reviewed the proposals ... carefully and thoroughly and concluded that Iran violated almost all compromises found previously in months of hard negotiations," said the German Foreign Ministry spokesman on Sunday. As a funeral oration, it lacked in elegance, but it did the job: the 2015 treaty curbing Iran's nuclear capabilities is dead.
Belarus becomes a small storm in a sea of anxiety
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 18/11/2021
» It's not a tempest in a teapot; it's smaller than that. A few thousand Arabs and Kurds, mostly young men but including women and children, are trapped between Poland, which will not let them in, and Belarusian border guards and militia who will not let them back into Belarus. But the language is getting menacing.
COP26: Mixed bag of hope, despair
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 12/11/2021
» It's not too early to assess the success or failure of COP26, the climate summit that began in Glasgow on Oct 31. The first week, while the heads of state are there, is when all the big promises are announced; the second week is devoted to haggling over the details of the deals. So we already know that it hasn't been an absolute failure.
Why this year's COP26 isn't going to deliver
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 30/10/2021
» 'The world is on a catastrophic pathway to 2.7°C of heating," said UN Secretary General António Guterres. "There is a high risk of failure of COP26." That's the global climate summit that meets every five years (but was postponed last year because of the pandemic) to plot a course away from climate disaster. And it really isn't looking good.
Vikings and Skraelings come full circle
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 27/10/2021
» It was already known that the first and only Norse settlement in North America was at L'Anse aux Meadows, at the northern tip of Newfoundland. The specialists even assumed that it happened in the early 11th century, because the Viking sagas more or less said so. But the traditional carbon-14 dates were all over the place.
It's volcanoes, tsunamis and risk at La Palma
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 09/10/2021
» 'Don't bother your pretty head about it" is the prevailing media take on the risk of the volcanic eruption on La Palma in the Canary Islands turning into a mega-tsunami disaster. The media definitely over-hyped that risk when it was first suggested 20 years ago, so now they have to work the other side of the street.
China and the US: Too big to be equal?
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 15/09/2021
» Never mind the destruction of the relatively free society of Hong Kong (no emergency airlift like in Kabul, Afghanistan, but the number of people fleeing Hong Kong may ultimately be larger). Never mind the persecution of the Uighurs, or the Orwellian surveillance society that the Communist Party is building, or the tens of millions who died in wars, famines and "cultural revolutions" to bring equality to China.
How did they think the Afghan war would end?
News, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 09/08/2021
» 'I will never kneel before such a destructive force [as the Taliban'," declared Ashraf Ghani, the soon-to-be ex-president of Afghanistan. "We will either sit knee-to-knee for real negotiations at the table, or break their knees on the battlefield."
Peru on edge after Castillo's election victory
Oped, Gwynne Dyer, Published on 04/08/2021
» Peru holds the current record for revolving presidents -- three came and went in a month last November; for coronavirus deaths -- almost 6,000 per million, and for the youngest-looking president -- seen from afar, under his trademark straw hat, he looks like a 13-year-old boy. But appearances are deceiving.