Scott Pruit, US Environmental Protection Agency chief, made headlines for his recent denial that anthropogenic carbon dioxide is the primary control knob for Earth’s climate. Of course, the truth is that growth in CO2 emissions is the main contributor to the climate change we see. Without emissions abatement it seems inevitable that pumping greenhouse gases …
In America we are pestered continually, sometimes two or three times a day, by companies who want to know “how they did”. I refer to opinion surveys, which proliferate everywhere. When I lived in England I used to slightly envy those who were asked their opinion about anything. Being extaordinarily opinionated myself it was irritating …
Bruce Gibney has written a book called “In a Generation of Sociopaths: How the Baby Boomers Betrayed America” (I can comment on the account of the book and its review by Dana Milbank because I am not a boomer). The Boomers, Gibney says, are guilty of “generational plunder”. They are accused of “the mass, democratically-sanctioned …
In a poll 8.6 percent of the 3,000 Americans surveyed said that during a typical week, they ate no meat (poultry and fish excluded). Some 56 percent ate meat one to four times a week, and 31 percent ate it five or more time a week. A later poll asked the same questions, plus an …
The jokes and other slogans in greetings cards have become so rude and potentially offensive that shops are having to take action. Branches of the stationery shop Scribbler now carry a sign in their windows, warning that some of its cards are “of an adult nature”. Paperchase has gone a step further: it has started …
