Barriers are political, not technical

Independent: Feeding 2.4 billion more people without more land. Technically, it might be possible. But then, technically it has been possible for some time to end poverty, switch to a carbon-neutral economy and destroy all nuclear weapons. The barriers in each case are primarily political, not technical.

The Automatic Earth: In the USA, only 47% of working age adults have full-time employment.

NYT: US States on verge of bankruptcy.

NYT: Species on the move due to changing climate. There are physical limits to how far many can go.

Make Wealth History: Bribery isn't just an African problem, not least because the bribes that keep developing countries politically poisonous frequently originate from western corporations.

Bright Green Scotland: Undercover cops: political or commercial? The recent exposure of numerous UK undercover police in green activist groups has raised a host of uncomfortable but important questions about political protest, police surveillance and accountability, the ethics of espionage and the commercialisation of policing and intelligence. This article explores the latter issue.

The smart vote

Research in Edinburgh (of all places) has linked childhood IQ to voting patterns and the results may surprise you. Or not.