Climate change will lead to a "fortress world" in which the rich lock themselves away in gated communities and the poor must fend for themselves in shattered environments, unless governments act quickly to curb greenhouse gas emissions, according to the vice-president of the intergovernmental panel on climate change (IPCC).

Mohan Munasinghe was giving a lecture at Cambridge University in which he presented a dystopic possible future world in which social problems are made much worse by the environmental consequences of rising greenhouse gas emissions. "Climate change is, or could be, the additional factor which will exacerbate the existing problems of poverty, environmental degradation, social polarisation and terrorism and it could lead to a very chaotic situation," he said.

The scenario, which he termed "barbarisation" was already beginning to happen, he said. "Fortress world is a situation where the rich live in enclaves, protected, and the poor live outside in unsustainable conditions.

"If you see what is going on in some of the gated communities in some countries you do find that rich people live in those kind of protected environments. If you see the restrictions on international travel you see the beginnings of the fortress world syndrome even in entering and leaving countries," he said.

This new feudalism is already going on full-tilt. But, much of the rich seem to have foolishly hunkered down in Dubai rather than in the northern climes. Likely, they'll be able to move easily though.

... None of this compares with the rage boiling over in Burma, where cyclone survivors have badly beaten at least one local official, furious at his failure to distribute aid. There have been dozens of reports of the Burmese junta taking credit for supplies sent by foreign countries. It turns out that they have been taking more than credit--in some cases they have been taking the aid ... The generals, it seems, are "haunted by an almost pathological fear of a split inside their own ranks...if soldiers are not given priority in aid distribution and are unable to feed themselves, the possibility of mutiny rises." ...

This relatively small-scale theft of food is fortifying the junta for its much larger heist--the one taking place via the constitutional referendum the generals have insisted on holding, come hell and high water...

The cyclone, meanwhile, has presented them with one last, vast business opportunity: by blocking aid from reaching the highly fertile Irrawaddy delta, hundreds of thousands of mostly ethnic Karen rice farmers are being sentenced to death. According to Farmaner, "that land can be handed over to the generals' business cronies" (shades of the beachfront land grabs in Sri Lanka and Thailand after the Asian tsunami). This isn't incompetence, or even madness. It's laissez-faire ethnic cleansing.

I think she has the Myanmar junta in Burma pegged, but I'm not convinced she has China right. Anyway, I find what she has to write interesting in light of her other writings.

One of the world's most prized culinary delicacies, the famous Perigord black truffle, could soon be off the menu.

Scientists fear it will be wiped out by an invading Chinese truffle they have discovered growing in European soils.

They tell the New Phytologist journal that the incomer is a particularly aggressive and fast-growing species.

The Perigord black truffle is one of the most highly regarded truffles, fetching around 600 to 800 Euros per kg this season.

It's a long way from Germany to Beijing -- especially in a 26-horsepower Trabant. But one dauntless man is making his 10th trip to the Olympics in a cult East German car and is more worried about bureaucracy than breaking down.

Hundreds of thousands of people will be traveling to the Beijing Summer Olympics this August. But what better way to get to the world's largest communist country than in that icon of East German socialism, the Trabant?

t's official: Summer 2008 marks the return of the retro swimsuit.

As swimsuit season approaches, women are discovering that many of this summer's suits represent a sharp turnaround from the crass arrangement of string and sequins that in recent years has made the Hamptons shore look like a Vegas sideshow.

TOKYO (AP) -- A Japanese man who developed the world's smallest helicopter will take flight in the birthplace of Leonardo da Vinci in tribute to the Renaissance genius' original idea.

Gennai Yanagisawa, 75, said Thursday that a demonstration flight of his one-man helicopter is planned in the city of Vinci, near Florence, Italy, on May 25.

Yanagisawa developed the GEN H-4 helicopter -- with rotors, a chair, footrest and handle bar -- in the late 1990s.

Is this what you tried to post?

 ( (youtube 7zB0RygrYy8&hl) ) just delete the space between the ((

Do people have plans for the weekend?  There is a ton going on here & I doubt I'm going to be able to do it all.  

Tonight there is an urban arts festival, Manifest.  All weekend there is the Green Festival (for which my lovely phone comany has provided me with free tix).  And Sunday morning (uhg!  why morning?!) Aleksandar Hemon is giving a reading.

Does everyone here know who Aleksandar Hemon is?  If not - you MUST check him out.  I know I use the term "genius" a lot, but he really is.  He's a Bosnian fellow who basically got trapped in Chicago during the war, somehow managed to become fluent in English in a year or so, and writes brilliant novels about Eastern Europe and Chicago and the insanity of living in either.  I find them deeply satisfying.  :)

I really cannot recommend him enough.

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

Maybe we can eventually make language a complete impediment to understanding. -Hobbes

you are the media you consume.