Toluu

The Informed Reader

A survey of insights from media around the world.

Informed Reader Signs OffFebruary 1

We have had an exciting — and informative — year bringing you what we thought was some of the best in journalism from sources around the world. We are retiring Informed Reader in order to focus on other journalistic pursuits, but we didn’t want to leave without highlighting a few stories from the past year that were especially compelling, amusing or provocative:

Texas Monthly told us about the trouble brewing in the nation’s sewers. Fast Company’s Charles Fishman explored the environmental costs of bottled water. National Geographic traveled to some of the countries that recycle wealthy nations’ electronic waste, with sometimes dangerous consequences. The Atlantic reported on how the spread of DNA testing has led to some nasty paternity surprises. BusinessWeek exposed how some companies are luring the poor deeper into debt; and reported on the elite tech support available to c-suite executives. Thinking “outside the box” and brainstorming blindly might be a big waste of time, consultants suggested in Harvard Business Review. Streetsblog prompted us to ask whether cyclists should run red lights, while Salon reported on how street kids can be more violent than they look. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s music critic wondered if the time had come to sanction mid-sy

A Global Warming Skeptic Is ChallengedFebruary 1

Global warming hasn’t stopped, as a prominent science writer claimed recently in the New Statesman, a generally liberal British weekly. In fact, the pace of climate change has accelerated, and saying otherwise misleads readers and gives unnecessary ammunition to conspiracy theorists, declares Mark Lynas, the magazine’s environmental correspondent.

Mr. Lynas takes on a controversial article by David Whitehouse published online by the New Statesman in December (we wrote about it here). Mr. Whitehouse, a former longtime science journalist for the BBC who holds a Ph.D. in astrophysics, said that while carbon emissions are clearly rising, temperatures increases have leveled off since 1998. The latest temperature readings suggest that the prevailing scientific wisdom about global warming is incorrect, Mr. Whitehouse wrote, a view that prompted a heated debate on New Statesman’s Web site and elsewhere.

That Mr. Whitehouse’s article opened the door to climate-change skeptics is unfortunate, says Mr. Lynas, because the analysis was fundamentally flawed. Mr. Whitehouse relied erroneously on year-to-year temperature changes

How the U.S. Gave Iran the Upper HandFebruary 1

The U.S. government so badly mishandled the findings on Iran’s uranium-enrichment program that the world now faces a far greater risk of nuclear-weapons proliferation, the Economist says.

In a cover story some two months after U.S. intelligence services concluded that Iran had halted its nuclear-weapons program in 2003, the British newsweekly says the report undid five years of painstaking diplomacy aimed at keeping the bomb out of Tehran’s hands.

Why not applaud what might be an olive branch from Washington toward its longtime adversary? The problem is that the intelligence estimate played down Iran’s ability to produce uranium, which the authors call the toughest skill in bomb-making. The design and engineering work needed to turn fissile material into weapons, the focus of the National Intelligence Estimate assembled by 16 U.S. agencies, would be relatively easy to hide, and to restart. No one knows how much progress Iran achieved toward building a nuclear warhead before 2003.

As Glaciers Melt, Can Artificial Ones Fill the Gap?January 31

Can artificial glaciers help compensate for the disappearance of naturally forming ones? Scientists and aid agencies are studying communities in mountainous regions of India and Pakistan that have a long tradition of assembling glaciers by grafting together ice and snow masses, reports the New Scientist. In these areas, glaciers serve as a regular and reliable source of water in the growing season. If their techniques can be verified, they could bring stability to communities in areas where climate change might have diminished glaciers, crimping the water supply and lowering crop yields.

According to legends, villagers in the Hindu Kush and Karakoram mountain ranges that span the India-Pakistan border areas have been building artificial glaciers for centuries – even using one to stop the advance of Gengis Khan in the 13th century. The artificial versions are far smaller than regular glaciers, but can reach 800 feet in length. Usually, the glaciers are built in rocky areas 14,800 feet above sea level. Villagers pack ice and snow in the shadows of boulders. When winter arrives, snow bridges the areas between the ice and, over a few years, forms into a self-sustaining glacier.

Iraq’s Policewomen Are Again Allowed to Carry GunsJanuary 31

Policewomen in Iraq have won back their right to carry guns, although Tina Susman warns in the Los Angeles Times that the victory does little to advance equality in police ranks.

Late last year, she reported on a little-noticed order for policewomen to give up their guns, which Iraqi officials said was necessary to prevent women from giving the weapons to male relatives or selling them.

The policewomen themselves and a U.S. Army general who led a recruiting drive for female police officers attributed the decree to the rising influence of religious conservatives. Even with guns, policewomen say, continuing cultural pressures mean they stand little chance of leaving the desk jobs to which most of them have been relegated. – Robin Moroney