Stuff I Liked

A Global Carbon Tax or Cap-and-Trade? Part 1: The Economic Arguments: A great initial look at the potential differences between the ideas. C&T certainly went up in my books after reading this.

Complexity, clarity, simplicity: Storytelling in global development: I’ve battled a lot with trying to strike the balance between complexity and simplicity, this article brings out some nice caveats to help transcend the dichotomy.

How to Prioritize U.N. Goals: The MDGs were criticised for leaving too many things out, are we in danger of overcompensating in the post-2015 goals?

Economist Jeffrey Sachs Says NO to TPP and TAFTA Trade Deals: Some robust analysis of what little we do know about the TPP without the usual sensationalism.

Ten of the best collective nouns: What would the collective noun for aid workers be? Of volunteers? Politicians?

Russia cries foul over Scottish independence vote: I know this isn’t meant to be funny… but, come on: “It is normally the sort of turnout you would expect in North Korea”.

 

Stuff I liked

I’ve realised that if I post ‘Stuff I liked’ weekly it’s probably going to account for 70% of the posts on this blog. So these links are from the last two weeks or so:

Exposing the great ‘poverty reduction’ lie: the counter-interpretation of poverty reduction stats that anti-poverty campaigners generally like to keep hushed.

If political parties were beer…: an entertaining and impressively accurate summary of NZ political parties.

Results for the Top 5 Aid Worker Tunes are in. You won’t believe what they are! Another great crowdsourced piece on WhyDev. Even my limited experience working abroad the world many of these ring true.

Is Everyone a Little Bit Racist? Nicholas Kristof has written a number of great pieces in the aftermath of the Ferguson shootings, this was one of my favourites by him.

Scared Scientists: A great little site by the Australian Climate Council to bring the humanity out from behind climate science.

Orphanages, Latrines & Soap Powder: Changing the #PovertyDiscourse: There’s plenty of criticism of the development discourse out there, here /TheRules clearly articulate some steps to improve it.

What stuff have you liked recently?

Stuff I liked

I’ve decided to take a leaf out of Chris Blattman’s excellent blog by doing a brief, regular roundup of some of the stuff I read / saw / watched / listened to during past week or so (and liked). See how Chris does it here.

This week I liked…

• NZ could spark climate action, expert says – showing that the idea of NZ taking the lead on global issues isn’t just a crazy pipe dream of nostalgic Kiwi liberals.

• My plea to the people of Israel: Liberate yourselves by liberating Palestine – Desmond Tutu’s weighs in with a reasoned and impassioned piece on the latest violence in Gaza.

• In Defense of Raising Money: a Manifesto for NonProfit CEOs – an old piece, but a classic on Sasha Dichter’s blog that I only just recently discovered.

• Kenya: Drone Journalism Takes Off to Give Kenyans a New View – stories about drones actually doing good things always warm my heart.

• In Ferguson’s Aftermath, Will Police Adopt Body Cameras? – the idea of outfitting more police with body camera’s has been gaining a lot of attention, including this petition.

I’d love to hear what thoughts you have on these articles or issues, as well as what stuff you liked this week.