- Martin Wolf has a piece in the Financial Times listing seven reasons “why the world faces climate chaos”: path dependency, the power of free-market ideas, salience of other issues, naive optimism, coordination problems and complexity, discounting the future, and the problematic burden-sharing between rich and poor countries. Not surprisingly, he doesn’t really offer a quick fix.
- “Massive Open Online Courses” (MOOCs) are getting a lot of attention, and Germany is no exception. Currently there’s a competition for 10 x 25,000 EUR of funding to produce an web-based course, and I encourage you to check out the submissions from social sciences. Everyone has ten votes.
- Over at the Duck, Dan Nexon reminds us that the idea is not really new – technology has certainly improved, but talk of a “MOOC moment” might be overblown.
- Economist Andrew Oswald shares some advice about things he would have found useful to know as a young researcher (via MR).
- While we’re at it, check out Farnam Street. I’d call it a self-help blog for knowledge workers – and honestly, the advice seems a bit over the top at times. But in case you’re unhappy with your reading habits, consult the “Buffett Formula” for motivation…
- Finally, if you’re a grad student I encourage you to take part in an ongoing survey about the IR curriculum (via Duck of Minerva).