Colin Chilcoat writes:  As the world’s number one energy consumer China is enjoying the low prices while they last. Never one to settle however, China is finding still more ways to take advantage of the dire straits gripping several oil producers.

Obama’s community college plan does not mention one program that has been successful and costs the government nothing.  When a large corporation like General Electric gives money to a community college and then prepares students to work for their company.  Students are not compelled to work for GE, but they are prepared to work for GE or like companies.

While community college drop out rates are high, such programs induce students to stay.  Getting a job is big motivitation to complete an associates degree and perhaps certification.

Around the world, it is the unemployement rate among young people that is staggeringly high.  Part of the problem is lack of preparation for available jobs.

George Soros writes:  The sanctions imposed on Russia by the US and Europe for its interventions in Ukraine have worked much faster and inflicted much more damage on the Russian economy than anybody could have expected. The sanctions sought to deny Russian banks and companies access to the international capital markets. The increased damage is largely due to a sharp decline in the price of oil, without which the sanctions would have been much less effective.

In 1998, Russia ended up running out of hard currency reserves and defaulting on its debt, causing turmoil in the global financial system. This time the ruble has dropped by more than 50 percent, inflation is accelerating, and interest rates have risen to levels that are pushing the Russian economy into recession. The big advantage Russia has today compared to 1998 is that it still has substantial foreign currency reserves.

More than $120 billion of external debt is due for repayment in 2015. Although, in contrast to 1998, most of the Russian debt is in the private sector, it would not be surprising if, before it runs its course, this crisis ends up in a default by Russia. That would be more than what the US and European authorities bargained for. Coming on top of worldwide deflationary pressures that are particularly acute in the euro area and rising military conflicts such as the one with ISIS, a Russian default could cause considerable disruption in the global financial system, with the euro area being particularly vulnerable.

There is therefore an urgent need to reorient the current policies of the European Union toward Russia and Ukraine.   A two-pronged approach is suggested:  balance the sanctions against Russia with assistance for Ukraine on a much larger scale.

Sanctions are a necessary evil. They are necessary because neither the EU nor the US is willing to risk war with Russia, and that leaves economic sanctions as the only way to resist Russian aggression. They are evil because they hurt not only the country on which they are imposed but also the countries that impose them. The harm has turned out to be much bigger than anybody anticipated. Russia is in the midst of a financial crisis, which is helping to turn the threat of deflation in the eurozone into a reality.

By contrast, all the consequences of helping Ukraine would be positive. By enabling Ukraine to defend itself, Europe would be indirectly also defending itself. Moreover, an injection of financial assistance to Ukraine would help stabilize its economy and indirectly also provide a much-needed stimulus to the European economy by encouraging exports and investment in Ukraine. Hopefully Russia’s troubles and Ukraine’s progress would persuade President Vladimir Putin to give up as a lost cause his attempts to destabilize Ukraine.

If Europe rose to the challenge and helped Ukraine not only to defend itself but to become a land of promise, Putin could not blame Russia’s troubles on the Western powers. He would be clearly responsible and he would either have to change course or try to stay in power by brutal repression, cowing people into submission. If he fell from power, an economic and political reformer would be likely to succeed him. Either way, Putin’s Russia would cease to be a potent threat to Europe. Which alternative prevails will make all the difference not only to the future of Russia and its relationship with the European Union but also to the future of the European Union itself. By helping Ukraine, Europe may be able to recapture the values and principles on which the European Union was originally founded. That is why I am arguing so passionately that Europe needs to undergo a change of heart. The time to do it is right now. The Board of the IMF is scheduled to make its fateful decision on Ukraine on January 18. A Plan for Russia and the Ukraine 

Note: Soros has lost money in the Ukraine.

Summary of climate change mitigtion study by the University of London.

Policy makers have generally agreed that the average global temperature rise caused by greenhouse gas emissions should not exceed 2 °C above the average global temperature of pre-industrial times¹. It has been estimated that to have at least a 50 per cent chance of keeping warming below 2 °C throughout the twenty-first century, the cumulative carbon emissions between 2011 and 2050 need to be limited to around 1,100 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide (Gt CO₂)^{2, 3}. However, the greenhouse gas emissions contained in present estimates of global fossil fuel reserves are around three times higher than this^{2, 4}, and so the unabated use of all current fossil fuel reserves is incompatible with a warming limit of 2 °C. Here we use a single integrated assessment model that contains estimates of the quantities, locations and nature of the world’s oil, gas and coal reserves and resources, and which is shown to be consistent with a wide variety of modelling approaches with different assumptions⁵, to explore the implications of this emissions limit for fossil fuel production in different regions. Our results suggest that, globally, a third of oil reserves, half of gas reserves and over 80 per cent of current coal reserves should remain unused from 2010 to 2050 in order to meet the target of 2 °C. We show that development of resources in the Arctic and any increase in unconventional oil production are incommensurate with efforts to limit average global warming to 2 °C. Our results show that policy makers’ instincts to exploit rapidly and completely their territorial fossil fuels are, in aggregate, inconsistent with their commitments to this temperature limit. Implementation of this policy commitment would also render unnecessary continued substantial expenditure on fossil fuel exploration, because any new discoveries could not lead to increased aggregate production.

When scientists and policymakers talk about limiting climate change, what they’re mainly talking about is keeping more fossil fuels in the ground. The fact is, there’s no way to prevent global warming from reaching catastrophic levels if we burn up our remaining reserves of oil, gas, and coal.

Climate negotiators have agreed that warming should be limited to 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit above preindustrial level. That means that humans can release about 1.1 trillion metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions, and we’ve gone through about half of that already.  The remaining emissions are known as our “carbon budget”; if we “spend” emissions beyond our budget, we’re much more likely to push the planet to dangerous levels of warming. If we burned through all of our current reserves of fossil fuels, we would overspend the budget by about threefold.

In other words, there are a lot of fossil fuels that are “unburnable” if we’re going to stay within the prescribed warming limit. But how much, exactly? And where exactly are those unburnable fuels? That’s the question asked in a study released today in the journal Nature by a team of energy analysts at University College London. The answer matters because mapping the geographical spread of unburnable fuels is a key step in understanding the roles specific regions need to play in the fight against climate change.

The model developed by Christophe McGlade and his team takes into account known estimates of fossil fuel reserves in a number of different countries and regions, as well as the global warming potential of those reserves and the market forces that determine which reserves are the most cost-effective to exploit. The results, shown below, are what the model finds to be the most cost-effective distribution that stays within the 3.6-degree limit.

The researchers ran the model twice: Once assuming widespread use of carbon capture and storage (an emerging technology for catching carbon emissions as they escape from power plants that is gaining steam but has yet to be proven on the global stage), and once assuming no CCS at all. The two scenarios ultimately aren’t that much different—using CCS won’t allow us to burn vastly more coal, oil, and gas. The results shown below are from the “with-CCS” scenario.