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A stream made by a melting glacier, where the surface is covered by cryoconite near Qaanaaq, Greenland. Photograph: The Asahi Shimbun via Getty Images

George Will, the syndicated columnist and political commentator, responded to a question about climate change the other day with this take:

Got that?

Good. Because it's a fallacy in the U.S. climate change debate -- that climatology research, in every nation, for the last century, has been conducted to help a group of people consolidate power in 2014 in the country where George Will lives.

It's like the "Seinfeld" episode in which a mom-and-pop shop where Jerry has dropped off his sneakers suddenly comes under suspicion.

"So," Elaine asks Kramer, "Mom and Pop's plan was to move into the neighborhood, establish trust -- for 48 years -- and then run off with Jerry's sneakers."

"Apparently," Kramer reasons.

Like Elaine with Mom and Pop, we must be a little leery of concluding that the Washington progressives have laid a trap for us with these climate change shenanigans.

The "whole point of global warming" is not, as Will would have it, to execute a liberal headlock on the American people. If global warming has a "whole point" of any kind, it is, it appears, to warm the globe, perhaps intolerably. That's what progressives and conservatives of good will and common sense are seeking to stop.

No one has yet described any physical laws linking atmospheric heat retention with American liberal activism or right-wing special-interest media buys. Let's worry about that one when it's peer-reviewed and published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Climate Change and Encroaching Progressive Czarism.

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George Will Knocks Out Another Instant Climate Classic

For the second straight day, thousands of members of progressive groups took to the streets to protest the signing of the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement (EDCA) and US Pres. Barack Obamas state visit to the country.

They attempted to protest in front of the US embassy in Roxas Boulevard, Manila but were blocked by hundreds of policemen who used shields and sticks and water cannons to push back the protesters.

Aquino has tried to make it appear that the US is bringing back its military bases into the Philipines in order to help the country defend our territory from Chinas incursions, but Obama did not make any statement to that effect, said labor leader Elmer Labog, chairperson of Kilusang Mayo Uno (KMU, May First Movement). Labog noted that Obamas statements on the Philippine territorial dispute with China belie Aquinos propaganda for EDCA.

On Monday, April 28, Obama was noncommittal when reporters asked him if the US armed forceswhose presence in the Philippines will increase after EDCAs signingwill defend the Philippines if attacked by China.

So what did we get from the Obama visit? Not much it seems. As expected, no commitment, no assurance. Meanwhile, Obama goes home with a new military agreement that would allow more US forces to rotate in the Philippines. Such is the tragedy of neo-colonial relations, said Renato Reyes Jr., secretary general of Bagong Alyansang Makabayan (Bayan, New Patriotic Alliance).

Bayan, KMU and other sectoral and progressive organizations have been protesting against negotiations between US and the Philippines for a new military pact that will significantly increase US military presence in the country. The groups maintained that such an increase in US military presence will only exacerbate the tensions between the Philippines and China, who are engaged in a much-publicized territorial dispute in West Philippine Sea (South China Sea).

In the more than 60 years since the signing of the PH-US Mutual Defense Treaty, the US armed forces have only made Philippine military more dependent on military aid, according to Reyes.

The groups also said that EDCA will only worsen the Philippines neocolonial mendicancy to the US.

(See also: The previous days text and photos of the protest action against the Obama visit.)

Some photos of the protest action near the US embassy in Manila:

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Progressives assert right to protest near US embassy to condemn EDCA, Obama visit

President Goodluck Jonathan

THE All Progressives Congress has denied an allegation by the Peoples Democratic Party in Rivers State that its members were involved in the destruction of the PDP and the Nigerian flags.

The state PDPs allegation is coming ahead of President Goodluck Jonathans visit to Rivers State for the South-South PDP rally on Saturday.

But the State Chairman of APC, Dr. Davies Ikanya, described the partys claim as spurious, maintaining that no APC member was involved in the defacing of flags belonging to another political party or the Nigerian flag.

Speaking with journalists in Port Harcourt on Tuesday, Ikanya said the allegation was another ploy by the state PDP to begin to destroy the APC billboards and cause confusion in the state.

He said, We wish to state categorically clear that no member of the APC was involved in the destruction of the Nigerian flags or the PDP flags anywhere in the state, including the PDP office in Obio/Akpor.

If you look at our state secretariat and our offices in the local government areas, you will see that Nigerian flags are conspicuously mounted there. So, the allegation by the PDP that they saw some people in the night removing Nigerian and PDP flags is spurious and frivolous.

Ikanya recalled how the state PDP accused the APC and the state governor, Mr. Rotimi Amaechi, of kidnapping three of their (PDP) members, adding that the police had since arrested the culprits, and they were not members of the APC.

Explaining that Amaechi and the APC did not believe in violence, the state APC chairman said, They (PDP) only want to embarrass our party. Instead of the PDP to talk about why the state (Rivers) has no federal presence, they have been raising frivolous allegations against the governor and the APC.

He, however, warned politicians to desist from planning to unleash violence during the 2015 elections and maintained that the APC would not allow any political party to rig the polls.

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Jonathans visit: APC denies destroying PDP flags

All Progressives Congress Holds State Congress
The All Progressives Congress (APC) has held its State congress across Nigeria, with the congress postponed in Adamawa, Edo, Kaduna, Kano and Katsina States....

By: Channels Television

Read more from the original source:
All Progressives Congress Holds State Congress - Video

As the demographics of religion change in the United States, faith may have a different degree of influence than it once did.

Garry Knight/Flickr

Is religion the most important thing in your life? This is one of the questions people had to answer in a 2013 Public Religion Research Institute/Brookings surveyas researchers tried to figure out how much faith influences people's viewson culture and the economy. They got pretty striking results: More than half of people who they considered to be "religious conservatives" said yes, while only about 10 percent of people classified as "religious progressives" said the same. This means that on a whole host of issues, ranging from abortion and gay marriage to welfare and the minimum wage, faith probably has more of an influence on how conservatives think than it does for liberals.

It's tough to get inside people's heads and understand how their beliefs about God affect their views on culture, but a new report from Brookings hints at why researchers might want to: In terms of numbers, religious progressives are gaining on religious conservatives. According to the researchers, "religious progressives" are people of faith who have typically "liberal" opinions on a range of issues: They want more government support for the poor, rather than less; more freedom to have pre-marital sex and drink, rather than less, etc. From this break-down of age and race, you can see that religious progressives dominate America's growing populations:

Blacks, hispanics, and people of mixed race are all more likely to be religious progressives than conservatives; these groups are also among the fastest-growing demographics in the United States. Similarly, Millennials are more than twice as likely to be religious progressives than religious conservatives; in fact, people older than 50 make up more than 60 percent of those who are considered to be religious conservatives. Although it's impossible to talk to an 18-year-old about her views on culture and predict what she'll think in two decades, these demographic trends suggest that the religious right is about to start shrinking.

But the question of influence is a little fuzzier. Although more than a third of Millennials are considered religious progressives, roughly 40 percent don't have any faith at all: A growing number of young people don't identify with a particular religion. That, alongwith the fact that an overwhelming majority of religious progressives don't see religion as "the most important thing in their life," suggests that faith is losing its overall influence over how people think about social and cultural issues.

As the authors of the Brookings study wrote, "Religious progressivism, precisely because of its diversity, will never constitute the same cohesive and relatively homogenous force that religious conservatism represents." In terms of individual hearts and minds, it's hard to tell how much of a role "religion" has in the new wave of "religious progressivism"it's possible to be religious and progressive at the same time, but it's also possible that those progressive beliefs don't have much to do with God.

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The Growing Power of Godly Progressives?