Global warming funding ‘irresponsible moral exhibitionism’ and other news and views for Tuesday 1 April

• NZ global warming funding ‘irresponsible moral exhibitionism’ - “Act Party leader Jamie Whyte says New Zealand shouldn’t be footing the bill for measures to try to reduce the impact of climate change while our contribution to global carbon emissions is so small… he believes the Government shouldn’t be leading the pack in efforts to try to ease the possible consequences of global warming as part of an ‘empty moral gesture’ when other countries with bigger emission footprints won’t follow.”

• Premier slams coverage of Koutsantonis - “Premier Jay Weatherill claims News Corp’s treatment of new Treasurer Tom Koutsantonis has been racist. The Premier said headlines in a recent edition of The Advertiser demeaned Koutsantonis.
• Checking The Claim: A Wireless Network That Streams A Thousand Times Faster? – “As wireless data networks face more congestion, will entrepreneur Steve Perlman’s latest idea be the ultimate fix?”
• Rewriting the gloomy headlines – “The scorched earth of the journalism industry suddenly is providing fertile ground for reinvention.A series of ventures have emerged in recent months, each with different models seeking to reinvent the benighted news business – most without the legacy costs of publishing a printed newspaper.”
• Exxon warns global warming targets ‘unlikely’ to be met – “ExxonMobil, the US oil group, said it was “highly unlikely” that the world would cut greenhouse gas emissions sufficiently to keep global warming within the internationally agreed limit of 2C.”
• Does Economics Make You a Bad Person?
• Too Many Salmon in the Sea, Pacific Study Hints – “Burgeoning numbers of pink salmon may threaten the food supply of young seabirds.”
• Half of China’s GDP Comes From Major Cities
• He who has ears to hear, let him buy a ticket to Darren Aronofsky’s extraordinary movie. – “In his flawed, fascinating and altogether extraordinary “Noah,” this ever-audacious filmmaker has given us a bold and singular vision of Old Testament times — a picture that dares to handle a sacred text not with the clunky messages and stiff pieties we’ve come to expect from so much so-called “Christian cinema,” but rather with a thrilling sense of personal investment and artistic risk. Crucially, Aronofsky approaches Scripture not with a purist’s reverence but with a provocateur’s respect, teasing out the hard, soul-searching questions that the Word of God, if you take it as such (and I do), was always meant to inspire. He has made a gravely powerful, fully committed, sometimes blisteringly angry film that will fit few Christians’ preconceptions of what a biblical epic should look, sound or feel like, and believe me when I say that this is cause not for condemnation, but for honest rejoicing.”