AUTUMN is always a busy time in America

IN 2007 Oliver Wanger, a federal judge in California, ordered the huge pumping stations of the Sacramento Delta, the largest estuary on the west coast of the Americas, to reduce by a third the water they delivered to two aqueducts that run south to the farms of the San Joaquin Valley and onward to the vast conurbations of southern California.

THE planet is warming, but the mood among climate negotiators seems as chilly as ever. On October 9th the penultimate round of talks before December

FOR many left-wingers, the credit crunch was proof that markets do not always know best. The near-collapse of the world

MANY commentators fear that Barack Obama

IN THE northern province of Shanxi, one of China

AS THE December Copenhagen conference on climate change approaches, the world

LAST year, when he was still the head of the independent Congressional Budget Office, Peter Orszag used to warn bleakly that the rising costs of health care would, if not subjected to radical reform, one day bankrupt the government. Over the past few decades, these costs have risen at a consistent 2.5 percentage points above the growth rate of the economy.

THE starkest views of climate change paint war as a looming threat. The idea that violence will erupt as drought and rising sea levels displace people from their homes is, in part, why the Nobel prize for peace was awarded in 2007 to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and Al Gore.