Property prices in Beijing fell 35% between October and November and the Shanghai stock index has fallen 30% since May. As much investment in China has been financed by credit, does this mean that the Chinese economy is in trouble? Is it about to experience its 2008 crisis in 2012? What will be the effects for Western economies should China experience a financial crisis and massive deleveraging? Click here to read more.
The Berkeley Earth Project , an independent study of global warming, has found that the earth has become a degree warmer over the past half century. However, the statistical uncertainty surrounding pre-1920 estimates makes it very hard to say much about long-term trends - click here for graph . This is one of my concerns with the global warming debate - we simply don't have trustworthy long-run data which looks at temperature changes over the last millennium (or two). My second concern with the global warming debate is that it is very hard to prove any sort of casual link between global warming and human activity. The scientists may be able to show correlation between global warming and our production of carbon dioxides etc., but correlation is not causation. My third concern with the debate is that those who are sceptical or agnostic are stereotyped as flat-earthers or intellectually-challenged crackpots. This only stifles debate and the progress of science itself.