The politicians and other extremists that whip up hatred — against Muslims, for instance — know what they are doing. Let's stop accepting their pretense of innocence.

The US is pushing to undo parts of the 1995 Beijing declaration on gender equality.

The US is joining Salafi Arabia to block international regulation of geoengineering.

I think it is a good idea to require international consensus before carrying out geoengineering efforts that would have worldwide effects. However, there is no reason to rule out localized experiments on a smaller scale. We may need geoengineering to avoid global disaster even after working hard to curb emissions.

Geoengineering methods that only reduce temperature, not CO2, will not protect coral and molluscs from death from ocean acidification. They are inadequate.

Seeding oceans with iron might perhaps sequester a lot of CO2 -- if it works. That is not guaranteed. I think it would be a good idea to do more regional experiments of this type, to find out to what extent it could really work, and what side effects there might be.

Contrast US Republicans, defending the right to own all kinds of guns no matter how dangerous, with New Zealand's politicians.

Should hoaxes require approval as "experiments with human subjects"?

I think the idea is absurd.