May 24, 2013 3 min read

Excerpts from recent editorials from newspapers in the United States and abroad as compiled by the Associated Press:

It’s hard to think of any justification for the Justice Department to have snatched up thousands of phone records from the Associated Press, but there had better be a forthright explanation coming. This is government intrusion at a level that goes far beyond the issue of press protections. If federal law enforcement feels empowered to rifle through journalists’ private phone records, ostensibly looking for evidence of a government leak, then nothing would restrain similar action against other citizens.

Nothing.

And that’s not a comforting feeling in a nation whose bedrock principles have been tested and stressed by new debates over the balance between security and liberty. The Patriot Act. Secret federal courts. Endless detentions of American citizens who are deemed – outside a court of law – to be “enemies.” None of it is consistent with the most basic notions of freedom or the proper limitations on government.

The question now has to be whether a new culture of hyper-aggressive attention to national security is green-lighting constitutionally spurious behavior, even at the top levels of our government.

The Obama administration needs to be forthcoming and cooperative, and ought to do some bigger soul-searching about the proper bounds and conduct of our federal government.

A historic landmark has occurred. Scientists at a Hawaii mountaintop observatory reported that carbon dioxide buildup in the atmosphere reached 400 parts per million for the first time since the Pliocene Epoch – 5 million to 3 million years ago, long after dinosaurs died, but before early humans evolved.

Before the Industrial Revolution, atmospheric CO2 had averaged about 280 ppm for at least 800,000 years. But an upsurge of coal, oil and gas burning began a relentless increase in the “greenhouse gas” that forms a heat-trapping barrier in the sky, slowly warming the planet’s surface.

If the CO2 buildup keeps climbing past 450 ppm, it may cross a “tipping point” that will trigger the worst dangers of global warming. So far, humanity shows little desire to reduce fossil fuel burning. Appalachia’s coal reserves are near an end, but natural gas is surging and oil remains a pillar of the world economy. One more dreary fact: Methane leaking into the sky by the gas-drilling boom and by melting of arctic tundra is an even worse greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide.

Most people don’t notice that a slow-motion calamity already has started. But unless global warming is curtailed by a rapid expansion of renewable energy – solar, wind, tidal, geothermal, biomass, etc. – the entire world eventually will feel painful results.

America has witnessed yet another shocking incident of gun violence. During annual Mother’s Day parade in New Orleans, which was attended by nearly 400 people, gunmen opened fire, injuring at least 19 people, including three children.

This incident has followed a surge in gun-related violence in the US, and justifies the necessity to enforce more stringent gun ownership laws. But if historical examples are anything to go by, accomplishing this would be no easy feat. But gun control is not completely a lost cause. State-level changes to gun laws have taken place in the aftermath of the Connecticut massacre. Both New York and Connecticut this year imposed tough checks on gun ownership and banned assault weapons.

And now, after the New Orleans shooting, Obama has again pressed for regulation of gun ownership. Still, real change in gun laws at a federal level will continue to be a distant dream. It seems like in the U.S., interest groups politics will continue to have precedence over human lives.