On Sunday, 60 Minutes ran a segment highlighting recent struggles in the field of renewable technologies. The piece was, as one might glean upon reading its title, highly critical of the industry’s failures, and of our government’s role in funding some of these high-profile flops. If we’ve learned anything from flops like Fisker and Solyndra, it’s this: rather than directly funding companies looking to peddle cleantech, we should be funneling taxpayer money towards the research and development of the technologies that undergird the industry.

Europe is becoming a coal sink, and, ironically, much of the blame for its increasing reliance on the dirty energy source can be attributed to its green policies. Now, in a move emblematic of the complex interconnectivity of the global energy market, Europe’s green policies and the American shale boom are spurring a new growth of Europe’s dirtiest variety of coal.

Look out, China: your two biggest rivals in Asia are growing closer together. The Japanese defense minister, Itsunori Onodera, on a multi-day trip to India, met with his counterpart in Delhi today to discuss strengthening their countries’ collaboration in several key areas of defense. During the coming year, Japan and India will hold their fourth Defence Policy Dialogue, third “2 plus 2” Dialogue, and third joint naval exercise. Japan will play host to the Indian defense minister, and the two ministers have said they hope for deeper cooperation between their air forces.

A New York Times feature on a fierce GMO debate in Hawaii casts the idiocy and hypocrisy of the modern green movement on the issue in stark relief. For anyone curious themselves about the GMO debate, this is a piece worth reading in full. But here’s the quick and dirty summary: our best scientific understanding of genetically modified crops suggests that they’re just as safe as their non-modified counterparts.

Britain may be jumping on the higher-ed reform bandwagon, thanks to a new plan proposed by Labour Party MP John Denham. Rather than give students loans to attend college that prove difficult to pay back, the government would partner with businesses to jointly pay for the education of young employees in relevant fields. This is an interesting proposal with some merit, but can reforms like this coexist with liberal education?

Last month’s ruling that Detroit could reduce pensions in bankruptcy was a major setback from the city’s unions, but the latest defeat may be even bigger. Effective January 1st, all public workers in the city, with the exception of police and firefighters, will find their pensions frozen. What’s more, new and existing employees will find their defined-benefit plans replaced with a defined-contribution plan along the lines of a 401(k).

Spain recently walked back on solar energy subsidies, and in so doing hurt its credibility and left many green energy producers out in the lurch. The country’s energy policies are a mess right now, but the decision to renegotiate rates paid for renewable energy production, though unpopular, was necessary. The takeaway for the rest of the world: propping up technologies incapable of competing on their own merit doesn’t work.

Turkey’s prime minister signaled a willingness on Sunday to allow a retrial of hundreds of army officers who were convicted of a conspiracy to overthrow the government. Former military chiefs, alongside hundreds of more junior officers, journalists, and opposition lawmakers, were sentenced to lengthy prison sentences in the so-called “Ergenekon” trial in 2013. “Our position on a retrial is a favorable one,” Erdogan told reporters in Istanbul.

MOOCs have always been most promising in the STEM fields, but lab science has long been a major weakness for digital learning. One professor at Stanford University may have found a solution to this problem: digital laboratories.

The business model for PhDs is functionally off. Graduate schools are minting far more PhDs than the market can absorb. The problem is that the post-World War 2 university system was built on the assumption of an ever expanding population of students needing more and more higher ed. Therefore there was a need for each generation to produce more professors than the last. This is not unlike what plagues other blue mode constructs such as Medicaid and the various defined-benefit pension schemes.