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Driven to distraction: the Norway road trip where cool design meets dramatic scenery  

Norway's roadside architecture project, part of its National Tourist Routes, has led to the creation of bridges and viewing platforms that make every journey a tour de force and more new designs are on the horizon

Vertigo-inducing viewing platforms, island-hopping bridges, and some of the funkiest toilet facilities in the northern hemisphere: these are just a sample of the design flourishes that Norway's National Tourist Routes programme (NTR) has introduced across the country over the past 15 years. Add to this the fact that the roads programme has been a great incubator for Norway's young, vibrant architectural scene which is respected for its daring and imagination across Europe and for anyone heading north this summer, with design leanings or simply curious, a road trip beckons.

This is a far cry from the NTR's beginnings. The first pilot project by the then young and today highly respected firm of Jensen & Skodvin Architects (JSA) was completed in western Norway in 1997. Aimed at drawing tourists into the stunning, if rarely visited, landscape through appealing roadside architecture, a full programme was subsequently launched, with 18 routes across Norway's south, its coastal regions and the far north eventually chosen in 2004. The pieces were primarily architectural, though in places, art installations and sculptures were also introduced, and by the end of the decade a host of impressive works were adding roadside lustre to the grandeur of Norway's geography. A programme of rest stops, viewing platforms, bridges, walkways and restaurants was rolled out, with some jaw-dropping moments such as Tommie Wilhelmsen and Todd Saunders' Aurland lookout.

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Hillary Clinton's Acceptance Speech At The DNC: What Would Roosevelt Do About The Climate Crisis?  
For the past two decades, America's leading environmental analysts, including Lester Brown, Joseph Romm and Thomas Friedman, have written of the need for a World War II-scale mobilization in response to the global climate and sustainability crisis. This election season, the advocacy has finally gone mainstream. Bernie Sanders called for a WWII-scale climate mobilization at the April 14 CNN Brooklyn debate, and on July 9, the Democratic Party platform committee overwhelmingly voted in favor of an amendment calling for a "WWII-type national mobilization to save civilization" from "the global climate emergency."

Many of us have known for years that such a mobilization will be required to save America, and indeed, all of human civilization from catastrophe. In 2007, Secretary Clinton referenced the need for a WWII-scale mobilization to address the climate crisis in a major speech on energy and climate. After the 2012 election, Susie Tompkins Buell urged President Obama to address the challenge of climate change by appointing officials to "galvanize the equivalent of the Roosevelt-led mobilization for World War II."

Now the Democratic Party at large has taken up the mantle of a Rooseveltian climate mobilization. In 2016, the idea of a World War II-equivalent mobilization to restore a stable climate -- not simply a commitment to clean energy -- is what demonstrates to Americans a serious commitment to overcoming the climate crisis.

Secretary Clinton's acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention provides a momentous opportunity for her to double down on her advocacy of a WWII-scale mobilization to restore a safe and stable climate. If the Secretary champions a WWII-style climate mobilization, it will provide an inspiring contrast to Donald Trump's neo-isolationist "America First" approach to energy policy and global affairs. Furthermore, if she commits to holding a climate summit in the first 100 days of her administration, it will demonstrate a concrete commitment toward overcoming the climate crisis.

A principled call for a heroic mobilization to save civilization can unite Americans of all political persuasions -- including those who genuinely want to make America great again.

While Donald Trump calls the climate crisis a "Chinese Hoax" the Secretary can demonstrate her commitment to lead like FDR--to commence an "all hands on deck" mobilization that will protect our national security, create millions of new jobs, stabilize the global environment, and show American greatness.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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One part of Antarctica has been cooling since 1998 here's why  
The once fast-warming Antarctic Peninsula has cooled over the past 18 years thanks to shifting winds but global warming will soon override their effect  
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New data on bird population trends and the climate conditions they occupy  
A new study of population trends among 46 ecologically diverse bird species in North America overturns a long-held assumption that the climate conditions occupied by a species do not change over time. Instead, birds that have increased in abundance over the last 30 years now occupy a wider range of climate conditions than they did 30 years ago, and declining species occupying a smaller range.  
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Using bed bug shed skins to combat the pest  
The shed skins of bed bugs retain the 'obnoxious sweetness' smell often associated with the pests, a finding that could potentially be used to combat infestations of the insects, new research suggests.  
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Are forests of the future at risk?  
Human disturbance negatively affects the pollination and seed dispersal of forest trees an effect that can be observed in both tropical and temperate forests. This is the key result of a synthesis of 408 studies from 34 countries around the globe. In the long term, less pollination and seed dispersal is likely to reduce the ability of forests to natural regenerate.  
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Habitat needs of nestling, fledgling songbirds  
Both before and after they leave the nest, baby birds face a host of challenges. A new study examining songbird survival in the nestling and fledgling stages finds that even in the same habitat, different species face different risks and survive at different rates.  
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Photos of the Day: July 20, 2016  

Explore the news of the day with these images from around the world.  
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London sunset  

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If you want to conquer the world, conquer yourself first  

marco18678 posted a photo:

 
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Purpley  

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The Confusing Lives of Chinese-American 'Satellite Babies'  

Childcare in New York City is extremely expensive, so many Chinese families will have their children in America and immediately send them back to be cared for by relatives. Then, when they reach the age of five or six, the children return to the U.S. to be enrolled in school. In her film, Satellite Baby, Jenny Schweitzer sheds light on the trauma that these children experience after being shuttled between two worlds. More often than not, they feel like they don't belong anywhere.

 
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Visual Story: How Partisanship Hampered Obama's Presidency  
Barack Obama had hoped to bring a message of hope during his two terms as president of the United States. In many respects he succeeded, but he was often hampered by the Republican Party. A SPIEGEL Visual Story.  
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It's a beautiful day here in New York and I just received my...  

It's a beautiful day here in New York and I just received my first ever copy of “Overview” in the mail! The book looks nicer than I could have ever imagined so we decided to photograph it appropriately. Pre-orders happen to be discounted on Amazon at the moment and every copy sold will be hugely impactful for the book's awareness when it ships in the fall. If you would like support our efforts, the link to pre-order is in our profile. Thanks to my good friend @lazza____ for the steady flight and capture from Overview-1! (at New York, New York)

 
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A mello hi to the light . by Rasoul Safizadeh  

A mello hi to the light . by Rasoul Safizadeh

. . Tehran - Iran - April 2016 . ©Rasoul Safizadeh .

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Untitled by 彦融 曲

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Golden Gate at Sunrise. by Dustin Kahia  

Golden Gate at Sunrise. by Dustin Kahia

Photo by: Dustin Kahia Photography (www.dustinkahia.com) Processed with VSCOcam with a6 preset

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Splash! by Fabrizio Adurno  

Splash! by Fabrizio Adurno

Fabrizio Adurno: Photos

 
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Muay thai by sutiporn somnam  

Muay thai by sutiporn somnam

Muay thai, culture fighting thai boxing

sutiporn somnam: Photos

 
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FT3A8754.jpg by JACK.Vision  

FT3A8754.jpg by JACK.Vision

JACK.Vision: Photos

 
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An Old Trick Holds New Promise For Tastier Tomatoes  

Tomato plants grown in large-scale outdoors are often selected for hardiness more than taste. What if you could boost disease resistance, flavor and yield? Researchers think they can — by grafting.

 
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Moments Of Silence, Broken: Thoughts About Nice From 'Space'  

Dirt is awesome. Hurting people is not awesome. Let's help each other through this.

Wednesday night over dinner we argued about soil. Not argued so much as batted ideas around the way that scientists sometimes do. "That's not soil -- that's bedrock." One of us will say, "Even ground-up, it's not soil unless it can act as a nutrient source." Someone else will say, "Is the sea floor soil? It provides nutrients for ocean life." "That's a sediment, not a soil, per se," a third person will add. "Soils are a subset of sediments. As is muck," will answer that question, while opening the floor to muck-raking of a whole different kind. Soil, radiation, lava flows, orbital trajectories -- it's what's for dinner conversation. Lunchtime in the cafeteria at NASA or in the break room at Space Science Labs is very much the same.

Thursday night, instead of feasting upon ideas, we asked our French crewmate, "Have you had heard from all your loved ones back home?"

"It's night time there now," he answered. "So probably in the morning." Without another word, he turned a hard gaze to the glowing face of his laptop, willing it to fork over news about the attack in Nice.

The rest of us were silent, too. What is there to say in these moments? We cleaned up from dinner and went back to work. While I wrote this, two people repaired the hab. Another toiled away at a geology task. The fourth member of the crew coaxed a computer into running software it REALLY didn't want to run. The last of my crew is hoped that the people he knows are alive and unharmed. We were all terribly, terribly sad for his country and for the planet we call home.

One of the many great things about space is that taking life for granted becomes blessedly difficult. Every breath you take here is precious. Every morsel of food you get to consume is precious. Every person on your crew is precious whether or not you happen to like them in that moment or in general, because we all depend on each other to make it through this. The same is true on Earth. Only on Earth, our interdependence is obscenely easy to dismiss; to deny; to disregard to the point where revoking the right of other humans to breathe and eat and be there for those who depend upon them becomes a valid option. That is something we can't be silent about, now or ever. So what do we say?

We could start with something like: Hurting people is not, has not ever been, and will never be acceptable.

It's true, at least in principle. In practice, people get hurt accidentally. When that happens, we need to forgive ourselves and each other. So we specify:

Hurting people on purpose is not, has not ever been, and will never be acceptable.

This states the problem. Important people repeating this phrase over mass media would be a great step in getting all of society on the same page. We need to hear these words from our leaders and we need to say them to our kids, or co-workers, and our leaders: hurting people is not acceptable. We don't condone it or wish to live in a world where injuring others is a way of life. Let's say it out-loud and often: hurting people is not acceptable. It may dent the ratings of our more lurid reality TV shows, but let's face it, that's a good thing.

Even saying, "Hurting people is not acceptable," to myself while alone on the ground floor of a dome on simulated Mars makes me feel better -- stronger and more capable of taking positive action towards a resolution of the problem. Speaking of which: how do we resolve this problem?

A million specific things would help avoid situations like this: providing more resources to mental health; reducing poverty; increasing in regional stability; strong, non-radical leadership, and so on. Most of these are, if not complicated, hard to come by. The attainable, more general thing that we can all do is help each other through this. By this, I mean everything. Life. The old man struggling to get his groceries home in 100-degree heat or 2-foot snowbanks. Help him through this. The neighbors setting up for a party that will probably keep you awake until 2 AM. Want the social capital to ask them to turn it down? Help them set it up and you'll be that much closer. When I lived in South Central LA, I brought the nice Mexican family across the street some beer and never had to ask twice. The person stranded on the side of the road? Help her or him through this.

Is there a chance that any of these things could go horribly wrong? Sure there is. On the other hand, we don't want to live in a world where we don't help each other through this, so we have to try. It needn't be something against your nature. Whatever your nature is, whoever you are, you struggle with life. If you look around for others who are similarly struggling, you will see them. Help them through this. At least make the offer. Do it for yourself as much as for them and for everyone else on the planet. Help us through this.

I'm going to have to keep saying this, because the silence is killing me. It's killing us. In space, no one can hear you scream, or type. Fortunately, through the wonders of the Deep Space Network, people can be read and heard no matter where they are in the solar system. So let's hear it. Let's say it. What don't we do? Hurt people. What do we do? Help each other through this. Wherever we are, whatever we believe -- if we believe this, everything really will be OK.

Being human is remarkable. We have the way. All that's needed is the will. The will to help each other through this and not hurt people. How do we find the will? Someone once wrote that all things began with a word. I can get behind that. Words are all I have at the moment, anyway. Words and the will to use them over and over until we will the words into a world we want to live in -- one where hurting people is not acceptable.

So let's help each other through this thing in Nice, and whatever comes tomorrow and the day after that. Let's start our reports with, "Hurting people is not acceptable -- and now, the news." Let's talk about the terrible, unending messes as if we have the power to end them -- because we do and because anything, even fantasies of a better world, even muck, outshines silence and sorrow.


Dirt, like helping people, gives us a world worth having.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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Environmental Justice Means We Stand With Vulnerable Communities  
Environmental injustice and environmental racism are not new phenomena, and yet the scandal in Flint, Michigan shocked so many. As a result of the outrage in Flint, the Natural Resources Defense Council issued a report, What's in Your Water? Flint and Beyond, that noted Flint was not an isolated case. The reported highlighted that more than 5,300 local water systems are in violation of EPA's regulations, and states took action in 817 cases while EPA took up only 88.

One of the report's recommendations:

Address environmental injustice, allowing local communities who bear a disproportionate burden of polluted water to participate in developing solutions to drinking water infrastructure challenges.

This recommendation begs the question: where is the environmental movement in the face of all this injustice?

Yet, in 2016, in the richest country in the world, we are failing our neighbors by ignoring or not addressing the issue of clean water or environmental injustice issues. Rarely is there a larger meaningful policy discussion about these issues until it's a scandal or an outrage like Flint. While we can point fingers at every level of government, and we can argue about the enforcement of existing laws, or the jurisdictional issues that always comes into play between local, state, and federal officials, but what's worse about issues like this, are the numerous complaints that the regulators were complacent.

There is a perception that for too long there has been a cozy, compliant relationship with local authorities and federal officials and that perception has been exacerbated by the situation in Flint. The question for most laypeople is, how does this happen? One example of this cozy relationship is that federal regulators have allowed local and state regulators to use testing methods that allow them to cheat detection of lead above the legal limits. Case in point is the class-action lawsuit has been filed against the City of Philadelphia over this practice.

When regulators fail to do their jobs, community members and activists must be there to hold them accountable. But when over five thousand communities are being poisoned for years, and the authorities have gotten away with it all this time, the environmental movement must be introspective about our roles in standing up for unserved communities.

A small activist group in Puerto Rico, Puerto Rico Limpio, has been leading the charge on what many have called the next Flint. For more than a year, the organization has been protesting about municipal landfills in the territory, with local residents complaining that toxic materials were poisoning the water and ground in their neighborhoods for decades and the authorities have yet to do anything about it. Their protest reminds me of similar local activism in my own community in Warren County, when I was a state appointed official.

Local residents from poor and underserved communities who face terrible threats from big utilities and lax regulators should not have to come begging for our help. We, those who care for the poor, the environment, and injustice, should be shoulder to shoulder with these communities from the beginning, embracing their agenda as our own and fighting the injustice of unequal protection from our government.

Injustice is interconnected in vulnerable communities. It is usually the same voiceless, vulnerable communities where toxic landfills are never forced to comply with the law, where the drinking water is poisoned with lead for years without accountability, where schools are failing from the lack of funding, where police killings occur, and where children go to bed hungry at night. When we fail to fight one injustice, we often fail to overcome any of them. It's time the environmental movement revitalize its commitment to justice as a core component of its mission, or millions of vulnerable Americans, usually in communities of color, will be fighting alone against a system that is ignoring their health and safety with impunity. It's certainly time for federal regulators at the Environmental Protection Agency to intervene in Puerto Rico, we cannot afford the lack of accountability to pave the way for the next environmental injustice issue.

-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website.

 
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