1470431893000

gaia

%feed
http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fvoices.nationalgeographic.com%2F2016%2F08%2F05%2Fworking-together-research-and-water-governance-on-mount-kenya%2F&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8
Working Together: Research and Water Governance on Mount Kenya

Researchers meet with pastoralists in the Mount Kenya region. Photo by Matteo Dell'Angelo

By Kate Weiss, The National SocioEnvironmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC)

Environmental social scientist Jampel Dell'Angelo and filmmaker Matteo Dell'Angelo recently co-directed a documentary film of Elinor Ostrom's last research project. Working Together documents the challenges and successes of interdisciplinary research on smallholder climate adaptation and community water governance in semi-arid areas. The study found that involvement of all the river basin actors in a participatory way reduced social conflicts while providing more sustainable water allocation in the region. The film features water competition and governance in Kenya, which is a country that is innovative among developing countries for participatory water governance reforms.

A postdoctoral research fellow at the National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center (SESYNC), Jampel Dell'Angelo conducted over nine months of fieldwork on Mount Kenya as postdoctoral researcher at the Ostrom Workshop and coordinator of an interdisciplinary team on the U.S. National Science Foundation research project awarded to Elinor Ostrom. The film chronicles Elinor Ostrom's last research project and can be found here: http://videos4water.org/.

The Dell'Angelo brothers worked on the project alongside an interdisciplinary science team that included social science researchers from Indiana University and hydrologists from Princeton University.

Jampel Dell'Angelo has a passion for science and scholarship that has the potential to inform decisions and improve public policies. He believes multimedia can provide a powerful and inspiring means for scientific storytelling to accomplish those goals. “It's not often science makes an effort to communicate in a way that is entertaining and for larger audiences, and this documentary thanks to the involvement of my brother Matteo, makes that effort,” he says. “The film also documents the value of critical efforts to address emerging problems, such as the issues around climate change adaptation and water resources in Mt. Kenya, through real interdisciplinary research.”

Ostrom was the only woman in history to win a Nobel Prize in economics for her work on community natural resource management. Ostrom unfortunately passed away before her research team got to the field; but she was the principal investigator who received the grant from the National Science Foundation research featured in the video. http://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/19578.html/

I had the opportunity to catch up with Jampel to discuss the documentary, the research conducted in Mt. Kenya, and the implications of this research.

"In — In Working Together, Jampel Dell'Angelo and other researchers provide a glimpse into what happens when two teams of researchers combine efforts to gather important information on both human and natural systems. Here they learn about the water resource needs of villages and pastoralists in the Mount Kenya region.
Photo by Matteo Dell'Angelo. Enlarge by clicking photo.

Q: In Working Together, you provide a glimpse into what happens when two teams of researchers work together to gather important information on both human and natural systems. With so much happening on the research end, how did you begin filming this as a research narrative?

Dell'Angelo: It began both as a desire to keep Elinor Ostrom's legacy alive as well as a response to how, when I first arrived in Kenya, I was immediately touched with how much people were affected by and involved in managing water at a local level and how this really affected their lives. And all of this was happening in a scenery that was incredible and that had enormous ecological, cultural, and social variety. It was evident that this research was incredibly interdisciplinary and needed to account for an enormous amount of complexity. So, I thought, “Well, this is something that should be documented.”

Q: What were the main findings of the research?

Dell'Angelo: I think that one of the most interesting things we observed was that this system of community-water governance has a real impact on people and on how resources are allocated. We were working with 25 communities along five different river basins that had experienced increasingly elevated conflicts over water resources. This was really because the downstream users didn't have a voice to articulate their discontent and frustration when they felt the up-stream users were withdrawing too much water. The transition over to a community-based water governance drastically reduced the level of conflicts between different users.

In terms of the main bio-physical findings, we found that, with climate change, what's happening in the area isn't that there's less rainfall, but that the distribution of rain is changing. This is important, because there is a big difference between the same amount of rain falling in one month versus in six months. This has significant implications in terms of agricultural production and agricultural decision making. This raises questions of how people will adapt to these various changes in the future.

Q: Why is it important for both researchers and decision-makers to understand the human dynamics and climate impacts of Mt. Kenya's water governance?

Dell'Angelo: Kenya is a little bit of a laboratory in terms of community irrigation schemes and community water management—they are pioneers in this new system of community water governance that's also hugely affected by climate change, so they are on the front-line of new systems of governance in the face of climate change. Understanding what is happening in this area is hugely important in terms of generalizing knowledge for other areas in developing countries that face similar challenges.

Q: What do you want people to take away from this video?

Dell'Angelo: I hope people take away from this documentary a better understanding of the complexity and importance of interdisciplinary research when combined with local people and local knowledge. I think it is both a valuable resource for those interested in natural resources, sustainability, and development as well as for those who might be facing similar problems in their own communities. I hope this can be an educational and practical tool as well as an insight into a reality that many communities across the world face.

The National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center, funded through an award to the University of Maryland from the National Science Foundation, is a research center dedicated to accelerating data-driven scientific discovery at the interface of human and ecological systems. Visit us online at www.sesync.org and follow us on Twitter @SESYNC.

gaia

1470431891000

gaia

%feed
http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fpaul-watson%2Fthe-laws-of-ecology-and-t_b_11324490.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dgreen%26ir%3DGreen&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8
The Laws Of Ecology And The Survival Of The Human Species
I was raised in a small fishing village on the Passamaquoddy Bay in New Brunswick, Canada and I still vividly remember the way things were in the Fifties. The way things were then is not the way things are now.

I'm not talking about technological, industrial or scientific progress. I'm referring to the health and stability of eco-systems. What was once strong is now weak. What was once rich in diversity is now very much the poorer.

I have been blessed, or perhaps cursed, with the gift of near total recall. I see the images of the past as clearly as the days that were. As a result it has been difficult for me to adapt to diminishment. I see the shells on the beaches that are no longer there, the little crabs under the rocks, now gone, the schools of fishes, the pods of dolphins, the beaches free of plastic.

I began traveling the world in 1967 -- hitch-hiking and riding the rails across Canada; joining the Norwegian merchant marine; crossing the Pacific and Indian Oceans; traveling through Japan, Iran, Mozambique and South Africa, working as a tour guide in Turkey and Syria, co-founding the Greenpeace Foundation in 1972 and, in 1977, founding the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society.

"2016-08-04-1470340589-1361975-seashepherdfoundercaptainpaulwatson903.jpg"

Sea Shepherd founder Paul Watson some forty years ago when he founded the non-profit.

Many things that I saw then no longer exist - or have been severely damaged, changed and diminished.

In the Sixties we did not buy water in plastic bottles. In the Sixties the word 'sustainable 'was never used in an ecological context, and except for Rachel Carson, there were very few with the vision to see into the future, where we were going, what we were doing.

But slowly, awareness crept into the psyche of more and more people. People began to understand what the word ecology meant. We saw the creation of Earth Day, and in 1972, the first global meeting on the environment in Stockholm, Sweden that I covered as a journalist.

Gradually, the insight into what were doing became more prevalent and to those who understood, the price to be paid was to be labeled radicals, militants, and a new word - eco-terrorist.

The real "crime" of eco-terrorism was not burning down a ski lodge, toppling a power line or spiking a tree. Such things are only outbursts of desperation and frustration. The real crime of eco-terrorism was having thought, perception, and imagination. In other words, the questioning of the modern economic, corporate and political paradigm.

The word eco-terrorism should be more accurately used for the destruction caused by progress like the Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal or the BP Deep Water Horizon spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

"2016-08-04-1470340757-6508043-anoilrig756.jpg"

Picture of an oil rig taken during Sea Shepherd's Operation Toxic Gulf in 2014.

In the Seventies, the late Robert Hunter, along with Roberta Hunter, Dr. Patrick Moore, David Garrick, Rod Marining and myself observed and wrote down the three laws of ecology. What we realized was that these laws are the key to the survival of biodiversity on the planet and also the key to the survival of the human species. We realized that no species could survive outside of the three basic and imperative ecological laws.

The law of diversity: The strength of an eco-system is dependent upon the diversity of species within it.

The law of interdependence: All species are interdependent with each other.

The law of finite resources: There are limits to growth and limits to carrying capacity.

The increase of population in one species leads to the increase in consumption
of resources by that species. This leads to diminishment of diversity of other species, which in turn leads to diminishment of interdependence among species.

For example, increasing diminishment of phytoplankton populations in the sea is causing diminishment of many other species as well as a 40% diminishment in oxygen production since 1950. Diminishment of whale populations has contributed to the diminishment of phytoplankton populations because whale feces are a major source of nutrients (esp. iron and nitrogen) for phytoplankton.

The planet simply cannot tolerate 7.5 billion (and growing) primarily meat and fish eating necrovores. The killing of 65 billion domestic animals each year is contributing more greenhouse gases to the planet than the entire transportation industry. The industrial stripping of life from the sea is causing unprecedented biodiversity collapse in marine eco-systems.

Ecological systems globally are collapsing from coral reefs to rainforests because humanity is exploiting resources far beyond the capacity of eco-systems to create and renew natural resources.

Diminishment of eco-systems is also leading to the breakdown of human social structures causing global conflict in the form of wars and domestic violence. Terrorism is not the cause of society's problems, it is merely a symptom.

Humans are compromised by medieval paradigms like territorial dominance, hierarchical desires and superstitious beliefs combined with primitive primate behavior like greed and fear.

"2016-08-04-1470345289-7416340-bloodbathinleynarclaimedfourpregnantfemales377.jpg"

Sea Shepherd's 2010 Faeroe Islands Dolphin Defense Campaign: Operation Grindstop. Photo credit: Sea Shepherd /Sofia Jonsson

The fishing village that I lived in as a child is no longer a fishing village. The relative innocence of our lives as children of the Fifties and Sixties is no more. The African bush, the Arctic tundra, the marine reserve of the Galapagos Islands, the Great Barrier Reef, the Amazonian rainforests that I once traveled through are no longer what they recently were.

Humans have this amazing ability to adapt to diminishment. It's a trait that was exceptionally useful when we lived as hunter-gatherers. We adapted to food shortages, to changes in the weather and to the world as it evolved around us. Today we are trying to adapt to the destruction brought on by ourselves and that adaption is taking the form of more and more control by governments and corporations and a blind reliance on corporate technologies.

We no longer have the empathy we once felt. I vividly remember the events of October 23rd, 1958. I was seven years old on the day of the Springhill Mine Disaster in Nova Scotia. 75 men died and 99 were rescue. I remember crying for the fate of people I did not know and feeling excited every time a miner was brought to the surface alive. I no longer have that capacity. Perhaps I lost it when I became an adult, or perhaps society no longer has room for such emotions.

Disaster happened and we grieved for people we did not know. A few weeks ago nearly 100 people were viciously murdered within a few kilometres of where I live when a deranged man mowed them down with a large truck in Nice, France. Last week, a priest was beheaded in France. Every week brings us more stories about mass killings in the Middle East, Africa, America etc. It's a worldwide pain-fest of chaos and violence and yet it is met with complacency for the most part and a predictable Facebook posting of -- "say a prayer for Paris, or Orlando, or Nice, or Beirut, or Istanbul" in a litany of self-indulgent adaptation to tragedy, before being quickly forgotten.

This is not the world of my childhood. We remembered the horrors of World War II with real emotion. I remember talking with both World War I and World War II veterans and feeling their pain. Today it's just another short-term item on the news, in a world that seeks to escape through movies, celebrities, video games and increasingly more fanatical religious fervor.

Here is the reality. As human populations increase, the consumption of resources increases with it. But because resources are finite and the rate of renewables is overcome by demand, this can only lead to one result -- the collapse of resource availability.

And because we are literally stealing resources from other species, this will lead to
diminishment of species and habitats, which will contribute to even more resource diminishment.

"2016-08-04-1470342962-4408964-draggingontotheship273.jpg"

Sea Shepherd's 2008 Seal Defense Campaign photographs the murder and carcass dragging of a seal. Photo credit: Sea Shepherd / Greg Hager

At COP 21, I called for an end to worldwide government subsidies for industrialized fishing and at least a 50-year moratorium on commercial industrialized fishing. That solution was not given a moment's thought at a conference that did not even take into account the imperative role of the Ocean in addressing climate change.

My opinion of COP 21 is that governments were not looking for solutions. They were looking for the appearance of solutions. They certainly did not want to hear about solutions from people like me. They want solutions that are accompanied by jobs and profit. The one thing they do not want is any form of economic sacrifice.

I also do not believe that the majority of humanity -- certainly not the leadership -- understand the true gravity of the situation. There are six viewpoints concerning climate change: 1. Denial 2. Acceptance, with the view of it being a positive development. 3. Acceptance with the belief that science and technology will save the day. 4. Acceptance, but refusal to fully appreciate the consequences. 5. Apathy. 6. Acceptance with the resolve to find real solutions.

Those who are in denial have vested self interests in doing so, motivated primarily by greed or ignorance. My old Greenpeace colleague Patrick Moore sees climate change as an opportunity for longer growing seasons and better weather. (He lives in Canada and I don't think he's really thought it through.) Others like Elon Musk see our salvation in science, in moving off-world or developing artificial eco-systems on Earth. Most responsible world leaders recognize the problem but are too politically-impotent to address it with realistic solutions because those solutions would not be politically popular. And as with everything, the majority of the world is apathetic and too self-absorbed with entertaining themselves (developed world) or surviving (underdeveloped world).

On this path we are on now, the future is somewhat predictable. More resource wars, more poverty, more accumulation of wealth by the minority of privileged people, more disease, more civil strife and with the collapse of biodiversity - global mass starvation, and pestilence.

The rich tapestry of all our cultures and all our achievements in science and the arts hangs by threads linked to biodiversity.

If the bees are diminished, our crops are diminished. If the forests are diminished, we are diminished. If phytoplankton dies, we die! If the grasses die, we die!

We exist because of the geo-engineering contributions of millions of diverse species that keep our life support systems running. From bacteria to whales, from algae to the redwoods. If we undermine the foundations of this planetary life-support system, all that we have ever created will fall. We will be no more.

We made the mistake of declaring war on nature, and because of our technologies it looks like we are going to win this war. But because we are a part of nature, we will destroy ourselves in the process. Our enemy is ourselves and we are slowly becoming aware of that indisputable fact. We are destroying ourselves in a fruitless effort to save the image of what we believe ourselves to be.

In this war, we are slaughtering -- through direct or indirect exploitation -- millions of species and reducing their numbers to dangerously low levels while at the same time increasing human numbers to dangerously high levels.

"2016-08-04-1470343170-9873528-dolphinoffalandintestines645.jpg"

Dolphin offal and intestines photographed during the 2011-12 Taiji Dolphin Defense Campaign. Photo credit: Sea Shepherd / Christoph Heylen

We are fighting this war against nature with chemicals, industrialized equipment, ever increasing extraction technologies (like fracking) and repression against any and all voices that rise up in dissent.

In our wake over the past two centuries we have left a trail of billions of bodies. We have tortured, slain, abused and wasted so many lives, obliterated entire species; and reduced rich diverse eco-systems to lifeless wastelands as we polluted the seas, the air and the soil with chemicals, heavy metals, plastic, radiation and industrialized farm sewage.

We were once horrified by the possibility of a Chernobyl or a Fukushima. But the accidents happened and we adapted and accepted. Now we are complacent.

In the process we are becoming sociopathic as a species. We are losing the ability to express empathy and compassion. We idolize soldiers, hunters, and resource developers without giving a thought to their victims. We revel in violent fantasies hailing two-dimensional fantasy killers as heroes. We have become increasingly more Darwinian in our outlook that the weak (other species) must perish so that the strong (ourselves) may survive. We forget that Darwinism recognizes the laws of ecology and we cannot pick and choose when it comes to the laws of nature. In the end nature controls us, we do not control nature.

The consequences of our actions are not going to happen centuries from now. They are going to happen within this century. Oceanic ecosystems are collapsing -- now! The planet is getting warmer -- now! Phytoplankton is being diminished -- now!

To be blunt -- the planet is dying now, and we are killing it!

From what I have experienced and from what I see there is only one thing that can prevent us from falling victim to the consequences of ignoring the laws of ecology.

We must shake off the anthropocentric mindset and embrace a biocentric understanding of the natural world. We can do this because we have wonderful teachers in indigenous communities worldwide who have lived biocentric lifestyles for thousands of years just as our species all once did. We need to learn to live in harmony with other species.

We need to establish a moratorium on industrialized fishing, logging and farming.

We need to stop producing goods that have no intrinsic value -- all the useless plastic baubles for entertainment and self-indulgence. We need to stop mass-producing plastic that is choking our global seas. We need to stop injecting poisons into the soil and dumping toxins into the sea. We need to abolish cultural practices that destroy life for the sole purpose of entertaining ourselves.

Of course it won't be easy but do we really want the epitaph for our species to be, "Well we needed the jobs?"

Without ecology there is no economy.

I am not a pessimist and I've never been prone to pessimistic thoughts. There are solutions. We see people of compassion, imagination and courage around us working to make this a better world -- devoting themselves to protecting species and habitats; finding organic agricultural alternatives; and developing more eco-friendly forms of energy production. Innovators, thinkers, activists, artists, leaders and educators -- these people are among us and their numbers are growing.

It is often said that the problems are overwhelming and the solutions are impossible. I don't buy this. The solution to an impossible problem is to find an impossible solution.

It can be done. In 1972, the very idea that Nelson Mandela would one day be President of South Africa was unthinkable and impossible -- yet the impossible became possible.

It's never easy but it is possible and possibilities are achieved through courage, imagination, passion and love.

I learned from the Mohawks years ago that we must live our lives by taking into account the consequences of our every action on all future generations of all species.

If we love our children and grandchildren we must recognize that their world will not be our world. Their world will be greatly diminished and unrecognizable from the world of our childhoods. Each and every child born in the 21st Century is facing challenges that no human being has ever faced in the entire history of our species:

Emerging pathogens from the permafrost. (Just this summer, an anthrax virus from a recently thawed reindeer carcass broke out killing 1,500 reindeer and hospitalizing 13 people in Russia.) Eruptions of methane opening huge craters in the earth in Siberia, mass-accelerated extinction of plants and animals, pollution, wars and more wars, irrational violence in the form of individual, religious and state terrorism, the collapse of entire eco-systems.

This is not doom and gloom fear mongering. It is simply a realistic observation of the consequences of our deliberately ignoring of the laws of ecology. I call it the Cassandra Principle.

Cassandra was the prophetess of ancient Troy whose curse was the ability to see the future and to have everyone dismiss her prophecies. No one listened to her, instead they ridiculed her. Yet she was right. All that she predicted came to pass and Troy was destroyed.

Years ago I had a critic in the media label me as a doom and gloom Cassandra. I replied, "Maybe, but don't forget one thing. Cassandra was right."

"2016-08-04-1470346349-3492535-sscsgalapagosdirectorseanohearngimenezonasharkfinningarrestoperation226.jpg"

Sea Shepherd's Galapagos Director Sean O'Hearn-Gimenez on a shark finning arrest operation om 2007.

And over the years I have made predictions (that were ridiculed and dismissed) that have come true. In 1982 I publicly predicted the collapse of the North Atlantic Cod fishery. It happened a decade later. In 1978 I predicted the destruction of one half of the African elephant population in Defenders magazine. I was wrong. Some two thirds of the population have been destroyed. In 1984, I predicted ecological destruction by salmon farms including the spreading of viruses to wild salmon populations. Every prediction was based on observation with reference to the laws of ecology and every prediction was dismissed.

Nothing has changed. Today I am predicting the death of worldwide coral reef eco-systems by 2025, the total collapse of worldwide commercial fishing operations by 2030; and the emergence of more virulent viral diseases in the coming decades. It does not take any exceptional foresight to predict that war will be the major business of the next half-century, as well as the rise of more authoritarian governments.

Recently my old friend Rod Marining, also a co-founder of Greenpeace, said to me: "The transformation of human consciousness on a mass scale can not happen, unless there are two factors. First, a huge mass visual death threat to survival of our species, and two, the threat of the loss of a people's jobs or their values. Once theses two factors are in place humans begin to transform their thinking over night."

I have seen the future written in the patterns of our behavior, and it is not a pleasant future, in fact it is not much of a future at all.

The four horses have arrived. As death sits astride the pale horse, the other three horses of pestilence, famine and war and terrorism are stampeding at full gallop toward us while our backs are turned away from them. And when they trample us, we may look up from our latest entertainment triviality to see ourselves in the dust of the ecological apocalypse.

I also see the possibility of salvation. By listening to the words and observing the actions of indigenous people. By looking into the eyes of our children. By stepping outside the circle of anthropocentrism. By understanding that we are part of the Continuum. By refusing to participate in the anthropocentric illusion. By embracing biocentrism and fully understanding the laws of ecology, and the fact that these laws cannot -- must not -- be ignored if we wish to survive.

-- 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.

gaia

1470431512000

science

%feed
http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fbrian-hughes%2Fthe-myth-of-moral-ambiguity_b_11337002.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dscience%26ir%3DScience&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8
The Myth Of Moral Ambiguity In Autonomous Cars

"2016-08-04-1470336740-4285115-DriverlessCars.jpg"

Image source: PhotoDune

When most vehicle manufacturers expect autonomous cars to be on the market by 2019 ― with more than 10 million on roads in 2020 ― one would expect people to start considering the various issues driverless cars create. For example, there are thousands of legal considerations to make, especially because different states or countries might enact different regulations on autonomous vehicles, preventing their owners from traveling from one place to another.

Yet, most people find these practical concerns incredibly dull. A much more exciting topic in regards to driverless cars is, surprisingly, ethics. Thanks to articles in the Atlantic (and elsewhere), giant swaths of the population have begun to question whether we can trust robot cars to make correct ethical decisions. What most people don't realize, however, is that these conversations are absolutely meaningless.

A Brief Discussion of Robots

Almost since their inception (in a 1920 Czech play) robots have incited discussions about ethics. Especially as science and tech inches ever closer to humanoid machines and artificial intelligence, people are becoming more concerned about the management of robots in all their forms. As we continue to establish egalitarian order in our society, discussions about robots are becoming more and more prevalent.

In simple terms, robots are not people, but by adding human-like traits to robots, such as voices, humanoid shape, or facial features, causes most humans to see the machines almost as equals. A handful of organizations have developed in support of robot rights; conversely, as robots continue to hijack vast numbers of jobs, other people are developing feelings of antipathy toward unconscious technology.

The Most Popular Ethical Issue with Driverless Cars

However, these ethical concerns are not the most popular discussions about autonomous cars. More commonly, non-academic writers and readers prefer to examine what is commonly called "The Trolley Problem." Undoubtedly, you've heard of it before:

A runaway trolley is careening down the street, heading toward a group of pedestrians who are milling about on the tracks. The trolley's conductor is limited in her ability to mitigate the damage; she can allow the trolley to continue on its course, hitting the crowd and causing injury to many people, or she can flip a switch, directing the trolley down an alternate route where the tracks are blocked by a lone child, who will certainly die from the collision.

There are dozens of variations of the trolley problem. In one, it is not the conductor's dilemma, but a bystander's, who has the opportunity to sacrifice one person for the sake of others. In another tale, the trolley conductor has the opportunity to derail the trolley, harming the people inside rather than anyone outside.

We only need to tweak the typical trolley problem to apply it to driverless cars:

"A driverless car is moving at speed on a crowded highway. An obstacle appears in the car's lane, forcing it to make a decision: It can swerve right to collide with an SUV, swerve left to hit a motorcyclist, or continue straight and certainly crash into the obstacle."

In each instance, the driverless car causes harm, but it is the robot car who decides the recipient of the harm. Again, there are several variations, some much more similar to the original trolley problem, but each raises a significant ethical question: Can we trust a car to make the right choice?

The Real Ethical Problems Driverless Cars Face

Most of us have driven cars for most of our lives, amassing thousands of miles on the road, and few (if any) have ever experienced such an unbearable ethical choice. Even putting aside the unlikelihood of such a scenario, we must remember that a human driver would never experience the opportunity to make a decision; rather, with only fractions of a second, human drivers would unconsciously react with little regard for costs or benefits or moral justice. If it isn't an ethical decision for a driver, it can hardly be an ethical decision for a robot car.

In actuality, no machines have the power to make decisions ever, regardless of time frame. Robots function because they have to, and the "decisions" they make are only protocols written by their programmers. Therefore, a more pressing ethical question when it comes to driverless cars is that of blame: If an autonomous vehicle malfunctions, who is responsible for the harm it causes? It could be the owner, manufacturer, or programmer.

In a traditional car collision, the drivers are under investigation, unless the collision is the result of machine malfunction, like Ford's potential brake failures, in which case the manufacturer is at fault. Yet in a driverless car, a collision should only occur when it cannot be avoided ― in which case, is it the liability of the programmer for not foreseeing such a situation?

Bottom Line:

These ethical problems are more pressing because they could stall the release of driverless cars onto the market. Before we can put autonomous vehicles on the road, manufacturers, insurers, and legislators must make a decision ― and not one that has anything to do with a trolley.

-- 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.

science

1470429791000

robots

%feed
http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fredirect.viglink.com%2F%3Fu%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.slate.com%252Farticles%252Ftechnology%252Ffuture_tense%252F2016%252F08%252Ftesla_says_autopilot_is_saving_lives_should_we_believe_it.html%26key%3Dddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8
r0B0t: Code Is My Co-pilot

On a balmy Tuesday afternoon in late July, 37-year-old attorney Joshua Neally left work early. He climbed into his new Tesla Model X to drive the 45 minutes from law office in Springfield, Missouri, to his house in Branson, Missouri. He was going home to celebrate his daughter's fourth birthday.

He steered the electric luxury SUV into the gathering rush-hour traffic on Highway 68 and turned on autopilot, a feature unique to Tesla that allows a car to pilot itself—braking, accelerating, steering—for long stretches of freeway driving. It's a feature that has drawn rebukes from rival companies and sparked investigations by federal regulators after a driver named Joshua Brown was killed in a crash in Florida while using it. Although a Tesla with autopilot is not a true self-driving car, the company's technology has become a bellwether for Silicon Valley's ambition to replace human drivers with software.

Neally knew about the Florida crash and the furor that followed. But he had already ordered his Model X after years of waiting and saving, and he was undeterred. When it arrived, he nicknamed it Ender, after the protagonist in the novel Ender's Game. By July 26, after a week of driving the Model X, he had grown to cautiously trust it to handle the bulk of his hilly, curvy, sometimes traffic-y commute. “I'm not a daredevil,” he told me. “I promised my wife I'd always be paying attention.” He doesn't drive hands-free, or play Jenga, or nod off, or watch Harry Potter movies, as Brown may have been doing when he plowed into the trailer of a semi truck. He admits, however, that he sometimes checks email or sends text messages on his phone.

Neally was about 5 miles out of Springfield, near a set of interchanges just beginning to clog with merging vehicles, when he felt something coil and stiffen in his abdomen. At first he thought it was a pulled muscle. But the pain forked upward from his stomach, he said, until it felt like “a steel pole through my chest.” When it refused to subside, Neally remembers calling his wife and agreeing through gasps that he should probably go to the emergency room.

He doesn't remember much of the drive after that.

Doctors in Branson told Neally later that he'd suffered a pulmonary embolism, a potentially fatal obstruction of a blood vessel in his lungs. They told him he was lucky to have survived. If you ask Neally, however, he'll tell you he was lucky to be driving a Tesla. As he writhed in the driver's seat, the vehicle's software negotiated 20-plus highway miles to a hospital just off an exit ramp. He manually steered it into the parking lot and checked himself into the emergency room, where he was promptly treated. By night's end he had recovered enough to go home.

Did autopilot save Neally? It's hard to say. He acknowledges that, in retrospect, it might have been more prudent to pull over and call an ambulance. But the severity of what was happening dawned on him slowly, and by the time it had, he reckoned he could reach the hospital quicker via autopilot than ambulance. He also wonders whether, without autopilot, he might have lost control of the car and in effect become a deadly projectile when those first convulsions struck.

Neally's experience is unusual. It doesn't prove autopilot's worth as a safety feature any more than Brown's death disproves it. Yet Neally's story is the latest of several that have emerged since the Florida crash to paint a fuller picture of autopilot's merits, in addition to its by now highly publicized dangers. These stories provide at least a measure of anecdotal support for Tesla's claims that its own data show autopilot—imperfect as it is—is already significantly safer than the average human driver.

That's going to be a tough sell, though, to the public and regulators alike. Brown's death ignited a backlash that had been brewing since Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced autopilot in a heavily hyped, Steve Jobslike launch event in October 2014. Rival car companies felt from the start that Tesla was rolling out autonomous driving features too aggressively, before the technology was safe enough to earn consumers' trust. The skepticism intensified after Tesla activated the feature last fall, and drivers immediately began posting YouTube videos of themselves abusing it. Tesla calls autopilot a “beta” feature and requires the driver to agree to pay full attention and keep hands on the wheel while it's in use. But, despite some safety checks introduced in January, the car will still drive itself if the driver goes hands-free.

By mid-July, when a second Tesla Model S crashed while on autopilot on an undivided highway in Montana, Tesla had become the subject of three federal investigations. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration was looking into the cause of the Florida crash. The National Transportation Safety Board was examining whether autonomous driving technology was a hazard to safety. Even the Securities and Exchange Commission opened a probe into claims by Fortune magazine that Musk had failed to disclose the Florida autopilot crash to investors in a timely manner, even as he sold some of his own stock in the company. (Tesla has vehemently disputed the claims.)

It added up to a grim cloud over both the company and self-driving car technology, whose future depends on drivers, bureaucrats, and chest-pounding politicians all agreeing to place human lives in the hands of potentially deadly robots. Even Consumer Reports, which has championed the Tesla Model S as one of the greatest cars ever made, called for Tesla to disable autopilot until the technology became more reliable.

“By marketing their feature as ‘Autopilot,' Tesla gives consumers a false sense of security,” Consumer Reports Vice President Laura MacCleery said. “In the long run, advanced active safety technologies in vehicles could make our roads safer. But today, we're deeply concerned that consumers are being sold a pile of promises about unproven technology.”

I'm among the critics who have suggested, both before and after the furor over Brown's death, that Tesla had implemented and publicized the technology in a potentially perilous way. Despite its name, Tesla's autopilot feature does not give the cars full autonomy, like the concept vehicles made by Google that you might spot tooling around Mountain View, California. The first time I test-drove a Tesla with autopilot, I wrote a review calling it “a safety feature that could be dangerous,” because it encourages drivers to relax while relying on them to take over at a moment's notice. After Brown's death, I wrote that the entire autopilot concept might be flawed.

Yet Tesla insists that calls for it to disable autopilot are shortsighted. In fact, the company argues that the critics have it backward: Given that its internal testing data suggest the feature drives more safely than humans do, Tesla maintains that it would be irresponsible and dangerous not to offer autopilot to its customers.

It's a typically brash stance from a company that has never backed down from a public relations battle, and it's tempting to dismiss it as another example of Musk's hubris. Yet, as usual, Tesla makes a strong case for itself. Pressed to defend autopilot's safety record, the company disclosed to me the process by which it tested and eventually decided to activate the feature to consumers.

First, the company developed the software and tested it in millions of miles' worth of computer simulations, using real-world driving data gathered by the sensors on the company's cars. Next it activated autopilot in about 300 vehicles driven by the company's own testers, who drove it every day and subjected it to challenging circumstances. (Musk was among them.) Then it introduced autopilot “inertly” via software update into the vehicles of existing Tesla drivers for a testing phase that it called “silent external validation.” In this mode, the autopilot software logged and analyzed every move it would have made if active but could not actually control the vehicle. In this way, Tesla gained millions of miles' worth of data on autopilot's performance in consumers' vehicles before it ever took effect. Finally, the company activated the feature for some 900 consumers who volunteered to test it and provide subjective feedback. Throughout the process, Tesla says, it released updates to improve the software, and by the end it was clear to the company that drivers would be safer on the road with autopilot than without it. At that point, Tesla argues, it would have been a disservice to its drivers to keep the feature inactive.

Without taking Tesla's word for it, it's tough to empirically validate Musk's contention that autopilot is already saving a significant number of lives. One confounding factor is that we're less likely to hear about it when something goes right with self-driving features than when something goes wrong. Given that Tesla says it anonymizes its tracking data for customers' privacy, there's no way for the public to know about these close calls unless drivers self-report them, as Neally did to Tesla after his pulmonary embolism. (Neally agreed to tell his story to Slate after I asked the company for real-world examples of autopilot functioning as a critical safety feature.) Even when we do know about these, it's hard to prove the counterfactual that someone would have died if the automation hadn't kicked in.

Still, Neally's case isn't the first in which Tesla safety features appear to have averted catastrophe. In Washington on July 16, a Model S was driving on New York Avenue when a pedestrian stepped in front of it. The car slammed on its own brakes, and no one was hurt. The incident was glossed in headlines as one in which autopilot may have saved a pedestrian's life. That isn't quite accurate, though: Autopilot was turned off at the time, the company told me. It was actually Tesla's automatic emergency braking system that kicked in. That's a safety feature that dozens of other car models already offer and which may come standard in all U.S.-made vehicles by 2022. Tesla deserves credit for implementing it, but not for pioneering it.

In another instance, the dashcam on an Uber driver's Model S captured a scary close call in which a sedan suddenly turned left in front of him, at night, in the rain, with no time to steer around it. Before the driver could react, the Model S braked sharply. It jerked to a stop a few feet from the car, which it otherwise would have plowed into broadside. In that case, it appears that autopilot was in fact engaged.

Meanwhile, the NHTSA has concluded that the fatal Florida crash should not set back efforts to make the roads saver through automation. The auto industry “cannot wait for perfect” to develop and deploy potentially lifesaving technology, NHTSA head Mark Rosekind said.

It's fair to remain skeptical when Musk claims that autopilot would save 500,000 lives a year if it were deployed universally. Unless the company were to release all its testing and tracking data, which it declines to do, we can't possible verify its calculations. One of the few specific figures that the company publicized in its blog post was that autopilot had been safely used in more than 130 million miles of driving before the first fatality, which is a higher ratio of miles to deaths than the U.S. or global averages. But just one more autopilot-related fatality tomorrow would undermine that claim. The math required to demonstrate conclusively that autopilot is safer than human drivers would be more nuanced, examining injury accidents as well as fatalities and controlling for biases such as the recommended use of autopilot predominantly on highways under favorable driving conditions.

What we know at this point is that autopilot can hurt or kill people if used improperly and that it also has the potential to save people. It's also fair to assume that the technology will get safer over time as Tesla and other companies study and learn from its errors. The only question is whether the public can or should tolerate its rare mistakes in the meantime.

This article is part of Future Tense, a collaboration among Arizona State University, New America, and Slate. Future Tense explores the ways emerging technologies affect society, policy, and culture. To read more, follow us on Twitter and sign up for our weekly newsletter.

robots

1470429783000

robots

%feed
http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fredirect.viglink.com%2F%3Fu%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fwww.slate.com%252Fblogs%252Fbrowbeat%252F2016%252F08%252F04%252Fsuicide_squad_fans_are_right_about_rotten_tomatoes.html%26key%3Dddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8
r0B0t: Suicide Squad Fans Who Want to Shut Down Rotten Tomatoes Want The Right Thing for the Wrong Reason

Uproxx reported Wednesday that a possibly tongue-in-cheek petition on Change.org to shut down critic aggregation site Rotten Tomatoes was attracting sincere support from fans of Suicide Squad, who were unhappy about the film's overwhelmingly negative reviews. To be precise, the petition, which now has more than 17,000 signatures, said:

We need this site to be shut down because It's Critics always give The DC Extended Universe movies unjust Bad Reviews, Like

1- Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice 2016

2- Suicide Squad 2016

and that Affects people's opinion even if it's a really great movies

There's a lot wrong with this petition, from the idea that Rotten Tomatoes somehow controls the opinion of the critics who didn't like the DC movies to the idea that a bad review should spoil the fun of an individual viewer who likes these films. But I'm shocked to report that I've found common ground with of people who believe that critics care in the slightest about DC vs. Marvel. I, too, think Rotten Tomatoes is a terrible thing for films—and not just Suicide Squad. Not because it “Affects people's opinion even if it's a really great movies,” or even because of problems with the model (a three out of five star rating is marked “fresh,” instead of “mediocre”), but because it uses a model at all. Rotten Tomatoes encourages a math-driven approach to something that is inherently personal and subjective. If your opinion about a work of art can be expressed as a number, it's not a very interesting opinion.

This is not to say that math has no place in writing about art; in fact, critics would greatly benefit from using it more. There's no music without rhythm and harmony, no poetry without meter, no prose without structure. In film, editing, shot composition, and story structure are all well-suited to quantitative criticism, to seeking to answer the question of how a film works or doesn't work. By the same token, we could probably spend more time talking about the qualitative aspects of math: Cantor's diagonalisation proof is a beautiful castle built on air; the Pythagorean theorem's various proofs by rearrangement are so grounded they don't need language at all. Our personal aesthetic and qualitative responses to great works of mathematics, like quantitative formal analysis of great works of art, can help us understand them better. But there's little value in assigning a number to how much we liked them. The interesting questions are “Why?” and “How?,” not “How much?”

There's nothing wrong with the question “Should I see this movie?,” and criticism can definitely help answer it. But the right way to find an answer is to consult one or two critics whose taste you trust, not a thousand critics you don't know. In fact, a review that talks about why and how a film works written by a critic whose tastes are completely different from yours will tell you much more about whether you, personally, might enjoy it than a “fresh” or “rotten” rating. Things don't get better by adding more voices to the din, they get worse. One of the greatest harms aggregators like Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic do is convincing people that there's value in aggregation to begin with, that by asking enough people the same dumb question, a Rotten Tomato score will approach some mythical asymptote of objectivity. This is the logic that says that one shitty mortgage is a bad investment, but a thousand shitty mortgages are solid gold. Once you buy that, attacking critics whose opinions are “wrong” is an easy step to take. They're out of step with objective reality, as determined by math, so they must have an ulterior motive. The problem with the Rotten Tomatoes petition isn't the goal, it's that the person who wrote it has clearly internalized all the faulty premises the site is based on.

There's a larger argument here about the way aggregate scores dovetail neatly with our technocratic urge for assigning metrics to everything, which inexorably leads toward miserable people crying in their cubicles and collapsing from heatstroke—but it's probably unfair to lay scientific management at the feet of Rotten Tomatoes. Although Taylorism may be a garbage idea from a garbage culture, profit is undeniably quantifiable: artistic value just isn't. And from that initial category error, misery flows like blood from a wound, from fans who are genuinely sad and furious that someone is hurting their film's score to critics who have to deal with their harassment campaigns. Video game companies are even linking compensation to Metacritic scores: It looks like some kind of objective way of measuring the work a developer did; coincidentally, it's a hell of a lot cheaper than sharing profits. And so the loop of bullshit closes: The same internet hordes who attack critics who pan a big game can, correctly, say that those critics are hurting the game's creators financially. (To my knowledge, no critic has asked to be part of any company's human resources system, nor are any of them being paid for writing employee evaluations.) But in the HR spirit, here's some data-driven results-oriented analysis: The New Soviet Man this system produces is not James Agee but Milo Yiannopoulos, quantifying the value of other human beings like a deranged Nazi robot. (Not coincidentally, he's also an internet terrorist who allies himself with actual Nazis.) No thanks.

This is not to say that using Rotten Tomatoes will necessarily turn you into a Nazi. It's an aesthetic choice like any other. You can choose to understand the world around you by boiling down very complicated, personal responses from a wide variety of people to a single number. You can choose to be offended when your own response to something doesn't match the “objective” rating you've conjured out of thin air. But like any aesthetic choice, this too can be qualitatively described. So here's how I, personally, respond to Rotten Tomatoes, a website that assigns aggregate numbers to works of art. It's uninspired. It's boring. It's ugly. You can be on the side of Cogentiva or you can be on the side of Enlightened. I know which one I choose. After all, it's 86-percent fresh.

robots

1470427633000

science

%feed
http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fjoy-a-dryer-phd%2Fcan-mutual-gaze-get-you-a_b_11343720.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dscience%26ir%3DScience&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8
Can Mutual Gaze Get You A Forever Passionate Love?
By Joy A. Dryer , Ph.D.

I. INTRO. Do you believe that intense romantic love can last a lifetime? OR, alternatively, do you believe that love naturally develops through phases? General phases such as the 3 that Margaret Mead is said to have defined: apparently she thought every woman needed three husbands: one for youthful sex, one for security while raising children, and one for joyful companionship in old age.

August is a good time to ask such long view questions. August is a kick-back month for many. Fewer folks in the office. Many on vacation. I hope you've taken a little time off from daily routines - maybe a few long weekends when you can kick up your feet and look at .... well ...along with a colorful garden...some beautiful view...... to look really look at your partner.

I'm here to tell you that mutual gaze with your partner is one way psychologists and neuroscientists have found you can know your partner more intimately, and help your passionate love last a lifetime.

Mutual eye gaze between you and your partner can help you learn to read, to understand, and to know one another better. Mutual gaze can help you feel more connected because it's emotionally arousing: your pupils dilate, the 'feel good' oxytocin neuropeptide releases. Try this exercise [3 minutes a night?] : you can use it to fight well. To soothe. To repair.

Here's the Gazing Exercise developed by Stan Tatkin, PsyD,[1] founder of PACT [Psychobiologic Approach to Couples Therapy][1]. Gaze quietly into your partner's eyes. [Not meant to be a sexual activity.] You can lie in bed or sit in facing chairs, knee to knee. No need to talk or to touch: ok to laugh, cry, giggle, or have whatever emotion arises. Try not to control your face. You can avoid feeling self-conscious by pouring your attention over your partner's face: notice every detail ...changes in his/ her eyes, face, skin color, skin tautness, breathing, muscle tension. I.e. your focus is on the Other, not on your own internal shifts or feelings. Look and be seen, just as you are. Know and be known, just as you are.

No need to set a timer. But try to do at least 3 minutes. Afterwards, notice how you both feel. Closer? Or more distant? Uncomfortable at any point? Triggered by what? If discomfort resolved, how?

This exercise can be a constructive and fun tool to use in your relationship. Below I describe why mutual eye gaze is so effective in oh so many let-me-count-the-ways.

II. MUTUAL EYE GAZE: Here's lookin' at you Kid. Baby researchers since the 1970's [2] showed us how babies' intense gaze at their mothers [or fathers] is a crucial psychological process of finding out who they are, and how to be in relationship with another. Present day psychologists are using the same gaze to help couples to know and to relate better to one another.

III. OUR PUPILS: Consciousness and Our unconscious. Scientists say they can study consciousness by observing pupil size changes. I'd add, that pupillary action and mutual gaze reflects our unconscious too! because our pupils involuntarily respond to our emotions.

When we look at someone we love, the visual cortex at the back of our brain [occipital lobe] captures the actual image. An older part of the brain, the autonomic nervous system [ANS] , actually registers and responds to these incoming signals. Our ANS regulates, without our awareness or permission, the continuous tuning of our pupil size [along with other involuntary functions including our internal organs such as our heart rate, heart rate variation, and blood pressure].

Our pupil size reflects both the Sympathetic [the accelerator, the exciting] branch - dilating our pupils -- and the Parasympathetic branch [the brakes, the relaxing] - constricting our pupils - branch. In a healthy secure relationship, when we feel safe, we can regulate our arousal state, balancing between excitement and tranquility. This occurs when both these branches of our ANS are in a synchronized balance of movement and stillness, self-activation and self-control. When you do the exercise I describe above, you both will likely be in a balanced state of what Tatkin [1] calls "quiet alertness."

IV. PUPIL SIZE and OXYTOCIN: Gazing is exciting. In our social interactions with another, we need to make quick assessments whether we are in a safe or dangerous situation, or with a safe or dangerous person. It turns out that when your pupils dilate with interest, arousal, or excitement, oxytocin is released. This is the "feel good" neuropeptide, or hormone, that plays a central role in enhancing emotions, communicating, and socially approaching others.

A slew of studies used double blind methods in which they randomly gave either the placebo or Oxytoxin [ administered through the nose] to participants. Results significantly showed that compared to the placebo groups, the Oxytocin groups a) gazed longer and more frequently toward angry vs. happy faces [3]; b) showed increased number of fixations and total gaze time toward the eyes [4] ; c) showed increased ability to read emotion more accurately in the eyes in the RMET - Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test [5].[Google the RMET.]

V. ATTACHMENT and OXYTOCIN: We're connected. Using oxytocin as the positive indicator of attachment, neuroscientists have used fMRI techniques to show what parts of the brain are activated when a pair is gazing at one another. They've discovered that similar areas of the brain light up when studying mutual gaze between parent-infant pairs who are attached to one another, and adult pairs who are attached. Some of these brain regions, like the substantia nigra, globus pallidus, and thalamus showed a high density of oxytocin and vasopressin receptors. [6]

Both oxytocin and vasopressin as "feel good" hormones flag these areas as dopamine-rich areas of the brain. In turn, dopamine is the primary neurotransmitter of the feel-good circuit in the brain, associated with reward, motivation, and wanting. You "feel good" while gazing at your partner. So you continue the same approach behavior. This feels good so it reinforces the continued positive loop.

VI. MUTUAL EYE GAZE: Start here. Go! So mutual gaze is the entry point into that feel-good circuit loop. We all can learn to read and to know our partners well. We can use this exercise to fight well. To soothe. To repair. Both Stan Tatkin in his PACT work with couples, and Helen Fisher and her research colleagues believe that romantic love c a n last a lifetime. And, mutual gaze is one way to keep curious and knowing, to keep your relationship feeling novel and exciting.

SUM. Thus we've come full circle to understand that gazing at one's partner is an exciting event. Our pupils dilate automatically, out of our awareness. Because the "feel good" neuropeptide oxytocin [a chemical communicator, or transmitter] is released when stimulated by mutual gaze, you "feel good" while gazing into the eyes of your partner. Thus, you can use mutual gaze in numerous positive ways. The kids can be clamoring at the breakfast table, and a minute gaze across the table at one another can be a quiet connecting moment. You might be in the middle of a fight, and if one of you can remember to slow down, touch the other's arm and say, Hey! Lookin at you, Babe ! Stay for a moment, you could change the emotional interaction.

So try this mutual gaze with your partner: kick back.... stop time... and be known by one another with a few minutes of gaze. Enjoy. Here's lookin' at you, kid.

REFERENCES. In the interest of space, and the general public audience nature of this blog, I have not included a Reference list of the studies I've read: [1] Tatkin, S. 2011; [2] Stern, D. 1985, Beebe, B 2016; 3] Guastella, JA., Carson, DS. et al, 2008; [4](Guastella, JA, Mitchell PB, Dadds, MR, 2008; [5] Domes, G. et al, 2007; [6] Fisher, H.,1992; Acevedo, BP, et al 2011. If interested in specific references, email me at jdryerphd@gmail.com. As always, I invite your comments to this blog. And follow me on Twitter @joydryerphd.

-- 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.

science

1470423829000

gaia

%feed
http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fdana-ellis-hunnes%2Fan-open-letter-to-our-pol_b_11271096.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dgreen%26ir%3DGreen&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8
An Open Letter To Our Politicians. Please Protect Our Oceans Now!

Dear Politicians and Elected Officials,

Our oceans are in peril. There is too much plastic in them. Plastic suffocates and strangles marine wildlife who consume it, thinking it is food.

The oceans have far too many chemicals in them; recklessly dumped with abandon.

We have removed and/or finned too many sharks and fish. Ecosystems are in danger. We are testing the oceans' ability to sustain life.

Carbon, methane, and nitrous oxide emissions are released into the atmosphere daily from transportation, energy, agriculture, and animal agriculture. These emissions not only affect global temperatures and the atmosphere, they also affect the pH of the oceans, and the ecosystems that existed long before humans came along.

Look, I know you're busy working on other important issues. I know you've been working on issues of "green energy," endangered species protections, and transportation improvements. But, what about the oceans? Over the years, most of your focus has been directed towards land, land animals, and fossil fuels.

I get it, we live on land, we understand land. Yet, even here, we are "missing the boat." After all, there are only 25,000 Rhinos left, and elephants are brutally murdered every 15 minutes! I get it. Something's gotta give.

But, moving forward, I do ask; please spend as much time and effort on our oceans; rather, more time! They sure do seem to get the short shrift.

FACTS ABOUT OUR OCEANS:

Did you know that our oceans cover 70% of the earths surface? Did you know that the oceans account for 90% of all habitable space on earth? Yet, did you know that less than 1% of our oceans are currently protected?

The oceans absorb nearly 50% of the carbon we emit, and produce nearly 50% of Earth's oxygen.

The oceans give us air to breathe, and water to drink (though indirectly.) We have removed more than 80-90% of our large fish. Many whale populations remain threatened and still hunted by some (Japan, Iceland, Norway, Faroe Islands).

We have dumped agricultural wastes, chemicals, and pollution into our oceans, creating dead zones where marine-life cannot live! These chemicals have
also affected marine-animals ability to reproduce!

Instead, we need to spend more effort, time, resources, and conservation dollars to protect this most vital of ALL resources. We need to protect the
oceans; or, at the very least, think about them and act on them, as much as we do our lands and the animals that live there. Protecting only 1% of our
oceans is NOT enough.

In fact, we need to do BETTER! Both on land, and in the oceans!

We lose more and more species every year. There will be more plastic than fish in the oceans by 2048.

The reason I set out to write this letter to you is because, in 2048, my son will be my current age. But I fear the planet will not look as it does today, at my current age.

I fear we will lose the life-support system that our oceans provide us. I fear we will lose too many species.

WHAT CAN YOU DO?

As an elected official, you can work towards policies and guidelines that protect our oceans by:

Banning the use of single-use plastic beverage lids and bags.

Banning the use of gill nets, trawl nets, or purse-seine nets that kill more unintended species than intended! (This would never be acceptable on
land!)

Enforcing the bans on fishing of endangered species. Just as you prosecute anyone who steals from a merchant, prosecute anyone who steals critical life from the oceans or the land.

Changing dietary guidelines to reflect the need for sustainability.

STOPPING agricultural-waste dumping and runoff into streams, rivers, and oceans.

If we want the oceans to survive and protect the livelihoods of the billions of people who depend on them for food, money, life, and climate stability, you, our elected officials, must do more to help now.

I would gladly fill your seat, in congress or the senate or in local government, and work on plans to save our oceans, and our planet. But, since it will likely take me many years to get into your seat, I implore you, do something, do it now. Protect our oceans and wildlife. Don't wait another moment. That moment may be too late.

Thank you, and respectfully,

Dana Ellis Hunnes PhD, MPH, RD

To contact Dana: recipe.for.survival@gmail.com
Twitter: recipe4survival
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/RecipeForSurvival/
PlanetExperts: http://www.planetexperts.com/author/danahunnes/"

-- 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.

gaia

1470423826000

gaia

%feed
http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Feric-holt-gimenez%2Fagroecology-and-industria_b_11307030.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dgreen%26ir%3DGreen&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8
Agroecology and industrial farming: leveling the playing field
Driving across the United States, the landscape of genetically modified corn stretches for hundreds of miles. Same crop, same variety, same methods, even the same seed company dominates the heartland--visual proof of the dominance of industrial agriculture. (Most of this vast sea of corn is used for animal feed or ethanol production rather than for human consumption...)

The same lack of biological diversity can be found in the industrial tomato fields of Florida, the vegetable fields of California and the cotton fields of the southern United States, with soy, rice, wheat and livestock also following the same pattern.

The negative consequences of industrial agriculture--from climate change to antibiotic-resistant bacteria--have been extensively documented. Agroecology, the "cleaner and greener" alternative to industrial agriculture, has also been extensively documented. Contrary to popular belief (and to a lot of industrial propaganda) agroecological methods can be just as productive as industrial methods.

While a few techniques have crossed the agroecological-industrial divide, they rarely challenge the monoculture mantra. Most large-scale farmers in the United States are locked-in to the markets of industrial agriculture and are reluctant to make sweeping changes to their farming system.

Over the last century chemicals and big machinery have replaced millions of workers. It's capital intensive, though. Farming is a multi-million-dollar proposition--and a marketer's dream.

Because all these inputs lead to chronic crises of overproduction and falling farm gate prices, farmers typically increase production and acreage to make ends meet. They take out more loans and buy more chemical inputs and more patented seed, which keeps the inputs industry very happy. But these farmers don't just consume more inputs; they ultimately consume smaller neighboring farms too, growing the scale of their operations in order to maximize slim profit margins. Industrial agriculture is tailored to the needs of a capitalist marketplace - it overproduces vast amounts of food, feed and fuel and consumes vast amounts of commoditized inputs. This doesn't necessarily help farmers, who, like many poor countries, produce cheap raw materials but consume expensive industrial goods. The wealth of our powerful industrial agricultural system ultimately accumulates capital in the hands of the input, grain and retail monopolies.

Agroecology isn't compatible with this system. First off, agroecology, with its diversified cropping systems and labor-intensive fertility and pest management practices requires specialized, place-specific knowledge and skilled labor--and lots of it. While this can produce plenty of food and jobs, it can't be scaled up to the massive farm size the monopolies demand. And even though agroecology does not result in the soil erosion, groundwater contamination, greenhouse gases and pesticide poisoning typical of industrial agriculture, neither the benefits, nor the costs of the environmental "externalities" are recognized in the marketplace. Agroecology gives us its environmental benefits for free, while industrial agriculture makes us pay for its environmental damage. How?

Industrial agriculture systems don't pay for farmworkers' illnesses after prolonged exposure to pesticides. It doesn't pay for the dead zone in the Gulf of Mexico. It doesn't pay for the loss of biodiversity, the runoff into our drinking water, or the decimation of rural communities and their social services. Industrial agriculture is a façade of economic efficiency - and we all pay the price.

Nevertheless, industrial agriculture thrives because it is compatible with existing social, political, and financial systems. It has what agricultural sociologists call "thick legitimacy" i.e., everything about the system legitimizes the practice--no matter how destructive. The consolidated wealth of the input and retail sectors do not account for real costs of production, which is precisely why industrial agriculture thrives.

For agroecology to have a fair chance to "compete" with industrial agriculture we have to level the playing field by internalizing the true costs of industrial agriculture--that is, by making polluters pay.

But how do we do this without penalizing the farmer and making sure those pushing the poisons and the overproduction (the monopolies) are the ones paying? It starts with making them pay a fair price to the farmer for the product. It also means something called "supply management" to prevent overproduction. George Naylor, a corn and soy farmer from Churdan, Iowa calls for a "quota system":

"Under the current laissez-faire policy of planting fencerow-to-fencerow, a farmer is always going to try to produce more bushels to sell either out of greed or fear of going broke. If a chemical input can seemingly increase income over the cost, it makes sense to use it. But when all farmers follow suit, overproduction results in low prices and our land and water are degraded. Instead, let's say that each farm had a quota based on history of production and an assessment of how a good crop rotation along with conservation plantings could regenerate the soil and biodiversity. If the farmer is compensated with a price that will stabilize his or her income, their thinking and practices will be just the opposite of the laissez-faire, free market straight jacket. If a farm has a quota of 10,000 bushels of corn, that farmer will think, "How can I produce 10,000 bushels of corn with the least amount of chemicals and fertilizer and the most amount of conservation? Maybe I could use some of the other land for soil saving hay and pasture to feed a new herd for grass fed beef or dairy." That farmer would be well on the way of becoming organic."

It would also help level the playing field between agroecology and sustainable agriculture.

Co-written with Ahna Kruzic

-- 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.

gaia

1470422492000

gaia

%feed
http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fkarin-shepardson%2Fyour-air-conditioner-is-making_b_11321674.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dgreen%26ir%3DGreen&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8
Your Air Conditioner Is Making You Cooler, And The World Warmer. We Can Change That.

"2016-08-03-1470253689-1721507-airconditioninginchina.jpg"

Cooling and refrigeration are essential to increasing labor productivity, improving educational outcomes, safeguarding food and minimizing its waste, improving healthcare, and supporting countries' digital ambitions (that computer of yours heats up pretty fast). And all of this, from improved productivity to education to health, is vital to eliminating extreme poverty and boosting shared prosperity across the globe.

And yet, it turns out that that refrigerator in the corner is doing more than extending the life of your fruits and vegetables: it's also contributing to global warming. In a somewhat ironic twist, we know now that in filling the hole in the ozone layer over the past few decades under the aegis of the Montreal Protocol, we unwittingly had been adding to global warming. The good news, though, is that we can act on this quickly, and the result (in ecological terms) is almost immediate. But if we continue as we have been, we could face big problems.

Undoubtedly, the Montreal Protocol's success at reversing a universal environmental problem, depletion of the earth's ozone layer, also helped in our fight against climate change. Without the Montreal Protocol agreement and its 25 years of action to stop production and human consumption of harmful chemicals, the climate challenge facing the world today would be far worse. Overall, the climate achievements in phasing out chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) an organic compound made exclusively of chlorine, fluorine, and carbon, have been equated to the equivalent of eight billion tons a year of CO2. Yet, in hindsight we've learned that hydrofluorocarbons or HFCs, the chemicals picked to replace some CFCs, are very potent greenhouse gasses. What's worse, their use is on the rise globally, since they are seen to be the best substitutes for chemicals used in air conditioners and refrigerators.

The most concerning HFCs are thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide. Yet unlike carbon dioxide, HFCs tend to stay in the atmosphere for a shorter period, making it possible, if removed, to see a visible reversal of temperature rise impacts within the lifetime of our children. By contrast, the longer atmospheric life of CO2 means it takes longer to see the impact of the removal of the gas, so tangible results would only be seen by our children's children.

From Dubai through Vienna to Kigali

With the climate challenge facing the world already immense, it's clear that action to reduce HFCs must be accelerated to avoid an irreversible tipping point. This has been the key focus of the Montreal Protocol meetings just held in Vienna, attended by ministers from around the world with a focus on phasing down HFCs. One seminal study projected that global temperatures can be reversed by as much as 0.5 degrees Celsius if HFCs and their projected growth are eliminated. We need every tenth of a degree possible.

Several of my colleagues and I attended the Vienna meetings, which were part of a series that started last November in Dubai with the specific aim to work toward amending the Montreal Protocol to phase-down HFCs. An amendment is important because it will give a clear global signal for action and since it's taken within the Montreal Protocol framework, it would enter into legal force rapidly. The discussions highlighted the need for flexibility to respond to different country situations, while at the same time demonstrating strong multilateral consensus for decisive action. The final decision will be made in October in Kigali, Rwanda.

We're already working on it

But with predicted growth projections of HFC being the highest in developing countries (no surprise, since this correlates closely with economic development), the World Bank Group is not waiting for an international agreement to start accelerating action on HFC reductions. We are already working with countries under our Montreal Protocol projects to see where reductions can be taken and where we can reduce HFCs as technology becomes available, affordable, and safe. For example in Thailand, we're working with manufacturers to produce air conditioners that are friendly to the ozone layer, while reducing HFCs and saving energy. Additionally, with Government of Canada support, we are developing tools for Bank teams to identify and act on opportunities for a "triple win" to reduce ozone, reduce HFCs, and increase energy efficiency where air conditioning and refrigeration are part of Bank investments.

We know the Montreal Protocol has already achieved results. We've had reports this year that the recovery of the hole in the ozone layer has already reached a surface area equivalent to the size of India, and full recovery is projected to be achieved before mid-century. But it's too early to celebrate: the challenge remains immense. October will be the time to make a decision that reverberates for generations to come.

-- 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.

gaia

1470422490000

gaia

%feed
http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fcharles-orgbon-iii%2Fwhy-we-dont-need-more-enviornmental_b_11326584.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dgreen%26ir%3DGreen&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8
Why We Don't Need More Environmental Organizations
As the founder of Greening Forward, a youth-driven and youth-imagined environmental organization, I often mentor young people on whether or not they, too, should create their own organization, and my immediate response is a passionate, "No!" Likewise, my answer to adults with the same question is identical.

Often times, individuals want to start an organization when starting an organization may not be necessary to achieve their intended goals. One of the early steps to starting a new organization of any kind involves brainstorming lists of organizations who do similar and complementary work. What makes these organizations unique? What makes these organizations successful or unsuccessful?

Eight years ago, these were questions I began asking myself when I realized that no one was putting young people in substantive roles within the environmental movement. My peers and I believed that young people should be on boards, and at the forefront of campaigns, and Greening Forward would become a refreshing organization that could show adults how students could serve in these roles.

Before one starts a new campaign, one must also ask themselves: What's the innovative and refreshing thing that this new organization will bring to the movement? Frankly, environmental organizations already saturate the non-profit sector insomuch that it is likely that most things under the sun have been imagined and tried.

But, if it is true that we already have so many environmental organization addressing so many issues already, why is it that the most recent data from 2005 tells us that the number of new environmental organizations is growing at a rate that should double every 13 years?

I believe one of the issues is that existing environmental organizations are failing to be collaborative and cooperative, and are not being responsive to new ideas and research. Ultimately, more research must be done to adequately address whether these factors have led some individuals to chart their own paths with new organizations.

Some of the most reliable data we have on the growth of the environmental movement from 2005 tells us that our movement is growing much quicker when compared to all non-profits. Given that the number of environmental and conservation organizations registered with the IRS has grown by 4.6 percent per year, the growth rate of our subsector has outpaced non-profit organizations as a whole by 164%.

When it comes to measuring environmental impact, more organizations does not always forecast better outcomes. Environmental practitioners may be able to recognize themselves how the environmental movement has or has not changed despite the growth in quantity of environmentally-focused organizations after reflecting on these questions:

Has the environmental movement become more competitive over the past couple of decades and is this competition more noteworthy than in other non-profit issue areas?
Has the environmental movement gotten substantively more effective at its tactics over the past couple of decades? (i.e. does it cost less to educate X amount of people than it did in the past, has the process of organizing X events become less time-consuming)
Is there increased confusion from the general public about the role that different environmental organizations serve for the movement?

We do not need any more environmental organizations as much as we need existing organizations that can (1) understand the difference between collaboration and cooperation, and are ready to do both, (2) be responsive to new people and new ideas, as well as (3) keep data on what works and what doesn't work.

Understand the difference between collaboration and cooperation, and be ready to do both. Collaboration is a process of shared co-creation. Collaboration is not agreeing to share another organization's event on social media. Instead, this is an example of cooperation. Cooperation is when one organization has set the rules, and has allowed another organization to play along. Both collaboration and cooperation are important to addressing problems with efficient solutions without the need of starting a new organization, but it is only collaboration that involves mutual risk, trust, and even potential embarrassment.
Be responsive to new people and new ideas. I'm not asking organizations to open Phishing or spam emails, but it appears that some mainstream organizations have approached emails from grassroots community organizers and Phishing e-mails the same. While it may seem time-consuming to respond to external suggestions and comments, it could be equally disastrous if an organization is blinded by an important movement change and shift. Social science researcher, Debra J. Salazar discusses more about this phenomenon as experienced by Washington state environmental organizations in her report, "The Mainstream-Grassroots Divide in the Environmental Movement: Environmental Groups in Washington State."
Keep data on what works and what doesn't work. As a practitioner in the field, I have observed that the best-funded environmental organizations do not always have the best results, and the least funded environmental organizations do not always have the least impact, which is a result of ineffective philanthropy. Partnerships should be pushing our movement in a way towards more substantive work that leads to proven results, even if it means challenging how the work was traditionally done.

With the threat of environmental degradation coming from all corners of the globe, we all must work together to ensure that our efforts are efficient, meaningful, and worthwhile. Now is the time to rise to these challenges that will define our movement.

-- 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.

gaia

Scientists bundled out of labs despite reassurances Blighty can still get at Euro funds

A Brief Discussion of Robots

The Most Popular Ethical Issue with Driverless Cars

The Real Ethical Problems Driverless Cars Face