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r0B0t: Future Tense Newsletter: Emerging Conversations

Greetings, Future Tensers,

“Gradually, Ford is starting to look like a tech company.” That's the conclusion Will Oremus came to in his report about the car company's plans to start rolling out fully autonomous vehicles by 2021. That's all the more reason to start public dialogue about how such driverless systems will behave in crisis conditions like those suggested by this fun game from MIT researchers that asks you to decide who a robot car should kill.

Charming as that game is, it's probably not going to change the course of self-driving car development. But Jason Lloyd writes that the public should be more engaged with discussions surrounding cutting-edge research. Lloyd writes that “citizen science” has gotten a lot of press for allowing people to contribute data to research, but it can be so much more. Andrew Maynard helps show why that's so necessary with this article on the National Institutes of Health's request for public comment on policy changes around human-animal hybrids.

There are, of course, other conversations that we should be having about technology, most of all those that we have with our elders. As Jamie Winterton argues, our senior citizens tend to fall prey to cyberattacks because they don't have information about how to protect themselves. We can help allay that dilemma, Winterton suggests, by actually chatting with them about cybersecurity, thereby helping keep them from getting hacked like the NSA. Of course, nothing can protect them from the greatest menace of our digital world: squirrels.

Here are some of the other stories that we read while trying to guess who wrote Donald Trump's tweets:

Gaming: Laura Hudson writes that Kentucky Route Zero tells a haunting, surreal story about both the “broken promises of America” and “the small moments of beauty that manage to bloom” in the ruins.
Social graces: June Thomas investigates a company that automates the work of sending personalized cards out for you. Goodbye to guilt!
Virtual reality: Some experts think that we're going about VR all wrong: We should be using it to facilitate experiences that we couldn't have by other means.
Emoji: Kyle MacLachlan retold the plot of Dune in emojis for a fan, and it's surprisingly brilliant.

Pulling information out of the ether,

Jacob Brogan

for Future Tense

Future Tense is a partnership of Slate, New America, and Arizona State University.

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Director Martha Jeffries On Years Of Living Dangerously

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Director Martha Jeffries recently wrapped on two stories for the second season of Years of Living Dangerously, an Emmy Award-winning show about climate change. The show goes blockbuster, seeking to finally capture mass attention regarding an issue that stands to affect every living thing. That worked pretty well first season 'round. As Martha notes in this interview for Impolitikal, climate change can no longer be sidestepped as a scary unknown we hope will go away. Extensive research shows that the world's climate is changing, largely due to human activity - and if people, policy and business continue as usual, the economic and social impacts will be felt by all.

How did you come to work on Years of Living Dangerously, and what's your role?
I'm directing and producing two stories for the upcoming second season of Years. I spent a decade making travel television and shot in many testing and sometimes volatile locations, and was starting to see the impacts of climate change in different places around the world. I met a producer from season one who kindly recommended me to the executives and I jumped at the chance to tell these stories.

What can you tell us about the episodes you've worked on?
My two stories are at opposite end of the spectrum - among the darkest and most hopeful this series has to offer. The first is on the oceans. We look at ocean warming and ocean acidification and the impact these human-caused phenomena are having on coral reefs. During filming, the worst coral-bleaching event in human history occurred. Over 90% of the Great Barrier Reef suffered, some of which will never recover. Many reefs will be reduced to a slime-clogged deadzone. We are losing one of the seven natural wonders of the world - something that took thousands of years to grow. One in four fish rely on coral reefs to breed and survive and nearly half a billion people rely on fish as their main source of protein. Think what the implications of that are for health, political stability and global migration. Terrifying.

My second story is on carbon pricing, which might be our best climate change solution. In a nutshell, carbon pricing is a user charge. If you generate carbon, you pay for it. A price on carbon will drive a move away from fossil fuels by making them more expensive. Which would then allow for an easier transition to renewable energy forms and spur the innovation we need to tackle this problem. Many countries around the world already have some form of carbon pricing in place. My story focuses on a burgeoning student movement in the US, calling for a carbon price here. It has been incredibly inspiring seeing millennials from all ends of the political spectrum stand up and demand change.

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Shooting at the Great Barrier Reef

Did anything happen while filming that left a strong impression on you?
In the early days of production we joked we should have an inhouse therapist to help deal with the shock and distress many of us were facing as we discovered the realities of climate change. This isn't something that will happen in the future, this is happening now. It's an uncomfortable reality, but our planet has changed and our quality of life will change too. We can't push this one down the road any longer. It's happening now and it's happening fast. It's not too late, but we absolutely cannot keep dragging our feet.

I met with several families in the Philippines whose sole source of food and income is the ocean. These people live a very low-consumption lifestyle and are deeply tied to the water. But the reefs are dying and fish are disappearing. The people who are contributing the least to climate change are those who will suffer the most. It is a great injustice.

What was your stance on climate change before working on the show?
I've always been concerned about climate change, and I thought well-informed. But I'll admit, the speed with which things are changing was a huge surprise. We're right on the precipice.

What have you learnt personally through working on it? Has it changed you?
Where to begin! We did all of our own research, so the first few months of the job were spent studying climate science and the social, political and economic implications of each story. The terrific thing about a high profile project like this is the incredible access to people. I've spoken to some of world's most prominent scientists, politicians, journalists and economists over the past year. It's been a real privilege.

I also learnt to dive for my ocean story since I wanted to film a good portion underwater. I've always loved the ocean and have been a casual surfer for a few years but never dived. It gave me a much greater understanding of the ocean, which in turn gave me a greater sense of responsibility to tell this story well. The ocean gives us so much - oxygen, food and a temperature with which we can live. I think many of us take the oceans for granted. But they are fragile, and without them there would be no life on the planet.

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On location in the Philippines

In terms of personal change, I think this series has brought out the latent activist in me. I now realize the responsibility to make change lies within all of us. Sometimes it's as easy as picking up the phone or visiting your local politician and making it clear that action on climate change is a priority.

What are some of the barriers to effective action to address climate change?
Good old-fashioned political gridlock. It is astounding that it's an unofficial Republican Party line to deny climate change. I spoke to many Republicans who know climate change is real and are deeply concerned, but they're afraid of alienating their voter base. We don't have time for infighting. As the world's wealthiest nation the United States has a responsibility to the rest the world to lead on this, but it's falling behind.

What are some areas of progress?
The world has come a long way in the past 18 months. The climate march on New York, which attracted hundreds of thousands; COP21 in Paris; and the Pope releasing an encyclical calling for urgent climate action created a much greater awareness of climate change and the need to address this fast. There are great leaps being made in renewable energy and non-polluting technologies. And now almost every leader on earth agrees we need urgent climate action.

Roaring Fork Films is the production house behind the series. Can you explain a bit about their motivations for making the show?
Roaring Fork Films was founded by David Gelber and Joel Bach. David and Joel were a producer team on 60 Minutes for many years, and after working on a couple of climate change stories they realized this was the story of our lifetime - but that there was a huge gap in communication. No one was telling the stories of the everyday people being impacted. They have done an amazing job bringing together an incredible cast and crew to make a high quality, ambitious, sensitive and exciting show that demands attention.

There are a lot of big names involved with the project, on-screen and off. Why do you think so many celebrities have been willing to contribute their name and their time to help highlight this issue?
We've had a terrific group of people involved. There is power in fame. People will often listen to a celebrity far quicker than a scientist. A huge problem in the climate crisis has been communication. Scientists have been telling us for years that we have been pushing the capacities of this planet too hard, but people have refused to listen. Trained communicators and spokespeople have a responsibility to get onboard and use their voice to reach the numbers of people required to demand change. Many of our correspondents were not climate experts but did want to know what they could do to help. Learning on-screen was the best gift they could give.

Season two of Years of Living Dangerously will premiere on the National Geographic Channel this October in 170 countries. Find Martha.

Read via Impolitikal.com.

-- 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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The Vikings' Magnificent Flying Machine
Imagine having a job where you're tasked to accomplish the impossible. And you only get two chances.

For example, your assignment (should you choose it) is to build a martian spacecraft -- one that can land safely, scoop soil from the planet's surface, load it into an onboard chemistry lab to test for the existence of life. Oh, and it has to transmit data back to Earth, along with photos of the Red Planet. Put yourself back in the late '60s when technology and robotics were relatively primitive. No internet, smartphone, laptop, iPad. Data came in kB, not MB or GB. And, please, land it on July 4th, 1976, would you, because that's America's Bicentennial celebration, and how red-white-and-blue "far-out" awesome would that be!

Well, it happened - to a team of engineers, scientists and early computer specialists. No one considered it Mission Impossible, but the odds were certainly stacked against them. No detailed design, test, deployment or operational specifications existed; there were many unknown factors about the atmosphere and surface of Mars; there were worries about money to keep the program afloat. And yet they overcame all the barriers, they did everything they were tasked and more, except the July 4th part (a few days late so as not to set the robot down on a risky spot). And then, they did it again, landing a second machine a few weeks later, for backup.

Who were these incredible guys?

20th century Vikings, the best technical team that ever was. They were so good, killer precise, dead-on dedicated, they should have each gotten a Presidential Medal, or at least a vacation in Norway, home of the original Vikings.

Like the medieval Vikings, these were curious explorers and capable conquerors, but mostly they were inventors. They invented the Viking spaceship to sail and land in unknown realms. They were "imagineers" - designers of gadgets, experiments, solutions. They numbered about a thousand who gave their all to the NASA/Martin Marietta project over a decade, including scientist Carl Sagan, a public voice and unveiler of Viking.

One engineer was Bob Rodamer, a Cape Canaveral (then Cape Kennedy) launch operator who pushed the button to launch the Titan/Centaur rocket that sent Viking Mars-bound. He said "At T-minus 35 seconds when I initiated the launch sequence, it got tense and exciting. It was the last manual function that made all previous efforts, by so many, a reality." Imagine the sweaty finality of pressing that button!

A hundred gathered at the 40th Viking anniversary 2016 Reunion. The 'greybeards' looked a little different than they did four decades ago. No long hair, leisure suits, bell bottoms, sideburns or cigarettes. They were plenty happy to meet up - like a fraternity homecoming - and it was mostly men. Only a few women were technologists back then.

Tears were shed as the Viking era story was revived. (Although this roomful of rocket scientists had some trouble getting the slideshow going... ha, ha.) Viking had been the pinnacle of many people's careers; their academic training, their requisite rare knowledge, their shared achievement, all distilled into one enterprise. For many, the realization only came years later, when they contemplated the profound work ethic, the daunting sacrifices - people working around the clock, family time cut short, marriages collapsing. But personal pride and lifelong friendships developed, too. If ever a technical team needed to pull together, it was the Vikings. It took everyone's heart, sweat, tears, determination, and brains to produce those stunning long-lasting results.

A special highlight was, of course, the memory of their collective thrill when the first photos came back from Mars soon after touchdown - they had succeeded! It was real! There was the footpad of the machine, actually planted on the rocky surface millions of miles away. Then when the color photos arrived, they saw no little green men running around, just a bright red hue. Maybe redder than they thought possible.

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The wife of Terry Surline, a Viking aerospace engineer fresh out of college, recalled asking him: "How the heck do you know how to do this?" (See, they had been in high school trigonometry together and she'd helped him out, so she was skeptical...) Terry said: "I don't know. We just do it! We do one step, then we figure out what the next step should be."

How many steps are required to get to Mars anyway? Gazillions! And every step has to be solid, correct, and work perfectly or subsequent millions of steps could be going down a blind alley.

The practical, straight-arrow engineers didn't much like the "pot-smoking soft weirds" at first. Any green men they might discover on Mars couldn't have been more alien. Engineers wore standard white shirts and ties, short haircuts and pocket protectors. Some had steel-toed shoes. They wondered, what were those casual, irreverent data muckers doing, constantly writing mysterious code? Code that had to interface with their electronics and hardware. Then there were scientists, a third brand. The visionaries! "Anything can be done!" declared the wild-eyed scientists.

The distinguishing force - the "super glue"- that held the Viking Lander Spacecraft team together was an over-arching sense of curiosity. A spirit of inquiry infused every discussion. "What's the toughest part to do?" "What d'you suppose we'll find?" "How will we know when we've succeeded?" "What if...?" "What if...?" "What if....?"

Ultimately there was mutual respect, and the confidence, that a hand-picked team could master any technical challenge the old Fourth Planet from the Sun could throw at them. "Can we make something that can do this? Damn right we can!"

Larry Perkins, who worked on the system test computer said, "No one asked, 'Is it worth it?' We all knew it would definitely be the hardest but most worthwhile thing we had ever done, and the results would definitely prove to be worth the risk, the cost and the commitment."

What's happened since? College students who worked on Viking - via an intern program - went on to be stars on future Mars programs. One lucky 14-year-old, Jim Duncan, who witnessed the landing from the Jet Propulsion Lab, was inspired to study engineering and ended up working the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter program.

Cathy Rowe, a data specialist on the inorganic chemistry team, and one of the last to process the robot's final transmissions, was especially excited about the amazing Curiosity (large rover) landing in 2012. "I felt that all of us on Viking were pioneers and helped to make the Curiosity mission possible." Her husband, Jim Rowe, was instrumental in creating management strategies for the huge data streams. This led to the safekeeping of vital information that is still being used in current Mars programs.

The Viking findings were inconclusive about life on Mars. Sadly, the cameras revealed no little green men (or women). But Dr. Penny Boston, Director for NASA Astrobiology Institute, a 40th reunion speaker, reported that, since Viking, so much more knowledge has developed about what microbial life actually is. "What we knew about life wasn't enough then. Since the 1990s there's been an explosion of work done to show what organisms would have to be like to survive on Mars."

The Vikings of yore, when they landed on our East Coast, didn't stay long. The environment was too harsh and inhospitable. Maybe, for them, it was landing on Mars! But those explorers, too, took home lots of data about a strange, distant land, which later came in handy. What if... they hadn't come?

For more information: www.thevikingpreservationproject.org

-- 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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Understanding the Link Between Business and Human Rights in Mexico
Has a corporation ever made you feel vulnerable? Have your rights been ignored? Does it seem that businesses have no oversight? Then this may be of interest to you.

In 2011, the United Nations Human Rights Council issued Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights. The principles reiterate that nations must control business activities, that corporations must respect human rights, and that victims must have access to justice.

The Council also created the Working Group on Business and Human Rights to put these principles into action.

The Working Group will visit Mexico from August 29 to September 7. This visit will be its second to Latin America, after a mission to Brazil in December 2015.

The Mexico visit is important for three reasons:

Mexico is the 15th largest economy in the world.
Mexico doesn't often invite international human rights institutions on official missions that generate recommendations the government must address seriously.
The nation is experiencing a human rights crisis, evidenced by its position atop the lists of forced disappearances and attacks on journalists and human rights defenders (particularly environmentalists).

Expectations of the visit are high. The Working Group has received information about the human rights situation in Mexico and about business-influenced violations of those rights. The Group has yet to announce the places it will visit or an exact agenda, a complicated task considering the vast geography of the country and the variety of issues to address.

During its visit to Brazil, the Working Group met with authorities, State and private businesses, civil society, and affected groups. It visited strategic locations such as Altamira, the city closest to the Belo Monte Dam, and Minas Gerais, where a mining-waste dam broke last November.

The result was a report containing 32 recommendations for Brazil's government and corporations. The Working Group expressed its worry about undue corporate influence in the creation of national policies. It explained why politics and lobbying may compromise the State's ability to monitor business. It noted that most businesses don't evaluate the implications of their activities for human rights. It emphasized weaknesses in regulating, licensing, and monitoring large projects. And it highlighted the lack of consultation on mitigation and compensation measures with affected communities.

Ten of the recommendations made to Brazil could also be applied to Mexico.

The government should:

Train officials, decision makers, and judges about the obligations of business and government to prevent and remedy human rights violations.
Define clear policy expectations so that all businesses (both national and foreign) respect human rights and operate with due diligence.
Comply with the Guiding Principles as well as with international standards and best practices, especially in infrastructure and development projects.
Evaluate effective access to remediation, strengthen judicial and non-judicial mechanisms, and address business-related abuses.
Strengthen the regulation of large-scale projects, and increase resources, capacity, and coordination between authorities--particularly those related to the environment and human rights--to improve monitoring of socio-environmental impacts.
Ensure that when environmental disasters occur, mitigation and remediation measures are implemented, and adequate compensation is provided to the affected people (duly consulted).
Guarantee that people potentially affected by development projects (especially the most vulnerable) receive information and adequate legal advice to be on equal footing in negotiations with corporations.
Provide more resources for national programs to protect environmental defenders and emphasize improvement of social, economic, and political conditions.

Public and private business should:

Respect human rights and act with due diligence to identify, prevent, and mitigate human rights violations.
Ensure effective consultation with affected people and communities. This involves assessing impacts on human rights, paying special attention to vulnerable or potentially marginalized groups, and guaranteeing adequate and timely information about activities that could affect them. It includes distinguishing the risks to women, children, and men, especially with regards to infrastructure projects that displace communities.

The UN Working Group aims for its visit to be an important event for human rights in Mexico.

We hope its conclusions reflect what the country really needs. We hope that both business and government welcome the visit, take the recommendations seriously, and demonstrate the political will to act on them.

We shall see come September. A positive response is in all of our best interest.

-- 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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Illegal Fishing Treaty, Now in Force, Boosts Global Effort to Cut Crime
The Port State Measures Agreement adds a vital new tool in a global strategy to deter lawbreaking fishermen

For some of the world's most audacious thieves, life just got trickier. For decades they have roamed the ocean, fishing without licenses, without regard for the marine environment, and, in most cases, without much fear of being caught. With about 140 million square miles of surface water and no central authority, the ocean has proved to be an easy place for these illegal fishermen to get away with a crime.

And their haul has been huge. Experts estimate that illegal fishing accounts for up to 26 million metric tons of seafood annually, worth up to $23.5 billion. This theft undercuts law-abiding fishermen, threatens the health of our oceans and fish populations, and destabilizes coastal communities that rely on consistent fish stocks for food and jobs.

But on June 5, a global treaty to end illegal fishing, called the Port State Measures Agreement (PSMA), entered into force; the pact is now international law in 35 governments and overseas territories, including the European Union. The agreement was designed to combat illegal, unreported, and unregulated fishing by making it significantly harder to move illegally caught fish to market.

The PSMA, the first legally binding international measure targeting illegal fishing, requires captains to give notice when approaching a port--whether to unload their catch or for such services as refueling--and provide details on their licensing and fishing activities. Based on that information, and coupled with a vessel's history, port officials decide whether to allow the vessel to offload, inspect it, or turn it away.

The treaty also requires that port officials inform neighboring countries of known or suspected illegal catches--a key provision to help apprehend criminals who shop around for a port willing to accept their fish.

But the PSMA is only one component of an effective global strategy to end illegal fishing. Authorities and fishery managers need numerous mechanisms and consistent enforcement around the world. Here is a summary of how we could fully cinch the net on illegal fishing.

Expand PSMA membership: Coastal countries that have not signed on to the PSMA should do so quickly; those that have should move swiftly to implement and enforce the treaty. As long as illegal operators can find a port where they can unload and sell their catch, they will continue to profit from their crimes.

Mandate permanent, unique identifying numbers: To fish in most parts of the world, vessels need only a name, the flag of a country, and a radio call sign. None of those identifiers is permanent, and all can easily and quickly be changed, at little cost. That has made it difficult for governments to prosecute illegal fishermen and has allowed many repeat offenders to return known illegal vessels to the water under new identities.

Flag states and coastal states should require that all large fishing vessels have permanent, unique identifiers--specifically, one administered by the International Maritime Organization. An IMO number is essentially a serial number, like a vessel fingerprint that is assigned to a boat until it is scrapped, and can reveal a ship's real identity--including its owner and where it is licensed to fish.

Coordinate transnational efforts: Until recently, governments faced logistical and legal nightmares in pursuing illegal fishing operators into a neighboring country's waters. Even when officials wanted to reach out for help, they often didn't know whom to call.

To help address that, Interpol in 2013 launched Project Scale, an initiative designed to improve cooperation among the agency's 190 member countries to stop fisheries crimes.

Since the project's launch, Interpol has issued 17 Purple Notices, or alerts, on vessels engaged in illegal fishing and related crimes. Coordinated efforts by the agency and its member countries helped set the stage for the sinking of the notorious illegal fishing vessel Thunder on April 6, 2015, in the waters off West Africa. All Interpol member countries with a stake in marine fishing should be encouraged to coordinate and communicate through Project Scale.

Leverage technology to monitor the ocean: Traditionally, finding and chasing illegal fishermen on the water was expensive, dangerous, and often futile. Conducting the same operations via satellite is efficient, safe, and effective. Project Eyes on the Seas, a collaboration between The Pew Charitable Trusts and the British firm Satellite Applications Catapult, uses satellites to pinpoint a ship's location and heading, and overlays the data with other information, including a vessel's history of compliance with the law. That can help fisheries analysts determine--in near real time--whether a vessel is likely to be engaged in questionable activity.

Among governments that have used this system are the United Kingdom, Palau, and countries in the Polynesian Leaders Group, including Niue, the Cook Islands, Tonga, and Samoa. More governments should consider Eyes on the Seas as a tool to reduce illegal fishing in their waters.

Other initiatives are shining a spotlight on criminal fishing operations, including the European Commission's system of first warning countries that support lawbreaking, and then banning their seafood imports. Also, countries are using regional partnerships in southeastern Africa, Central America, and the Pacific islands to share resources and information to detect illegal fishermen and keep them out of their collective waters.

Together, these mechanisms can expose unlawful operators and close off their opportunities for selling stolen fish. That could make life so difficult for the offenders that they hang up their nets and hooks, once and for all.

Tony Long leads The Pew Charitable Trusts' work to end illegal fishing worldwide.

-- 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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An Ocean Policy For The Next President (Whoever She May Be)
As I've reported in Sierra magazine, thirty-three years ago, President Ronald Reagan established the U.S. Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ), stretching 200 miles out from our shores. At 3.4 million square miles, it's more extensive than our continental landmass. But unlike our lands, our public seas belong to all of us, and right now they are in trouble. The ocean is at risk from a cascading series of environmental disasters including industrial overfishing, pollution, loss of coastal and offshore habitats, and climate change. Faced with these threats, it's hard to fathom why this crisis in our seas has received no attention in the 2016 presidential campaigns. Hillary Clinton has pledged not to drill for oil in the Arctic Ocean or off the Atlantic coast but has no position on the Gulf of Mexico, where 17 percent of domestic oil production takes place. By calling the science of climate change a hoax, Donald Trump has made it clear that he'd be unlikely to address climate-linked ocean threats such as sea level rise, ocean acidification, and harmful algae blooms intensified by warming ocean waters--such as we're now seeing on the coasts of Florida.

Yet there are commonsense steps the next president could and should take to help restore the blue in our red, white, and blue.

The next president should expand on the modest National Ocean Policy initiated by President Barack Obama in the wake of the BP blowout disaster. Ideally the new policy would eliminate federal agency conflicts and redundancy in ocean management. It would combine the best available science with public input to identify how to better utilize limited ocean spaces. Some examples might include relocating shipping lanes to reduce ship strikes on migrating whales, choosing offshore wind farm and aquaculture sites so they don't impact local fishing grounds, and protecting unique marine habitats and wildlife while also maintaining naval warfare training zones and fiber-optic cable laying. Former U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Thad Allen describes this as "putting urban planning in the water column."

The next administration should also continue to promote best fisheries and aquaculture management practices to sustain living resources and the jobs that go with them. Since its conservation-oriented reforms in 2006, the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Act has seen two-thirds of U.S. overfished stocks rebuilt or improved. As they recover, there is increased political and commercial pressure to go back to over-exploiting the resource. When the act comes up for reauthorization this year, it should be strengthened--not undermined--so that the United States can remain a leader in reducing global fishing pressure.

The United States also needs to continue to lead in the fight against illegal, unregulated, and unreported (IUU) pirate fishing, which accounts for up to a third of fish caught and also often involves the use of slave labor. Last year, the largest citizen lobby for ocean conservation in U.S. history successfully lobbied for passage of a bipartisan IUU Fishing Enforcement Act, which, among other things, will allow better remote tracking and seizure of pirate vessels when they pull into ports. A similar citizen lobby will take place this spring as part of a biennial Blue Vision Summit.

America needs to create more fully protected marine reserves. This will build on the early work of Presidents Clinton and Bush, who protected the Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument off Hawaii (an area larger than all national parks combined), and Presidents Bush and Obama, who established and expanded the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument. The next administration should also follow Secretary of State John Kerry's lead in supporting the global effort now underway to create additional large-scale marine reserves, including on the high seas and in the polar seas. These types of marine-protected areas can act as global reserves of the biodiversity that provide us food, storm protection, recreation, and tourism.

We can begin to fight the threat of ocean acidification with better monitoring to identify and manage hot spots, by reducing land-based pollution that can exacerbate the problem, and by finding ways to enhance marine organisms' abilities to adapt. But really the only significant solution is to commit to a rapid end to the emission of greenhouse gases. Ocean acidification is one of the greatest threats almost no one knows about. It's the result of seawater absorbing surplus carbon dioxide, which is changing the Ph balance of the ocean and threatening every shell-forming creature--from certain planktons to coral polyps to crabs to oysters. It is already affecting commercial oyster farm operations and coral reefs. A warmer, more acidic ocean also holds less dissolved oxygen that threatens to expand over 500 dead zones around the world.

With an estimated six feet or more of sea level rise expected this century, we also need to protect at-risk coastal populations through better shoreline management. Instead of building next to the water, we need to make a major investment in the restoration of natural barriers such as salt marshes and beach dunes. And we need to encourage planned retreat by not using federal subsidies to rebuild in harm's way on barrier beaches and in flood zones after major disasters.
Given all these impacts and more, the need for a rapid transition off fossil fuels is obvious. We should start by eliminating the dirtiest, most dangerous production systems. Along with stopping coal and tar sand mining, we should commit to ending all offshore oil drilling in the next eight years.

And of course there are other challenges. Where new technologies like deep-sea mining threaten to disrupt unique benthic ecosystems, we should adapt the precautionary principle and make policy based on doing the least harm, which may include refusing to license this technology.

Because plastic pollution of the ocean kills wildlife and concentrates toxins through the food web, the EPA needs to seriously consider identifying a range of plastics as toxic substances to be banned or tightly controlled so we can start to transition off of single-use plastic.

Noise pollution is another emerging issue. NOAA has just launched a plan to require noise reduction from shipping, the offshore oil industry, and other sources. We can learn a lot from the U.S. Navy's submarine force, known as "the silent service," when it comes to adopting noise control technology.

Ideally the United States ought to consider a unified Department of the Ocean similar to the Department of the Interior, which was created to manage our last great wilderness frontier. Right now ocean governance is spread across 22 federal agencies. The new Department of the Ocean could be made up of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for science and policy and the U.S. Coast Guard for operations and law enforcement.

Short of that, we need to provide these two frontline agencies with much more robust funding and legally mandated opportunities for the conservation, exploration, and protection of our ocean. When it comes to ocean challenges, we know what the solutions are. What we need is to mobilize the political will to enact them before it's too late.

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The Flood Of 2016: Southeast Louisiana And The Consequences Of Real Community

My younger brother, who as I write this is on his way to Baton Rouge to help flood victims, and I spent the better part of this last week doing two things: monitoring Louisiana State University flood maps and exchanging irritated text messages at how little national media attention was being given to the devastation occurring in our home state. Between August 12 and 14, four trillion gallons of rain fell, 11 river gauges in southeast Louisiana set all time record highs, 20,000 people had to be rescued, 10,000 people have been put in shelters, and a number of souls lost their lives. In my hometown of Denham Springs, roughly 90 percent of the people living there have flood damage to their homes. The flood is historic, tragic, and hard to conceptualize. Quiet little suburban towns that few people outside of Baton Rouge have ever even heard of became lakes of rainwater and debris almost in an instant. Conversations went from what clothes children would wear on the first day of school, to what the basic items of survival were for a family with small children.

Through it all, media coverage was so lacking that people living outside of the immediate area resorted to social media sites to updates themselves on what was happening in the area; using uploaded videos, pictures, and posts to piece together events and timelines, the pathways of the moving water, and how long the crisis would last. As cellular service failed, power went out across town after town, and families scrambled to find shelter, secure rescue, and just survive…news media coverage was virtually silent. A number of very good articles have been written about why, mostly speaking on the fact that the flood did not fit the narrative of entertainment the news media requires in order to garner coverage. The few articles that complain on the lack of national media coverage all have the same goal in mind… to get more media coverage on the event so that the scope of the tragedy can be known and help given to those people in need.

To accomplish this, they focus on the scope of the tragedy itself; as I resorted to earlier in this piece. In order to achieve the goal of coverage, those of us who care about the heartbreak in southeast Louisiana are forced to package it in those narrative frames of entertainment and historic loss in order to get anyone to care… and that to me is the larger tragedy. The tragedy is that strong, loving, cohesive communities, because of their strength and resilience, cannot be celebrated and assisted at the same time. That in order to be worthy of attention the very fabric of societal order has to have been sheered away; news media requires scenes that look like a zombie apocalypse, not scores of hometown heroes trying their best to rescue one another.

In these communities, families who lost everything feel guilty for letting someone give them money for a warm meal, because others have lost more. Neighbors organize care packages for people in the “devastated areas,” while floodwaters seep into their homes. Friends let friends of friends, and complete strangers off the street, sleep in their beds and on their couches because they have a place that is dry and some room to spare. People wait anxiously for the water to subside so that they can go and help their friends rebuild. Former high school classmates put up online lists of people to locate one another, connect with one another, and share supplies. The local fisherman run rescue missions through streets that have become rivers to rescue families stranded on rooftops and trapped on highways; forming a “Cajun Navy” of volunteers. And former residents travel from cities like Chicago and D.C., taking vacation days from work, to make sure longtime friends have someone there to help them remove the water-soaked sheetrock from their house.

No stories of looting, no stories of riots, no devolving of society to the lowest forms of humanity…instead a tragedy that has brought out the best in friends, family, and neighbors; people who help others before they help themselves…who see the assistance of others as an assistance of self.

Rather than reward that with aid and bringing the full force of our collective national attention to examples of what resilient and strong American communities look like when challenged…these communities are ignored and left to fend for themselves…simply because they can. The consequence of being a strong community is that your tragedy is not mentioned in national news, your strength uncelebrated, and your needs unmet unless they can be met through your own resilience. Humility and selflessly helping others does not fit the script of our news media… that is more of a tragedy than any flood.

For those looking for ways to help, please see the following:

“How To Help Victims Of Louisiana Floods”

HealingPlace Church

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Root Canal: SeaWorld Gets Drilled In New Killer Whale Teeth Report

SeaWorld's CEO Joel Manby has been all smiles since he and Wayne Pacelle, CEO of The Humane Society of the United States announced that their organizations had reached an agreement to end the captive breeding of killer whales at SeaWorld's parks in California, Texas and Florida along with the six killer whales under SeaWorld's care at Loro Parque in Spain. But when it comes to the killer whales themselves, they're not smiling because there is something missing - their teeth.

Dentition as a Welfare Indicator

Do you remember going to the dentist as a child for a checkup? Do you remember how happy you were if you didn't have any cavities? Do you remember the sound of the dentist's drill when you did?

A new report from the Free Morgan Foundation (FMF) examines the condition of killer whale teeth as a measure of their welfare in captivity. The report, Ongoing concerns regarding the SeaWorld orca held at Loro Parque, Tenerife, Spain provides extensive photographic documentation that chronicles the dentition of the six killer whales in SeaWorld's care at Loro Parque. Based on the report, it appears that cavities are the least of their problems.

The authors of the report, Dr. Ingrid Visser and Rosina Lisker, visited Loro Parque in April of this year where they observed and photographed the killer whales over a period of three days. During their visit, Visser & Lisker received personal assurances by Dr. Javier Almunia of the Loro Parque Fundación and two Loro Parque veterinarians, that there were no health problems with the killer whales.

When specifically asked about the wild-born female Morgan, the authors were told she had no broken teeth:

“All three employees denied that Morgan had any broken teeth. Subsequent to the authors' visit, on 28 April 2016, Loro Parque posted on their official website blog the following text; “Dr. Visser asked about Morgan's broken teeth, and the veterinarian staff confirmed that Morgan does not have broken teeth just abrasion in [sic] some of them.” [emphasis added].” (Visser & Lisker at p. 16.)

The photographic evidence collected by Visser & Lisker, however, adds to the growing stack of documentation regarding welfare issues facing the killer whales held in that facility.

Morgan is of particular concern to Visser & Lisker because during her time in captivity beginning at Dolfinarium Harderwijk in 23 June 2010 and then at Loro Parque since 29 November 2011, she has suffered significant, progressive dental distress that would not have occurred had she been returned back to the ocean following her rehabilitation:

According to the authors, in 3 years, 10 months, 10 days, Morgan went from 0% severe damage of her right mandibular teeth to 75%. The report goes on to calculate that between 41.66% and 75% of the mandibular (lower jaw) teeth were moderately or severely damaged among the six killer whales observed at Loro Parque.

Drilling and Flushing Superior Dental Care?

Drilling and daily flushing of killer whale teeth is portrayed as ‘superior dental care' by Seaworld. But is it really? I asked former SeaWorld trainer John Jett Ph.D. to describe the daily dental care of killer whales from a trainer's perspective:

“We used a variable-speed drill, with a stainless drill bit that was disinfected with betadine prior to the drilling procedure. It was a Dremel brand drill like you can buy at a hardware store. The holes were flushed using a Waterpik filled with betadine. We would receive cases of 1,000mL bags of betadine from the animal care department, which we would cut with scissors and pour into the Waterpik basin in preparation for tooth flushes.” (John Jett Ph.D. July 2016)

Another former SeaWorld trainer, Jeffrey Ventre MD, gives further detail about pulpotomies, tooth flushing and the health impacts of dentition of killer whales in captivity in this video:

Five Freedoms

The welfare issues at Loro Parque extend far beyond the killer whales teeth. Visser & Lisker also asses the welfare of the killer whales through an analysis and discussion of the physical conditions at Loro Parque with respect to the ‘Five Freedoms' of animal welfare:

FREEDOM FROM HUNGER AND THIRST.
FREEDOM FROM DISCOMFORT.
FREEDOM FROM PAIN, INJURY OR DISEASE.
FREEDOM TO EXPRESS NORMAL BEHAVIOR.
FREEDOM FROM FEAR AND DISTRESS.

These standards are internationally recognized as providing the absolute minimal requirement for an animal's physical and mental well-being.

In the report, Visser & Lisker document violations of four of the ‘five freedoms' of the killer whale's welfare at Loro Parque. Their report also meticulously documents 23 violations of animal welfare standards affecting the killer whales at Loro Parque using the C-Well® welfare standards. (Visser & Lisker at p. 33.)

SeaWorld and the Humane Society

Wayne Pacelle is the CEO of HSUS, a position he has held since 2004.
Six years after he began working in that position, in November 2010, his organization wrote a letter to the US Government highlighting the animal welfare violations at Loro Parque. HSUS requested that the US Government act according to the letter of comity provision (the legal principle that nations will mutually recognize and respect each other's laws) of the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA). They requested to have the SeaWorld killer whales seized and repatriated back to the United States:

“Therefore, it is imperative that NMFS and APHIS undertake an immediate investigation and make an official finding as to Loro Parque's non-compliance so that NMFS can take action to seize the orcas or work with SeaWorld to arrange for their repatriation to the United States.” (HSUS letter 11 November 2010.)

The revelations in the Visser & Lisker (2016) report are stark and startling and reaffirm the validity of the HSUS welfare concerns raised in November 2010 about SeaWorld's killer whales at Loro Parque.

This new report by the FMF has also been submitted to representatives of the US National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) Office of Protected Resources
as a not so subtle reminder that it cannot wash its hands of responsibility for monitoring the conditions of the killer whales at Loro Parque through feigned ignorance and denial of readily verifiable facts and observable conditions.

The fact that SeaWorld keeps six of its claimed twenty-nine killer whales at an off-shore facility is a detail that is often overlooked, yet these individuals represent approximately 20 percent of SeaWorld's entire killer whale collection.

Although Loro Parque is not owned by SeaWorld, the killer whales held there are ultimately under the care and responsibility of SeaWorld. Furthermore, as a consequence of the original transfer of four SeaWorld killer whales to Loro Parque in 2006, there is also a responsibility of the US Government pursuant to the MMPA to pay attention to the welfare conditions of the killer whales held at Loro Parque today. (See the FMF white paper on whale laundering.)

On 17 March 2016, SeaWorld and HSUS made an announcement - in partnership - that shook the very foundation of the marine theme park industry, setting in motion the beginning of a gradual phasing out of the commercial display of killer whales in captivity. But is that enough?

The HSUS policy position regarding SeaWorld's killer whales at Loro Parque as expressed to the US Government in 2010 was powerful, principled and represented the humane mandate for the welfare of the killer whales, and of all animals, that the HSUS represents. It is a position that SeaWorld needs to fully embrace.

“SeaWorld has a moral and legal obligation to these animals and must act to secure their welfare. “ (HSUS letter 11 November 2010.)

Whether the HSUS partnership with SeaWorld will result in a softening of HSUS's stance on the deplorable welfare conditions that continue to plague the killer whales at Loro Parque is uncertain. No doubt, it is an important question that will have to be answered by HSUS - preferably with actions rather than words.

To that end, the FMF sent an “open letter” to Mr. Manby and Mr. Pacelle asking them to meet with the FMF regarding the situation at Loro Parque and to discuss a long term commitment to work together to return Morgan to the ocean in a controlled, natural environment. To date, neither Mr. Manby or Mr. Pacelle have responded to the FMF invitation to talk.

Morgan as Her Own Best Advocate

Ever since being taken from the wild in 2010, Morgan has commanded the public's interest in an international spotlight. Over the course of the last several months, Morgan's plight has increased public awareness and outrage over the welfare issues facing her and other killer whales in captivity.

Two recent viral videos show Morgan ramming her head into a heavy metal segregation gate while being confined in a small medical tank and also show her “hauling-out” onto the main performance stage for an extended period after a performance. This was apparently in an attempt to escape the aggression of SeaWorld's other killer whales who are also held with Morgan at Loro Parque.

The stories of these two events spread across social media and received mainstream coverage, including National Geographic, Time, People, The Dodo, HuffPost UK, and in this exclusive television interview with former SeaWorld trainer Dr Jeffrey Ventre on Sky News with Kay Burley.

For their part, SeaWorld and Loro Parque have gone to great efforts to try to spin the story about Morgan, claiming that she is healthy and doing well in captivity and that the recent videos show normal behavior. However, in fact, they are quite alarming and such a response underscores the paradox of perception by those who want to continue to profit from the captivity of these sentient beings and those who wish to put an end to it.

The Visser & Lisker report draws attention to the clear and obvious issues of Morgan's teeth and explains why the damage is due to confinement in a concrete tank. This report and Morgan's plight continues to gain international attention with new in-depth articles about Morgan appearing in the Dutch news magazine Vrij Nederland and German newspaper Donaukurier in August.

Pain Relief?

The images of the killer whales teeth in the report speak for themselves.
They are graphic, indisputable and universally recognizable as “painful” to any person who has had a cavity, chipped, broken or lost a tooth, or had a tooth drilled by a dentist.

These latest revelations about SeaWorld's killer whales has the potential to take yet another bite out of the bottom line of the struggling marine theme park industry as it continues to struggle with a public relations campaign, trying desperately to distance itself from the Blackfish effect.

On 4 August 2016, SeaWorld Entertainment, Inc. (NYSE: SEAS) reported its financial results for the first half and second quarter of 2016. The results were not encouraging for investors. One analyst even suggested that SeaWorld should reinvest in the business, pinning its hopes on the addition of new roller coasters - not killer whales.

The world is rapidly changing and national and international laws and regulations and the government entities that are entrusted to enforce them, need to catch up to society's expectations and demands. What happens next is anyone's guess. But one thing is for sure, the Visser & Lisker report gives both government regulators and marine theme park executives something to chew on.

(Author's note - Matthew Spiegl serves on the Board of the Free Morgan Foundation.)

-- 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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An archaeologist and astrophysicist propose a new way of historic dating

Dentition as a Welfare Indicator

Drilling and Flushing Superior Dental Care?

Five Freedoms

SeaWorld and the Humane Society

Morgan as Her Own Best Advocate

Pain Relief?