Yellow-headed spruce sawfly (Pikonema alaskense) collected in Gros Morne National Park, Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, and photographed at the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics (sample ID: BIOUG14321-F12; specimen record: http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/Public_RecordView?processid=SSGBA3378-14; BIN: http://www.boldsystems.org/index.php/Public_BarcodeCluster?clusteruri=BOLD:ABZ5094)
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%feed http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheDailyGalaxyNewsFromPlanetEarthBeyond/~3/ocZPct9JAi8/-nasa-scientists-vast-ocean-of-saturns-moon-enceladus-could-be-the-site-of-a-second-genesis.html NASA Scientists --"Vast Ocean of Saturn's Moon Enceladus Could Be the Site of a Second Genesis"
Chris McKay, an astrobiologist with NASA says: "I've been interested in the search for life in the Solar System for decades and I'm still flabbergasted by what we're seeing on Enceladus. It's such a small world so far from Earth, putting out such a wealth of organics and water and indications of habitability - it's astounding, and the samples are right there, free for the taking."
With enormous jets of icy particles and water vapor shooting tens of thousands of kilometers into space, and an vast, global ocean covered by an ice shell, Saturn's moon Enceladus is one of the most fascinating objects in our Solar System. NASA's Carolyn Porco, director of flight operations and imaging team leader for the Cassini spacecraft in orbit around Saturn, has described findings of the jets and elevated temperatures at the moon's South Pole as “the mother lode of all discoveries." The findings, noted Porco, point to the possibility of “an environment where life itself might be stirring.”
Complex organic molecules, whose precise composition remains unknown, have been detected in Enceladus's jets, creating conditions appear to be favorable to the emergence of life. The relative thinness of the ice shell at the south pole could also allow a future space exploration mission to gather data, in particular using radar, which would be far more reliable and easy to obtain than with the 40 kilometers thick ice shell initially calculated. It looks as if Enceladus still has many secrets in store!
“Should we ever discover that a second genesis had occurred in our solar system, independently outside the Earth,” Porco added, “then I think at that point the spell is broken. The existence theorem has been proven, and we could safely infer from it that life was not a bug but a feature of the universe in which we live, that it's commonplace and has occurred a staggering number of times.”
An international team including researchers recently proposed a new model that reconciles different data sets and shows that the ice shell at Enceladus's south pole may be only a few kilometers thick. This suggests that there is a strong heat source in the interior of Enceladus, an additional factor supporting the possible emergence of life in its ocean.
Initial interpretations of data from Cassini flybys of Enceladus estimated that the thickness of its ice shell ranged from 30 to 40 km at the south pole to 60 km at the equator. These models were unable to settle the question of whether or not its ocean extended beneath the entire ice shell.
However, the discovery in 2015 of an oscillation in Enceladus's rotation known as a libration, which is linked to tidal effects, suggests that it has a global ocean and a much thinner ice shell than predicted, with a mean thickness of around 20 km. Nonetheless, this thickness appeared to be inconsistent with other gravity and topography data.
The image below shows the thickness of Enceladus's ice shell, which reaches 35 kilometers in the cratered equatorial regions (shown in yellow) and less than 5 kilometers in the active south polar region (shown in blue).
In order to reconcile the different constraints, the researchers from the Laboratoire de Planétologie Géodynamique de Nantes (CNRS/Université de Nantes/Université d'Angers), Charles University in Prague, and the Royal Observatory of Belgium1 proposed a new model in which the top two hundred meters of the ice shell acts like an elastic shell.
According to this study, Enceladus is made up successively of a rocky core with a radius of 185 kilometers, and an internal ocean approximately 45 kilometers deep, isolated from the surface by an ice shell with a mean thickness of around 20 kilometers, except at the south pole where it is thought to be less than 5 kilometers thick. In this model, the ocean beneath the ice makes up 40% of the total volume of the moon, while its salt content is estimated to be similar to that of Earth's oceans.
Since a thinner ice shell retains less heat, the tidal effects caused by Saturn on the large fractures in the ice at the south pole are no longer enough to explain the strong heat flow affecting this region. The model therefore reinforces the idea that there is strong heat production in Enceladus's deep interior that may power the hydrothermal vents on the ocean floor.
%feed http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheDailyGalaxyNewsFromPlanetEarthBeyond/~3/k9yj5thXKBA/join-startalks-neil-degrasse-tyson-to-explore-parallel-universes-and-the-meta-universe-listen.html Join StarTalk's Neil deGrasse Tyson to Explore Parallel Universes and the “Meta-Universe” (LISTEN)
Join Neil deGrasse Tyson and theoretical physicist and cosmologist Paul Steinhardt as they explore concepts like cosmic inflation, quantum tunneling, and whether gravity is extra-dimensional. Neil and Paul discuss whether the perception of time would be consistent across the multiverse, and whether reality and gravity are granular. Find out about the difference between the Big Bang and the Big Bounce.
Compare the concept of parallel universes with that of an ekpyrotic “meta-universe” that had no singularity at its birth, where space and time have existed forever, and where quantum fluctuations at the start of this cycle have given birth to causally separated regions that, though they can never know about each other due to distance and the limitations of the speed of light, are nonetheless connected by the fabric of spacetime.
This image from ESA's Planck satellite appears to show something quite ethereal and fantastical: a sprite-like figure emerging from scorching flames and walking towards the left of the frame, its silhouette a blaze of warm-hued colours.
This fiery illusion is actually a celestial feature named the Polaris Flare. This name is somewhat misleading; despite its moniker, the Polaris Flare is not a flare but a 10 light-year-wide bundle of dusty filaments in the constellation of Ursa Minor (The Little Bear), some 500 light-years away.
The Polaris Flare is located near the North Celestial Pole, a perceived point in the sky aligned with Earth's spin axis. Extended into the skies of the northern and southern hemispheres, this imaginary line points to the two celestial poles. To find the North Celestial Pole, an observer need only locate the nearby Polaris (otherwise known as the North Star or Pole Star), the brightest star in the constellation of Ursa Minor.
Some of the secrets of the Polaris Flare were uncovered when it was observed by ESA's Herschel some years ago. Using a combination of such Herschel observations and a computer simulation, scientists think that the Polaris Flare filaments could have been formed as a result of slow shockwaves pushing their way through a dense interstellar cloud, an accumulation of cold cosmic dust and gas sitting between the stars of our Galaxy.
These shockwaves, reminiscent of the sonic booms formed by fast sound waves here on Earth, would have been themselves triggered by nearby exploding stars that disrupted their surroundings as they died, triggering cloud-wide waves of turbulence
These shockwaves, reminiscent of the sonic booms formed by fast sound waves here on Earth, were themselves triggered by nearby exploding stars that disrupted their surroundings as they died, triggering cloud-wide waves of turbulence. These waves swept up the gas and dust in their path, sculpting the material into the snaking filaments we see.
This image is not a true-colour view, nor is it an artistic impression of the Flare, rather it comprises observations from Planck, which operated between 2009 and 2013. Planck scanned and mapped the entire sky, including the plane of the Milky Way, looking for signs of ancient light (known as the cosmic microwave background) and cosmic dust emission. This dust emission allowed Planck to create this unique map of the sky a magnetic map.
The relief lines laced across this image show the average direction of our Galaxy's magnetic field in the region containing the Polaris Flare. This was created using the observed emission from cosmic dust, which was polarised (constrained to one direction). Dust grains in and around the Milky Way are affected by and interlaced with the Galaxy's magnetic field, causing them to align preferentially in space. This carries through to the dust's emission, which also displays a preferential orientation that Planck could detect.
The emission from dust is computed from a combination of Planck observations at 353, 545 and 857 GHz, whereas the direction of the magnetic field is based on Planck polarisation data at 353 GHz. This frame has an area of 30 x 30º on the sky, and the colours represent the intensity of dust emission.
Credit: ESA and the Planck Collaboration
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%feed http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheDailyGalaxyNewsFromPlanetEarthBeyond/~3/2vI_YU8GoDQ/ecoalert-mass-extinction-of-earths-large-mammals-predicted-their-loss-would-be-a-tremendous-tragedy.html EcoAlert: Mass Extinction of Earth's Large Mammals Predicted --"Loss Would be a Tremendous Tragedy"
“The loss of these magnificent animals would be a tremendous tragedy,” said Blaire Van Valkenburgh, a UCLA professor of ecology and evolutionary biology, and article co-author. “They are all that is left of a once much more diverse megafauna that populated the planet only 12,000 years ago. And more importantly, we have only just begun to understand the important roles they play in maintaining healthy ecosystems.”
Preventing the mass extinction of gorillas, rhinoceroses, elephants, lions, tigers, wolves, bears and the world's other largest mammals will require bold political action and financial commitments from nations worldwide. In an article in the journal BioScience, 43 wildlife experts write that without immediate changes, many of the Earth's most iconic species will be lost.
Among the most serious threats to endangered animals are illegal hunting, deforestation, habitat loss, expansion of livestock and agriculture into wildlife areas, and human population growth, they write.
The scientists, who represent six continents, write that humans have “an abiding moral obligation to protect the Earth's megafauna,” or large mammals. “We must not go quietly into this impoverished future.”
In addition to their significance to ecosystems, animals such as tigers and elephants attract tourists and their money to parts of the world that have few alternative sources of income, said Van Valkenburgh, who holds the Donald R. Dickey chair in vertebrate biology in the UCLA College. “This paper is a call for action at all levels, local to global, to halt the rapid decline of the megafauna,” she said.
The paper reports that 59 percent of the largest carnivores and 60 percent of the largest herbivores have been classified as threatened with extinction, and that the situation is especially severe in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, where the greatest diversity of extant megafauna live.
William Ripple, the paper's lead author, a distinguished professor of ecology in the College of Forestry at Oregon State University, said the animals' declines are occurring rapidly.
“The more I look at the trends facing the world's largest terrestrial mammals, the more concerned I am we could lose these animals just as science is discovering how important they are to ecosystems and to the services they provide to people,” he said.
The scientists call for comprehensive action, including expanding habitats for the animals and changing conservation policy. The paper notes that some conservation initiatives have been successful and that, if measures are taken now, it may still be possible to rescue these animals from extinction.
%feed https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/08/160821220548.htm Young heavyweight star discovered in the Milky Way A young star over 30 times more massive than the sun could help us understand how the most extreme stars in the universe are born. astronomy
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%feed http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheDailyGalaxyNewsFromPlanetEarthBeyond/~3/EESSe_lRGQ0/worlds-astronomers-warn-our-21st-century-technology-is-too-primitive-to-detect-a-hostile-advanced-ci.html World's Astronomers --"Our 21st Century Technology Too Primitive to Detect an Advanced Alien Civilization"
Some of the world's leading astronomers -- including Great Britain's former astronomer royal, the Cambridge physicist Lord Martin Rees -- believe aliens, rather than using different radio waves or visible light to signal, may be using an entirely different communication medium such as neutrinos or gravitational waves (ripples in the fabric of space-time) or using communication mechanisms we cannot even begin to fathom.
“The fact that we have not yet found the slightest evidence for life -- much less intelligence -- beyond this Earth," said Arthur C. Clarke, "does not surprise or disappoint me in the least. Our technology must still be laughably primitive, we may be like jungle savages listening for the throbbing of tom-toms while the ether around them carries more words per second than they could utter in a lifetime."
Lord Rees, a leading cosmologist and astrophysicist who is the president of Britain's Royal Society and astronomer to the Queen of England believes the existence of extraterrestrial life may be beyond human understanding.
“They could be staring us in the face and we just don't recognize them. The problem is that we're looking for something very much like us, assuming that they at least have something like the same mathematics and technology. I suspect there could be life and intelligence out there in forms we can't conceive. Just as a chimpanzee can't understand quantum theory, it could be there as aspects of reality that are beyond the capacity of our brains.”
"I think it very likely in fact, inevitable that biological intelligence is only a transitory phenomenon… If we ever encounter extraterrestrial intelligence, I believe it is very likely to be postbiological in nature, wrote Arizona State's Paul Davies in "The Eerie Silence". Davies suggests that advanced technology might not even be made of matter. That it might have no fixed size or shape; have no well-defined boundaries. Is dynamical on all scales of space and time. Or, conversely, does not appear to do anything at all that we can discern. Does not consist of discrete, separate things; but rather it is a system, or a subtle higher-level correlation of things.
"Are matter and information," Davies asks, all there is? Five hundred years ago, Davies writes, "the very concept of a device manipulating information, or software, would have been incomprehensible. Might there be a still higher level, as yet outside all human experience, that organizes electrons? If so, this "third level" would never be manifest through observations made at the informational level, still less at the matter level.
We should be open to the distinct possibility that advanced alien technology a billion years old may operate at the third, or perhaps even a fourth or fifth level -all of which are totally incomprehensible to the human mind at our current state of evolution in 2012.
Frank Drake, the founder of SETI and Drake's Equation, believes that satellite TV and the “digital revolution” is making humanity invisible to aliens by cutting the transmission of TV and radio signals into space. The earth is currently surrounded by a 50 light year-wide “shell” of radiation from analogue TV, radio and radar transmissions. According to Drake, digital TV signals would look like white noise to a race of observing aliens.
Although the signals have spread far enough to reach many nearby star systems, they are rapidly vanishing in the wake of digital technology, said Drake. In the 1960s, Drake spearheaded the conversion of the Arecibo Observatory to a radio astronomy center. As a researcher, Drake was involved in the early work on pulsars. Drake also designed the Pioneer plaque with Carl Sagan in 1972, the first physical message sent into space. The plaque was designed to be understandable by extraterrestrials should they encounter it.
Milan Cirkovic of the Astronomical Observatory in Belgrade, has pointed out that the median age of terrestrial planets in the Milky Way is about 1.8 gigayears (one billion years) greater than the age of the Earth and the Solar System, which means that the median age of technological civilizations should be greater than the age of human civilization by the same amount. The vastness of this interval indicates that one or more processes must suppress observability of extraterrestrial communities.
Since at this point, there is no direct and/or widely apparent evidence that extraterrestrial life exists, it likely means one of the following:
We are (A) the first intelligent beings ever to become capable of making our presence known, and leaving our planet. At this point, there are no other life forms out there as advanced as us. Or perhaps extraterrestrial life does exists, but for some reason extraterrestrial life is so very rare and so very far away we'll never make contact anyway -- making extraterrestrial life nonexistent in a practical sense at least.
Or is it (B) that many advanced civilizations have existed before us, but without exception, they have for some unknown reason, existed and/or expanded in such a way that they are completely undetectable by our instruments.
Or is it (C) There have been others, but they have all run into some sort of “cosmic roadblock” that eventually destroys them, or at least prevents their expansion beyond a small area.
Since Earth's placement in space and time appears to be unremarkably random, proposition “A” seems fairly unlikely. Assuming humans evolved like other forms of life into our present state due to natural selection, then there's really nothing all that mystical, special or remarkable about our development as a species either. Due to the sheer numbers, there are almost certainly other planets capable of supporting at least some form of life. If that is so, then for Earthlings to be the very first species ever to make a noticeable mark on the Universe, from a statistical perspective, is incredibly unlikely.
For proposition “B” to be correct would defy all logic. If potentially thousands, or even millions of advanced extraterrestrial civilizations exist in the known Universe, then why would all of them, without exception, choose to expand or exist in such a way that they are completely undetectable? It's conceivable that some might, or perhaps even the majority, but for all of them to be completely undetectable civilizations does not seem likely either.
Proposition C in some ways, appears to be more likely than A or B. If “survival of the fittest” follows similar pathways on other worlds, then our own “civilized” nature could be somewhat typical of extraterrestrial civilizations that have, or do, exist.
The idea communicating with aliens comes with concerns. British astrophysicist Stephen Hawking has warned that communicating with aliens could be a threat to Earth: "If aliens visit us, the outcome would be much as when Columbus landed in America, which didn't turn out well for the Native Americans."
"The Three Body Problem" by science fiction Hugo Award winner, Liu Cixin, depicted the universe as a jungle with every civilization as a hidden hunter. Those who are exposed will be eliminated.
But Han Song, another leading Chinese science fiction writer, believes humans naturally want to connect, citing the Internet as proof. "I think aliens might think similarly. It is a biological instinct to connect with each other. Everyone wants to prove that they are not alone in the universe. Loneliness is intolerable to humans," he says.
Song also points out that the contact will be driven by curiosity and real requirements. "Humans will ultimately go to space to find resources and expand their living area, so it will be hard to avoid aliens. Contact with them, especially those with more advanced intelligence, may help us leap forward in civilization."
Regardless of the theoretical debate, scientists have never wavered in the search. "I think we shall call out. As a matter of fact, we have been yelling for years, and our radios and televisions are broadcasting in space all the time," says Mao Shude, director of the Center for Astrophysics of the Beijing-based Tsinghua University. "Aren't you curious what our counterparts would look like?
"If they are inferior or equal to us in terms of civilization, we won't be easily destroyed. If they are much more intelligent than us, they wouldn't be so narrow-minded as to compete with us. Some worry they will come to rob us of our natural resources, but they likely have the power to transform the entire globe already. What's the point of eliminating a much lower civilization?"
Mao believes the result will be significant however it turns out. "If we find other life, it will undoubtedly be the most important scientific discovery in our history; if not, it shows that life on Earth is unique and we should respect life and cherish each other."No matter the outcome, we shall never stop searching."
The image at the top of the page shows the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT): a gigantic instrument with a mirror nearly three times as wide as any telescope in existence (another telescope, currently being built in Chile, will be larger). Once it's finished in 2024 atop Hawaii's Mauna Kea, astronomers plan to use the TMT to observe objects billions of light years away to better understand the processes that occurred just after the formation of the universe.
The Weekend Feature
The Daily Galaxy via The Telegraph, South China Morning Post, and xinhuanet.com
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%feed https://www.pinterest.com/pin/255016397629341238/ foldio360 - Take 360
%feed http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fbjarn-kjarand-haugland%2Fcan-students-change-the-f_b_11651356.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dgreen%26ir%3DGreen&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8 Can students change the face of business? What happens when you give eight bright young entrepreneurs the freedom and resources to change the way we approach sustainable business?
They create something revolutionary, while making established businesses sit up and take notice.
Over the northern summer, DNV GL gathered a team of students from a range of studies at the company headquarters outside Oslo, Norway. They were given six weeks to create a digital platform to drive awareness of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), while creating value for both business and society.
The result is Wembo - a two-part digital platform designed to enable businesses and consumers to do their part in reaching the Global Goals through transparency, collaboration and sharing.
Four of the eight dedicated summer students in 2016 with the new Wembo app, from left: Marthe Sogn Lien, Alexander Gaugstad, Ingrid Bye Løken, and Stefan Elston.
What is Wembo?
Wembo consists of two digital products: an online dashboard called Wembo Analytics for businesses, and a smartphone application called Wembo Go for consumers.
Wembo Analytics is a web portal that will enable companies to share, monitor and improve their sustainability performance across every link of a product's supply chain. The information is then analyzed by DNV GL's data center that will provide companies with a score of how sustainable their production is. A company could see how it measures up against competitors, and select suppliers based on their sustainability scores.
The Wembo Go app lets consumers scan and compare to products side by side, choosing the product with the best sustainability score. This could be based on things like labour practices, or how far a product has travelled for processing and packaging. The aim is to encourage more sustainable consumption by letting consumers see the global impact of the products they choose.
"Before I started working on the project I didn't really grasp the size of the negative impact we humans are having on the planet. I hope Wembo can contribute to a more sustainable future", explains Stefan Michael Elston, a graduate student from the Norwegian School of Economics (NHH).
The team presenting Wembo at DNV GL head office, from left: Stefan Elston, Eivind Harris, Ingride Bye Løken, Simen Hexeberg, Erlend S. Harbitz, Marthe Sogn Lien, Johan Jørgen Grav and Alexander Gaugstad.
Backing youth in business
When companies like DNV GL hire interns, the standard assumption is that we're going to teach them about the world of business. With our summer project, we turned this completely around. Instead we gave the students the opportunity to teach us what to do. I am convinced that giving young digital natives this kind of opportunities and responsibility will be a key factor for success in the accelerating technological shift that is happening today. As a company, this approach is extremely valuable. It helps us stay flexible, creative and keep us energized.
It's also a boon for the students: partnering with a global company and working on something that has real-world significance puts them a step ahead in the competitive graduate market.
I am truly impressed to see what the students have created over just six weeks. At DNV GL, we aim to enable sustainable business models and encourage industries to see the opportunities and the value of being transparent. Wembo fits right into this approach. Over a short period, these students have given us a tool to help the world reach the UN Sustainable Development Goals by year 2030. They really are members of 'Generation S'; the custodians of tomorrow who understand the power of sustainability to create positive change.
The combination of big data analysis and transparency Wembo provides could very well be the key to unlocking a safe and sustainable future.
You can read more about Wembo here, or check out the prototype for yourself.
Johan Jørgen Grav shows how Wembo connects to the UN Global Goals
-- 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.
%feed http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Flindahall.tumblr.com%2Fpost%2F149319218453&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8 Denis Papin Scientist of the DayDenis Papin, a French...
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%feed http://redirect.viglink.com?u=https%3A%2F%2F500px.com%2Fphoto%2F168913837%2Funtitled-by-young-zeng&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8 Untitled by young zeng
%feed http://redirect.viglink.com?u=https%3A%2F%2F500px.com%2Fphoto%2F168891017%2Fimgl0030-1-jpg-by-michael-fertig&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8 IMGL0030-1.jpg by Michael Fertig
%feed http://redirect.viglink.com?u=https%3A%2F%2F500px.com%2Fphoto%2F168888377%2Fpansies-by-anita-anti&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8 Pansies by Anita Anti
%feed http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fsteven-cohen%2Fthe-role-of-government-in_b_11649632.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dgreen%26ir%3DGreen&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8 The Role Of Government In Rebuilding After Disasters People are losing their homes to floods in Louisiana and the Midwest and forest fires in California. It is not just heartbreaking to see people have their homes and life savings destroyed in an instant; it is a problem that calls out for a government response. I have written many times about the need for dedicated federal funds for the reconstruction of homes and communities destroyed by nature or terror. This will require a dedicated revenue stream, or what we used to call a tax, to generate these funds. The facts are that our population is growing, we live in places we never lived before, and we depend on energy, transport, water and waste infrastructure to live a modern lifestyle. We are more vulnerable to the impact of a storm than we were before our homes became hosts to the technology of comfort. Everyone watches the disasters on TV, feels bad, figures it can't happen here, and use their remotes to switch to the Olympics. But many can't flip the channel; they are living with the disaster and are desperately trying to find a new \home for their family.
The fundamental job of government is to provide security and safety for its people. Natural disasters may be predictable to some degree, but they are unavoidable. What is avoidable is the sense of economic hopelessness that follows these events. The community can't replace the memories and mementos of the past, but it can rebuild homes, schools, libraries, roads and other institutions. It's too bad that government can't support religious institutions because they are so valuable in the aftermath of loss, but the constitution really does forbid it.
In last week's New York Times, Campbell Robertson and Alan Blinde reported that:
In Louisiana, severe weather can often seem a trauma visited and revisited. But the disaster unfolding here this week fits into a recent and staggering pattern in more than half-dozen states, where floods have rolled out at such a scale that scientists say they might be a once-every-500-or-1,000-year occurrence. The cumulative, increasingly grim toll, from Maryland to South Carolina to Louisiana to Texas, includes scores of lives and billions of dollars in economic losses.
What were once rare occurrences have become commonplace. You could argue that we should build out communities in places less prone to flooding, but there are no such places. Even deserts occasionally get hit with sudden downpours. In addition to the flooding, we see growing impact from forest fires. California's Blue Cut fire has caused 80,000 people to evacuate their homes. According to Nick Strayer of the New York Times:
The size of wildfires has grown steadily for more than 30 years. In 1982, the average fire covered less than 25 acres. Today, the average wildfire burns about 100 acres...The federal government spent $202.8 million to fight fires in 1986. Last year, it spent $2.1 billion. One cause of the longer seasons is environmental: The warming climate has melted snowpacks earlier, increasing the length of time that forests dry out and become vulnerable to burning.
There is no question that with 39 million or so people living in California, many are living in places that were unpopulated a generation ago, and so a fire might have burned in some remote location 50 years ago but would had little impact on human communities. That increases the probability that people might be in the pathway of destruction, but frankly, that's the point. More and more extreme weather events are taking place, and we are more likely to suffer damage form those events.
It's time for a policy response that provides reconstruction insurance, so that along with a federal disaster declaration, funds become immediately available to rebuild homes, facilities and infrastructure. There are a lot of ways to generate revenue for such a trust fund. There are even more ways to create a lock-box system that ensure the money can't be diverted or influenced by political considerations. I would tax gasoline to fund this. Our federal gasoline tax is quite low when compared to other parts of the world, and a disaster surcharge could be set annually based on the needs of the previous year. We get lucky, the tax goes down; we get hit a lot, the tax goes up. But with a dedicated trust fund in place, when a twister carries your home to the Land of Oz, the state of Kansas shows up the next day with a check for you to rebuild your home. They also provide another check for temporary housing. If you're a landlord with renters, the same deal applies.
The disaster will be just as miserable, but the aftermath can be made predictable and less wrenching by a national insurance system that cleanly and efficiently funds reconstruction. Here in the northeast, we continue to live through the horrific follow-up of Superstorm Sandy. First, our congressional delegation had to beg their colleagues for funding. Then began a long and complex process to determine who was eligible for aid and to ensure there was no fraud in the process. Years later, people have still not returned to their homes.
Observing this failure of government response after Sandy and seeing the representatives in the Midwest and South resisting funding reconstruction, I warned that they would be next. And now they are. The ideology of a do-nothing government is an obstacle to taking the action needed. There are plenty of reasons to be cautious when designing a big new federal program--I get that. But how many more miserable people will we need to see before we act? How many lives and family savings are we willing to sacrifice before we design an approach to fund reconstruction?
The American dream of hard work and reward is under siege. That is part of what is fueling the political insurgencies of this presidential year. Reconstruction funding is an appropriate role for government because pricing disaster insurance is nearly impossible and no private firm will take this risk. But our community is stuck with somehow paying for the cost of reconstruction.
The news media covers the drama of first response to disasters, and our capacity to predict and respond to disasters has improved over the past several decades. But once the cameras depart and the media trucks have driven away, the devastated communities are left on their own. As the number, severity, and impact of these storms grow, the ad hoc response to them will become increasingly unacceptable. I can't say that I expect any of our elected officials or presidential candidates to advocate for a reconstruction trust fund, but some form of creative response by government is desperately needed.
-- 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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%feed http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fnorman-solomon%2Fclintons-transition-team_b_11648470.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dgreen%26ir%3DGreen&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8 Clinton's Transition Team: A Corporate Presidency Foretold Like other Bernie Sanders delegates in Philadelphia a few weeks ago, I kept hearing about the crucial need to close ranks behind Hillary Clinton. "Unity" was the watchword. But Clinton has reaffirmed her unity with corporate America.
Rhetoric aside, Clinton is showing her solidarity with the nemesis of the Sanders campaign -- Wall Street. The trend continued last week with the announcement that Clinton has tapped former senator and Interior secretary Ken Salazar to chair her transition team.
After many months of asserting that her support for the "gold standard" Trans-Pacific Partnership was a thing of the past -- and after declaring that she wants restrictions on fracking so stringent that it could scarcely continue -- Clinton has now selected a vehement advocate for the TPP and for fracking, to coordinate the process of staffing the top of her administration.
But wait, there's more -- much more than Salazar's record -- to tell us where the planning for the Hillary Clinton presidency is headed.
On the surface, it might seem like mere inside baseball to read about the transition team's four co-chairs, described by Politico as "veteran Clinton aides Maggie Williams and Neera Tanden" along with "former National Security Adviser Tom Donilon and former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm." But the leaders of the transition team -- including Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, who is also president of the Clinton-Kaine Transition Project -- will wield enormous power.
"The transition team is one of the absolute most important things in the world for a new administration," says William K. Black, who has held key positions at several major regulatory agencies such as the Federal Home Loan Bank Board. Along with "deciding what are we actually going to make our policy priorities," the transition team will handle key questions: "Who will the top people be? Who are we going to vet, to hold all of the cabinet positions, and many non-cabinet positions, as well? The whole staffing of the senior leadership of the White House."
Black's assessment of Salazar, Podesta and the transition team's four co-chairs is withering. "These aren't just DNC regulars, Democratic National Committee regulars," he said in an interview with The Real News Network. "What you're seeing is complete domination by what used to be the Democratic Leadership Council. So this was a group we talked about in the past. Very, very, very right-wing on foreign policy, what they called a muscular foreign policy, which was a euphemism for invading places. And very, very tough on crime -- this was that era of mass incarceration that Bill Clinton pushed, and it's when Hillary was talking about black 'superpredators,' this myth, this so dangerous myth."
That choice [Ken Salazar] means the oil and gas industry just hit a political gusher.
Black added: "And on the economic side, they were all in favor of austerity. All in favor of privatization. Tried to do a deal with Newt Gingrich to privatize Social Security. And of course, were all in favor of things like NAFTA."
As for Hillary Clinton's widely heralded "move to the left" in recent months, Black said that it "was purely calculated for political purposes. And all of the team that's going to hire all the key people and vet the key people for the most senior positions for at least the first several years of what increasingly looks likely to be a Clinton administration are going to be picked by these people, who are the opposite of progressive."
In that light, Salazar is a grotesquely perfect choice to chair the transition team. After all of Clinton's efforts to present herself as a foe of the big-money doors that revolve between influence peddlers and government officials in Washington, her choice of Salazar -- a partner at the lobbying powerhouse WilmerHale since 2013 -- belies her smooth words. That choice means the oil and gas industry just hit a political gusher.
On both sides of the revolving doors, the industry has been ably served by Salazar, whose work included arguing for the Keystone XL pipeline. His support for fracking has been so ardent that it led him two years ago to make a notably fanciful claim: "We know that, from everything we've seen, there's not a single case where hydraulic fracking has created an environmental problem for anyone."
Salazar is part of a clear pattern. Clinton's selection of Tim Kaine for vice president underscored why so many progressives distrust her. Kaine was among just one-quarter of Democrats in the Senate who voted last year to fast track the TPP. When he was Virginia's governor, Kaine said that "I strongly support" a so-called right-to-work law that is anathema to organized labor. A few years ago he faulted fellow Democrats who sought to increase taxes for millionaires.
Clinton announced the Kaine pick while surely knowing that many progressives would find it abhorrent. A week beforehand, the Bernie Delegates Network released the results of a survey of Sanders delegates showing that 88 percent said they would find selection of Kaine "unacceptable." Only 3 percent of the several hundred respondents said it would be "acceptable."
The first big post-election showdown will be over the TPP in the lame-duck session of Congress. Clinton's spokesman Brian Fallon reiterated a week ago that "she is against the TPP before the election and after the election." But her choices for running mate and transition team have sent a very different message. And it's likely that she is laying groundwork to convey anemic "opposition" that will be understood on Capitol Hill as a wink-and-nod from a president-elect who wouldn't mind "aye" votes for the TPP.
Blessed with an unhinged and widely deplored Republican opponent, Hillary Clinton may be able to defeat him without doing much to mend fences with alienated Sanders voters. But Clinton's smooth rhetoric should not change the fact that -- on a vast array of issues -- basic principles will require progressives to fight against her actual policy goals, every step of the way.
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%feed http://twitter.com/WWFPak/status/767708068876460033 One of the top international initiative to combat #illegalwildlifetrade is Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) http://ifttt.com/missing_link?1471872084
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%feed http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Faudrey-peterman%2Fnational-parks-mission-ac_b_11649300.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dgreen%26ir%3DGreen&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8 National Parks Mission Accomplished At 65! OMG!
The first day of my 66th year, I woke up early to write my blog saluting the National Park System on the 100th anniversary of its caretaker agency, the National Park Service. I planned to write about my top five favorite national parks ( Grand Teton, Denali, Badlands, Kingsley/Timucuan and Everglades) using the vivid descriptions from being there to excite others to visit.
Then I opened the first email, and found my mission already accomplished in this podcast produced by my friend Natasha Milne from Australia and who I have still to meet. Natasha and her collaborator Dr. Barbara Royal are the inspiration behind 101 Reasons to Get Out Of Bed, profiling 101 "planet heroes."
Listening to the podcast, I enjoyed all over again the adventure, the mission, the challenges and successes that Frank and I with many allies have encountered through the years of striving to reconnect people with the vast swaths of nature in our national parks and public lands. Now I feel I NEED DO NOTHING ELSE other than share it with the world. Anyone who can resist the call to explore our public lands and actively engage in their enjoyment and stewardship must already be completely happy in their current situation and need try nothing new.
This week we'll find out if President Obama issues the Presidential Memo that the Next100 Coalition asked him for on the Centennial, calling for greater diversity in the park service's workforce and visitorship, and a more inclusive vision of the public lands system for the next 100 years. You can help by signing the petition here.
Meanwhile, Happy 100th Birthday this Thursday, September 25, National Park Service! Congratulations to all those who act in the spirit of love that I express in this podcast. Others who take it to heart might find that Americans of color are natural and necessary allies in the preservation of our precious natural, cultural and historical treasures so that we can hand them off intact to future generations. There is no other viable way.
-- 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.
%feed http://redirect.viglink.com?u=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.huffingtonpost.com%2Fellen-kanner%2Fmeatless-monday-small-ste_b_11474546.html%3Futm_hp_ref%3Dgreen%26ir%3DGreen&key=ddaed8f51db7bb1330a6f6de768a69b8 Meatless Monday: Small Steps, Big Changes -- Gene Baur and "Living the Farm Sanctuary Life" There was no plan, there was only "concern about animals and nature," says Gene Baur. "I wanted to do something positive it the world." He did. In 1986, he co-founded Farm Sanctuary. Now almost 30 years later, Farm Sanctuary is America's premier farm animal protection organization, a safe haven for factory farm animals abused and/or left for dead, and a transformative place for people, too. Farm Sanctuary offers education, outreach and the opportunity to rediscover our primal bond with animals.
"Farm animals are not that different from cats and dogs," says Baur. "They have feelings, relationships, respect and compassion." Their open affection remind of us our own humanity. And our responsibility. "We don't share our lives with animals just because we want to. We do it because we need them," Baur writes in "Living the Farm Sanctuary Life."
Co-written with Gene Stone, Baur's new book provides a little Farm Sanctuary wherever you are, with adorable farm animal photos, pleasing plant-based recipes from fab chefs and cookbook authors including Chad Sarno, even one from Baur. And of course, transformation.
There are stories about rescued farm animals, like a ewe named Hilda, Farm Sanctuary's first rescue and resident. Just as compelling are the stories of people whose lives have changed after close encounters of the animal kind, from a former pig farmer to Twitter creator (and vegan) Biz Stone. Baur's book also shows you how to to live according to Farm Sanctuary's five tenets:
Live and Eat in Alignment with Your Values Engage in a Mindful Connection with Animals Engage in a Mindful connection with Your Food Eat Plants. . . for Your Health Eat Plants. . . for the Health of the Earth
Taken together, it's a recipe for "compassionate vegan living. You can live and do well without meat." And it's easy. "Try Meatless Monday, substitute meatless meats for meats," Baur suggests. "Small changes lead to bigger changes."
One small change that's helped lead to bigger ones and greater vegan acceptance is the current state of vegan eats, more accessible and more delicious than when Baur went vegan in 1985. One thing hasn't changed in three decades. "Health," says Baur, "is the biggest driver." You want healthy? Hello, powerful plant-fueled athletes like David Carter, Rich Roll,Ellen Jaffe Jones, even Baur, who's been running marathons and triathlons to prove vegan and buff go together.
Farm Sanctuary's undergone other big changes. In addition to the original site in Watkins Glen, there's now two more animal sanctuaries in California. That's more than 500 acres of land for happy, healthy animals. Along with expanded acreage is expanded awareness. "It's an exciting time," says Baur. "People are starting to think about the impact of animal agriculture on nature and that's a very good thing. People want more mindful choices, there's more momentum than ever, a convergence of awareness. That gives me a lot of hope."
Now as it enters its third decade, Farm Sanctuary is working to reach more people, from the underserved to "people in urban places," as well as tying in to existing and emerging trends. They're all little steps which taken together "catapult it to the next level."
As Farm Sanctuary evolves, its goal remains the same. "To save animals' lives," says Baur. "One of the best ways to do that is by not eating them. They're our friends, not our food."
The Best Tofu Scramble You've Ever Had
Reprinted from Living the Farm Sanctuary Life by Gene Baur and Gene Stone, copyright 2015 by Farm Sanctuary. By permission of Rodale Books.
Baur's sole culinary contribution to his new book and a family favorite, an awesome, animal-free version of the "wonderful Sunday morning family breakfasts of bacon and eggs when I was growing up."
1 medium red onion, chopped 1 red, orange, or yellow bell pepper, chopped 3 cloves garlic, finely chopped 8 ounces sliced white mushrooms 1 pound firm tofu, rinsed, drained, and crumbled 1 cup nutritional yeast 1-1/2 teaspoons salt 1 teaspoon ground black pepper 1 teaspoon ground turmeric 5 cups fresh spinach
In a cast-iron skillet over medium-high heat, add about 2 tablespoons water and cook the onion, bell pepper, and garlic. Stir frequently and add a 1/8" layer of water (it will steam off) to prevent the veggies from sticking. When the onion is translucent, add the mushrooms. Continue stirring and adding water as necessary.
When the mushrooms boil down to approximately half their original size, reduce the heat to medium and add the tofu, nutritional yeast, salt, and pepper. Continue stirring frequently, mixing and adding water as necessary. When the tofu, spices, and veggies are mixed well and heated evenly, after about 5 minutes, add the turmeric and continue stirring and adding water to prevent sticking.
After the tofu attains a uniform yellowish color, mix in the spinach, which will boil down to a fraction of its original size. Then enjoy!
Serves 4.
Variations: Feel free to add other veggies or more of the veggies listed above, which will make the dish less protein dense. You can also add vegan sausage, like Tofurky or Field Roast, if you want a heavier dish.
-- 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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