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Sunset 7 Sept 2016  

Sculptor Lil posted a photo:

 
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Spires  

Howard Ferrier posted a photo:

 
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1666 London  

Tedz Duran posted a photo:

A 120m long wooden replica of 1666 London was floated down the River Thames between Waterloo Bridge and Blackfriars Bridge at sunset before it was set ablaze to mark 350 years since the Great Fire.

#a7rII #batis1885 #carlzeiss

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‘Things Shouldn't Be Like This': Lingering Effects of Peru's Jungle Oil Spills  

By Rebecca Wolff, National Geographic Young Explorer Grantee

I hadn't grasped the true human consequences of oil spills until we immersed ourselves in the situation going on in Peru.

The stories our team heard of lingering illness and food insecurity were heartbreaking. “When the oil spill happened, [the doctors] arrived in the community and gave out a few medicines, and then they never came back. Things shouldn't be like this,” we were told.

By June 2016, 8000 individuals and at least 30 indigenous communities were affected. I never thought it could possibly get worse.

On August 10, the fourth oil spill since the start of 2016 was reported in the Peruvian Amazon.

At least 10 indigenous communities are impacted by the newest spill in the province of Condorcanqui, department of Amazonas. More than 20 similar spills have crippled the region over the past five years.

This latest spill has the potential to impact the Marañon River and the indigenous groups living there, including the Awajún who were affected by the January 25 spill in Chiriaco and the June 24 spill in Barranca. The Marañon is one of the most important rivers in Peru, starting in the Andes and eventually becoming a major tributary of the Amazon River.

Anger and frustration are reaching all-time highs across Peru. In February, after two spills saw over 3,000 barrels of crude oil flow into the Chiriaco and Morona Rivers, state-owned oil company Petroperú was told to cease pumping oil on their Nor Peruano pipeline. The 40-year-old pipeline is in a state of disrepair, the believed cause of the multiple spills this year.

A third oil spill in late June raised questions as to whether Petroperú had followed state orders to stop pumping oil and indicated the company had in fact been continuing to operate their faulty pipeline. One week after the June 24 spill, the Peruvian Supervisory Agency for Investment in Energy and Mining sanctioned Petroperú for pumping oil without permission. The company's president resigned during the controversy.

The cause of the newest spill has not been verified. The Agency for Environmental Assessment and Enforcement (OEFA) released a statement on August 11 saying the spill may have resulted from an intentional cut to the pipeline. However, advocates I work with in Peru feel that unconfirmed accusations like this only help shift the blame and responsibility for the spill away from Petroperú. It also remains unclear whether Petroperú ever received permission, after the June sanction, to pump oil again. People are demanding to know if Petroperú was operating illegally, once again putting the Amazon at risk.

Communities and indigenous organizations are often the first to report oil spills on their territories, yet they are not seeing swift legal action or recognition of their rights and needs in wake of these environmental disasters.

“Legal processes are often partial and incomplete. There is a major disconnect between the process and the expectations of affected communities,” anthropologist Rodrigo Lazo, one of our Peruvian collaborators told me. In the Amazon, many individuals simply feel that not enough is being done to help.

For the past six months, my team and I have interviewed lawyers, community members, indigenous leaders, and advocates across Peru. The testimonies of those afflicted by the spills and those fighting on behalf of communities never waver. Oil spills have abruptly impacted livelihoods and health while polluting the land and rivers of the Amazon.

One mother worried about how she would feed her children when her farmland remained covered in oil, never cleaned up by Petroperú. A community leader explained the health and emergency food supplies provided in his area were not enough for the vast amount of people seeking support.

The number of oil spills occurring in the Peruvian Amazon is increasing at an alarming rate. As we wait to learn just how bad this fourth spill will be, I wonder about the countless stories never told of how oil spills impact human lives. I can only hope the inspiring indigenous leaders, communities, and organizations our team has met will keep fighting to make sure that a fair legal and social resolution is achieved for all those stricken by these tragic oil spills.

 

More by Rebecca Wolff and Team Member Kevin Floerke

Indigenous Amazonians Reeling From Oil Spills in the Jungle

Health Concerns, Food Insecurity Linger Months After Peruvian Oil Spills

Peru's Oil Spills Deserve the World's Attention

 

 

 
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Big Sunset  

Alex Chilli posted a photo:

Somewhat exhausted view of Big Ben and Westminster Bridge - but couldn't resist as the sun was setting. Now for some less touristy shots I think...

 
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Wicked when Wet by George Benson  

Wicked when Wet by George Benson

George Benson: Photos

 
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Photos of the Day: Sept. 7, 2016  

Explore the news of the day with these images from around the world.  
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Flowers+Black tea by Parag Bhagat  

Flowers+Black tea by Parag Bhagat

Parag Bhagat: Photos

 
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Eclairs by T_Hilal  

Eclairs by T_Hilal

My tiny happiness after a long&hard day.

T_Hilal: Photos

 
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Made With Your Values by BRXSON  

Made With Your Values by BRXSON

Way, way, way above Times Square...

BRXSON: Photos

 
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Skiathos, Greece by Thom Graham-Wood  

Skiathos, Greece by Thom Graham-Wood

Thom Graham-Wood: Photos

 
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Boom time for whales in the Arctic driven by the loss of sea ice  
The unprecedented loss of sea ice at high latitudes has one benefit it has created ideal conditions for baleen whales  
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色达清晨 by 曦哥很忙  

色达清晨 by 曦哥很忙

曦哥很忙: Photos

 
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surviving ... by patrick verweire  

surviving ... by patrick verweire

patrick verweire: Photos

 
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AGR by Lucas Chien  

AGR by Lucas Chien

Lucas Chien: Photos

 
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The Space Shuttle Challenger rises through the skies above...  

The Space Shuttle Challenger rises through the skies above Florida on February 3, 1984.

With the first release of my book tomorrow in the United Kingdom, I have been doing a lot of thinking about why I started this project in the first place. To sum it up in one word, it has always been about perspective. Through space travel or satellites or simply bringing ourselves to a more elevated viewpoint, we can discover new ways to see our world like never before. I think that exercise can be healthy, it can be challenging, and ultimately, it can be beautiful. For me, it has been such an amazing adventure to work on this project and this book and I can't wait to see where it will take us next. Photo courtesy of NASA

 
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Venezuelan Food Shortages Force Many to Abandon Their Pets (19 photos)  

In recent years, triple-digit inflation, massive food shortages, rising crime rates, and failing public services in Venezuela have forced many families into difficult decisions. The lack of available and affordable food has led to an increasing number of pets being dropped off at shelters, or simply abandoned in the streets. The Associated Press reports that “Pet owners say the price of dog food has more than doubled in recent months to $2 a pound, more than a day's pay for those earning the minimum wage.” Reuters photographer Carlos Garcia Rawlins and AP photographer Fernando Llano recently documented the growing number of abandoned dogs and cats in Venezuela's parks, shelters, and private clinics.

 
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Green way by Fabio Antenore  

Green way by Fabio Antenore

For more of my Works, Prints, Workshops ore personal Coaching follow me on: FACEBOOK HOMEPAGE

Fabio Antenore: Photos

 
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Abandoned by Raed Ammari  

Abandoned by Raed Ammari

Raed Ammari: Photos

 
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Breakout by Michael Bollino  

Breakout by Michael Bollino

Atmosphere was the name of the game during my recent trip to the Canadian Rockies. Rain, fog, clouds, wind all accompanied me on the day I entered the park. Awful conditions for the tourists yearning for mountain views but incredibly exciting for any photographers driving the Icefields Parkway that day. As hoped, the afternoon brought a stop to the rain as well as a breaking in the clouds obscuring the high peaks. This image is from the first series I shot during the trip. I've added a handful more to my New Releases gallery on my website if anyone feels like clicking over.

Michael Bollino: Photos

 
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Forces of Mountains by Adnan Bubalo  

Forces of Mountains by Adnan Bubalo

The Matterhorn is a mountain of the Alps, straddling the main watershed and border between Switzerland and Italy. It is a huge and near-symmetrical pyramidal peak in the Monte Rosa area of the Pennine Alps, whose summit is 4,478 metres (14,692 ft) high, making it one of the highest summits in the Alps and Europe. It is estimated that over 500 alpinists have died on the Matterhorn since the first climb in 1865, making it one of the deadliest peaks in the world From my last expedition to Alps

Adnan Bubalo: Photos

 
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At the end of the day... by Marcel Bressers  

At the end of the day... by Marcel Bressers

When I was making my way back at the end of the day, I suddenly discovered him standing there in the last light of day. So I raised y camera and took the shot. Enjoy!

Marcel Bressers: Photos

 
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Aline by Manfred Karisch  

Aline by Manfred Karisch

Manfred Karisch: Photos

 
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Montreal Is About To Kill A Lot Of Dogs, Based On Quack Science  
A dog registered as a boxer has killed a woman in Montreal, so the mayor is calling for a ban on pit bulls. This would be amusing, if it weren't so predictable and depressing: in few areas of public policy do you encounter thinking this routinely deranged. And it all starts with contempt for science.

Consider the National Post's Barbara Kay, almost certainly Canada's most prominent enemy of this ill-defined category of dog: the "pit bull." Kay is one of the saner voices on her side of the debate, and I sense she genuinely believes that she is acting on behalf of dog bite victims. For years she has written screeds calling for the ban of these dogs, based on what she considers solid scientific evidence. It would help, however, if she actually knew what a scientist was, and how they can be identified in the wild. I've never dealt with a journalist so distressingly lax when it comes to vetting her sources: she does not so much cherry-pick experts as pick diseased cherries and pronounce them epidemiologists.

In particular, Barbara Kay relies upon two crusaders who stress that they were personally bitten by pit bulls. I have written before about Merritt Clifton, the alleged statistician she describes as "her primary source." I addressed his claim that he had "more than a hundred peer-reviewed publications." I found only one -- unrelated to pit bulls -- in a marginal Asian journal. Since then an immaculately researched book has emerged -- Pit Bull: the Battle Over an American Icon (Knopf) -- and the author, Bronwen Dickey, is a more intrepid detective than I am: she managed to find two. Both in this same comically obscure journal. "In one of them, he cites his own newsletter twelve times. The rest of the citations came mainly from Web sites, news reports, and press releases." Dickey is clear on Clifton's credibility as a scientist: he "possesses no relevant credentials."

The woman Barbara Kay describes as her "other primary source" is Colleen Lynn. Here, Bronwen Dickey's revelations are priceless: "Before her bite injury, Lynn maintained a fortune-telling Web site called DivineLady.com, on which she referred to herself as 'Divine Lady, Beholder of the Soul.' In 2011, she self-published the third edition of Divine Lady's Guide to the Runes."

And the Divine Lady now runs DogsBite -- a sober, professional looking website, as long as you don't click on the links to drooling hate groups -- which credulous journalists consider a primary source for scientific information about pit bulls. Bronwen Dickey reminds us: "Lynn has no professional credentials in statistics, epidemiology, or animal behaviour; neither do the sources she relies upon most frequently."

These are the experts, peddled by Barbara Kay, who are informing Mayor Denis Coderre's decision to introduce a breed ban. Their favoured legislation is strongly rejected by every expert organization on the continent, including the Canadian Veterinary Medical Association, the American Veterinary Medical Association, the American Bar Association, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the American College of Veterinary Behaviorists.

When it comes to Breed Specific Legislation, it is not a question of two worthy opinions to be carefully considered and weighed against each other. It is a matter of science versus the worst kind of quackery: rune-throwing fortune tellers, wildly unqualified statisticians, and a posse of foul-mouthed trolls. There is no argument here, any more than there is in the sorry vaccine debate: it's simply knowledge versus willful, howling ignorance.

Barbara Kay's third vaunted source -- her "bible" -- is a book by Alexandra Semyonova, a former welfare inspector for the Dutch SPCA. Despite having spent time at good schools -- Johns Hopkins and University College London -- Semyonova likes to talk about "science whores": these are trained scientists with peer-reviewed publications, who come to radically different conclusions from hers, and therefore must be in it for the money.

I read Kay's bible after some urging. Semyonova's book is called The 100 Silliest Things People Say About Dogs. Which doesn't have quite the same ring to it as "The Old Testament." Still, it's not a bad book. Sure, she cites Merritt Clifton, so her statistics can be safely ignored, but it's not a dreadful book, really, until you come to the end -- the section entitled: "Myth 99: Scientists know what they are talking about because they study animals in an objective way."

Here the counterfactual statements are truly special. "The scientists who have studied dogs have done it either in highly unnatural circumstances (the lab), or they've only watched the dogs for short intervals." If you believe this silliness, I suggest you look up Dr. Ian Dunbar, a scientist with stellar academic qualifications -- a veterinary degree, a doctorate in animal behaviour from Berkeley, a Special Honours degree in Physiology and Biochemistry -- who has become famous for training dogs through decades of experience in the field. (He oppose BSL, of course, calling it "frankly stupid".)

I urge you to read "Myth 99" in its ridiculous entirety. Semyonova writes: "We now know that science often attracts people who have various, more or less serious, autism related disorders, perhaps in particular Asperger's syndrome." She laments science's "obsession with measurement and quantification." She suggests it might be a result of autism.

In short: rigorous science is overrated. Perhaps a kind of illness.

Barbara Kay seems to have come to her own self-serving conclusion: rigorous science reporting is overrated. I read her quirky bible, but despite my insistence, she has declined to read Bronwen Dickey's book, an exhaustive and likely definitive study representing seven years of research. Which didn't prevent Kay from tweeting this bit of non-libel, based on her profound insight into a book she hasn't read: "Why does @BronwenDickey hate kids?"

Let's take a look at what happened in Ontario when those evil "science whores" failed to prevent Breed Specific Legislation in 2005. For a short time it looked good: "A total of 486 bites were recorded in 2005. That number fell generally in the six years following, to 379 in 2010." And then -- when pit bulls were finally getting thin on the ground -- the numbers began to rise: "Toronto's reported dog bites have been rising since 2012, and in 2013 and 2014 reached their highest levels this century."

How could this be? Simple: other dogs stepped in to fill the gap. Irresponsible owners remained irresponsible -- since the laws did not apply to them, simply to maligned breeds -- and their dogs continued to bite. In 2014, pit bulls didn't even make the top ten list; the top biter in Ontario was the German Shepherd (a perennial), followed distantly by the Labrador retriever. Of course, had the wise rulers of Ontario listened to the science whores, they would have known to expect this: Breed Specific Legislation has been a disaster worldwide. Not one respectable study supports breed bans.

Oh, and if you care about dogs at all: "By 2012, the Ontario Veterinary Medical Association estimated that the law had led to over 1,000 dogs and puppies in Ontario having been needlessly put down."

Perhaps you don't care about dogs, but you value fiscal responsibility? Ontario's worthless Breed Specific Legislation -- while killing dogs, and doing nothing to make humans safer -- has certainly cost a whole lot of money. The precise figure hasn't been released, despite numerous requests, but we can infer how much from a study of Prince George County, Maryland (whose BSL costs are considered on the low side, relatively speaking): "The average cost to seize, detain, test, and euthanize a single pit bull was $68,000. In the fiscal year of 2001-2002, the total cost of pit bull confiscations was $560,000." Needless to say, this half million dollars purchased precisely zilch: "Studies proved that the community had no measurable safety benefit from the ban, and lost out on thousands of dollars from cancelled dog shows, tourism, and consistent 'pit bull' report calls from concerned citizens."

You'd think that Barbara Kay, a political conservative, would have strong ideas about fiscal restraint. But no, saving money has the unbearable consequence of saving pit bulls from the needle. Which is the only reason I can imagine Ms. Kay so greatly favours the failed Ontario legislation over the much less expensive program introduced in Alberta, which happens to actually work.

You see, Mayor Coderre need not look south of the border for relevant expertise here. By coincidence, the most lauded urban experiment in the containment of dog bites -- studied across the world -- is the Calgary Model. It's a remarkable success, and it's much cheaper than Breed Specific Legislation. The downside? It's a lot of work, and -- this really hurts -- it requires humans to be responsible. Calgary's bylaws governing dog ownership, described in depth here, are some of the strictest you'll encounter: yes, leashes are mandatory, as are licences. The legislation happens to be breed neutral, meaning that if your German Shepherd or your Dalmatian bites someone, you won't be off the hook. The program stresses education -- as opposed to BSL, whose fertilizer is ignorance -- which means even more in the way of human responsibility. So, it's a bit onerous. On the plus side it saves money, dogs, and humans.

Mayor Coderre has a genuine opportunity here: he could set an example, internationally, by introducing this groundbreaking legislation to a city twice the size of Calgary. This is personal: I lived in Montreal off and on for years -- one of my favorite cities -- and it would be thrilling to see it celebrated for a major contribution to the history of animal welfare.

The Calgary Model is not perfect, of course; nothing involving dogs and humans ever is. It requires constant vigilance and enforcement, and these have waned somewhat in recent years -- in 2011, for instance, Calgary experienced a distressing uptick in biting incidents. (Although not that distressing: the city retained "the lowest bite-per-population ratio in North America.") When the legislation is properly enforced, however, the results are peerless: Calgary "saw a five-fold reduction over 20 years -- from 10 bites per 10,000 people in 1986 to two in 2006."

Pardon my obsession with measurement and quantification. It's an illness I share with rational people who care about dog-bite victims.

NOTE: regarding the boxer I refer to at the top -- to be honest, we have no idea what kind of dog killed Christiane Vadnais. It was identified as a pit bull by the press, who are always quick to jump to this headline-friendly conclusion; then we discovered that it was registered as a boxer. Even this could be wrong; until we have DNA tests, we're simply throwing runes. All sorts of mixes can look like pit bulls. Alanna Devine, SPCA Montreal's director of animal advocacy, has the right approach: "The information that I think is pertinent here is that the dog was unsterilized, the dog was named Lucifer, and the dog had previously been involved in an attack against a human." In short, the owner would have been properly dealt with under the Calgary Model, and this tragedy would likely have been averted.

-- 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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A wall of trees across the Sahara is cool but we don't need it  
The African Union is planning an 8000 kilometre stretch of trees across the entire continent, but the Great Green Wall isn't the best way to halt desertification  
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