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Tour de Turtles Journey from Cuba to Florida  
This past Summer, I had the amazing opportunity to travel to Maria La Gorda, Cuba, the far most western tip of Cuba as part of the Sea Turtle Conservancy Sea Turtle Expedition.

While the core part of our trip was to tag sea turtles to be entered in the upcoming Tour de Turtles race, the trip also provided a wonderful introduction to Cuba.

Beginning with a two night stay at the Historic Hotel Nacional and a tour of the five plazas in historic Old Havana, we then left Havana for Maria LaGorda.



On the way to Maria La Gorda we visited Laz Terrazas, a former coffee plantation worked by slaves, that has been reforested and converted into an ecotourism resort. With the end of slavery, coffee was not as profitable. The new resort has provided jobs, education for the community, and a new pride in the local people. A small portion of the area still grows coffee, which we did sample at Caftan Buenavista.



On our return to Havana, we were able to spend a night in the town of Vinales, in Pinar del Rio. The area is the heartland of Cuba for tobacco, fruits and vegetables, and their fine rum.



As we were leaving Havana, David Godfrey, executive director of the Sea Turtle Conservancy summarized our trip of exploring the environment, the culture, the people, and the sea turtles of Cuba, and experiencing recreational tourism in a sustainable way. View David Godfrey sharing his thoughts in video below.



The nights on the beach at Maria La Gorda tagging the sea turtles were magical. The night sky was so dark in this remote part of Cuba that one could see Saturn with the naked eye, something I didn't realize was even possible.

While in Maria La Gorda I had the opportunity to speak with Richie Moretti, Director of the Turtle Hospital in Marathon Key, Florida, which sponsored one of the turtles we tagged in Cuba.

Richie shared some of the many hazards that sea turtles face and some important ideas that humans can implement to help protect them from fishing line, boat strikes and more.

View Richie sharing his thoughts below.




We were on the beaches for three nights and yet only able to capture, tag, and release turtles on one of them. The night we were successful, we tagged two sea turtles. We worked from 9:00 p.m. until 6:30 a.m. under the knowledgeable and skilled direction of Dan Evans, the Sea Turtle Conservancy technology and research biologist, and Dr. Julio Anza Ricardo, the research scientist in Cuba.



There are multiple purposes for placing the tracking devices on the sea turtles, including:

• learning where they go and where they spend their time
• 
  
• what areas are important to the sea turtles beyond the nesting areas
• 
  
• what foraging and feeding areas they go to
• 
  
• how often they come up to nest
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• whether they use the same nesting beaches and do they use different beaches at different times of the year
• 
  

This is important new research as there has been little tracking of sea turtles in Cuba.

Already through the tracking devices we have seen one turtle Esperanza nest in both Cuba and Mexico traveling first to Belize and then hugging the coast line around the Yucatan. This is the first time a sea turtle has been documented as nesting in two different countries in the same season.

The other turtle Juilia in contrast has gone South toward Nicaragua.

This information is critical for knowing where and how to best develop new sustainable tourism areas and make existing tourist areas more sustainable in their practice.

View an overview video of the project in Dan Evan's own words.



Dr. Julio Anza Ricardo is the scientific coordinator for all the conservation going on in Cuba's protected areas.

A key part of her organization's work is to achieve sustainable tourism particularly in all the coastal resort areas of Cuba. This includes both existing tourism resorts and future ones to be developed with an emphasis on protecting sea turtles. Education is a key part in her work with tourism including developing the protocol on how tourists can interact with the turtles in these resort areas.

View Dr. Julio Ricardo's thoughts below.



Also on the expedition was Gary Appleson, the Sea Turtle Policy Coordinator. Gary provided some thoughts on important policy to protect sea turtles, and equally as important, some of the education that is needed for tourists to best protect them.

Some of the key issues that Gary raised included lighting that protects turtles, the need to keep pets off the beaches, particularly in nesting season, and the need to not build sea walls or other barriers that impede sea turtles from nesting.

Gary expressed hope that Cuba would learn from some of the better models around the world. Specifically in the ares of sea turtle friendly lighting, waste water treatment, and education for tourists who will be visiting sea turtle areas. View Gary's comments below.



When I returned from Cuba, my sea turtle adventure continued later in the month at the Tour de Turtles. Two of my graduate students, Jerry Comellas, and Joshua Calero joined me as we met up with Dan Evans, David Godfrey, and Gary Appleson again as part of a new team to capture, tag, and release the final two turtles for the Tour de Turtles kick-off.



The Tour de Turtles was started in 2008. Sea Turtle Conservancy describes it as a "fun, educational journey through the science, research and geography of sea turtle migration using satellite telemetry. Created by Sea Turtle Conservancy, with help from sponsors and partners, this event follows the marathon migration of sea turtles, representing four different species, from their nesting beaches to their foraging grounds."

This year there are 14 competitors in the race from Costa Rica, Cuba, Florida, Nevis, and Panama. The University of South Florida Patel College of Global SustainabilityCu, where I teach, is co-sponsoring with Cubamar and Pro Tortuga in Cuba, one of the sea turtles from Panama in the race, named Tortuga Turista,

The kick off for Tour de Turtles begins at the Disney Vero Beach Resort. The resort is a model resort for sustainable tourism, sea turtle conservation, and protection. Key features of the resort include:

• Amber lighting that keeps all negative lighting away from sea turtles.
• 
  
• Closing the beach gates at night to tourists.
• 
  
• Educating tourists to close their drapes after sunset if they are facing the beach
• 
  
• Daily beach cleaning.
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• Not serving plastic straws or lids with food and beverage at the resort.
• 
  
• Developing educational sea turtle programs so that guests will go away not only more informed but actually as ambassadors for sea turtle conservation and protection.
• 
  

Dr. Blair Witherington, Sea Turtle Program Manager for the Disney Animal Science and Environment team, and I talked about some of the ways that sea turtle conservation can help humans develop a stronger ethic to address common issues and concerns with sea turtles such as climate change, maintaining a clean environment, and reducing plastics in the ocean.

View Dr. Witherington's comments below:

The Tour de Turtles kick-off includes the release of two sea turtles at Disney's Vero Beach Resort, an evening reception at the Barrier Island Center with fun, food, music, and an auction to benefit sea turtles that evening, and the release of two more sea turtles the following day.

Below are a few videos from the past three years that capture some of the beauty, fun, and excitement of the Tour de Turtles.

I hope you will consider participating this year by supporting one of the turtles in the race and/or coming to the event next year.


Tour de Turtles Kickoff

2014 Disney Vero Beach

2015 Barrier Island Center

Tour de Turtles 2015 Kickoff from Coalter Digital on Vimeo.

2016 Brooke Vu produced a video log of the event that captures much of the beauty and excitement.



Dr David W. Randle - Director USF Patel College of Global Sustainability Sustainable Tourism, Managing Director International Ocean Institute Waves of Change Blue Community Initiative, and President & CEO WHALE Center.

Follow David Randle on Twitter

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Moonrise  

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http://www.usmagazine.com/celebrity-news/news/lady-gaga-to-perform-super-bowl-2017-halftime-show-w440427  
Lady Gaga To Headline The Super Bowl LI Halftime Show  
Following much speculation, the "Perfect Illusion" singer, 30, has officially signed on to perform at the 51st annual football championship event at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas, on February 5, 2017.  
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/helen-clark/world-leaders-have-an-his_b_12074398.html?utm_hp_ref=green&ir=Green  
World Leaders Have An Historic Opportunity To Support Migrants And Refugees  
Two years ago, I traveled to the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon. I met a Syrian refugee family there who had recently fled Raqqa. Unable to find regular work, the family was depending on the labour of their 12-year-old daughter who was working in the fields. The family and this young girl herself would have preferred her to be in school.

The Bekaa Valley is among the areas hardest hit by the refugee crisis. Two years ago when I was there, some 770 informal tented settlements had sprung up and the valley was home to more than 410,000 refugees. These numbers have largely stayed the same two years on.

Today, more people are forcibly displaced from their homes than at any time since the end of the Second World War. A recent report by the UN agency for refugees, UNHCR, estimated that 65.3 million people were displaced at the end of 2015, compared to 59.5 million just a year earlier. Measured against the world's population of 7.4 billion people, one in every 113 people globally is now either an asylum-seeker, internally displaced, or a refugee. This tally is greater than the entire population of the United Kingdom.

In some cases, people are fleeing from poverty and lack of opportunity. In others, people are fleeing from conflict and lawlessness. Many millions need international support.

The Syria crisis has caused serious displacement -- 4.8 million Syrians have become refugees, and 6.5 million are displaced. This is the largest displacement crisis globally.

Many Syrians have fled to neighboring countries who are now hosting large numbers of these refugees. In Lebanon, Syrian refugees number roughly a quarter of the population. In Jordan, the number is estimated at about one in five people. Turkey hosts more than two million Syrians and Iraqis. The host countries and communities need international support too.

The 2030 Agenda and the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) -- provide a framework within which to respond to these large movements of people. The UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants convening this week in New York provides a unique opportunity for world leaders to come up with a blueprint for a strong international response to the needs.

What could be done to prevent displacement crises in future?

First, the international community should place conflict prevention and mediation at the centre of international peace and security efforts. Early warning and response systems are needed for when tensions emerge and to foster reconciliation.

Second, international support is needed to strengthen good governance and the rule of law, and to address structural inequalities. Promoting inclusive economic growth and sustainable livelihoods is critical for building peaceful and inclusive societies. These are long-term investments that are also critical structural prevention efforts.

Third, development actors can assist governments to improve their capacity for data collection and analysis on the root causes of displacement caused by poverty and lack of opportunity, to help design sustainable responses.

The organization I head, UNDP, will play its part. We provide support for host communities and help countries anticipate and prevent future crises. We promote inclusive and accountable institutions which can improve social cohesion, and drive inclusive development. We work to tackle inequalities and to improve access to justice and to basic services like education and health.

Going forward, UNDP will work to ensure that the inclusion of migration and displacement issues are priorities during the implementation of the SDGs. UNDP will also support at least thirty programme countries over the next five years to analyze and address the drivers of migration and of forced displacement. And we will work with partners to build the evidence and data base around migration and displacement. More needs to be known about the development impact of displacement in countries of origin and in host countries and communities.

This week, world leaders have an historic opportunity to address this issue and come together in a spirit of shared responsibility for the world's refugees and migrants. Let's remember those refugee children sent out to work instead of being able to go to school, and resolve to see that their needs are met.

This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post to mark the occasion of two critical conferences at the UN on the Refugee and Migrant crisis: the UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants (Sept. 19th, a UN conference) and the Leaders Summit on Refugees (Sept. 20th, hosted by U.S. Pres. Barack Obama, at the UN). To see all the posts in the series, visit here. To follow the conversation on Twitter, see #UN4RefugeesMigrants.

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http://twitter.com/NoAnimalPoachin/status/777640211819835392 
@NoAnimalPoachin .... in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES), will B held in Johannesburg from Sept. 23 to Oct. 5. where.... 
http://ifttt.com/missing_link?1474239458 

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Ahead of @CITES #CoP17, #MEPs set out their priorities for safeguarding endangered species http://www.europarl... 
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Banzai  

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Blurred Banzai ride at the Western Fair, London, Ontario.

 
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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/09/18/us/duane-graveline-doctor-who-was-forced-out-as-an-astronaut-dies-at-85.html?partner=rss&emc=rss  
Duane Graveline, Doctor Who Was Forced Out as an Astronaut, Dies at 85  
Dr. Graveline resigned after two months because he was getting divorced and NASA was worried about its image; his later career as a doctor was marred by scandal.  
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Manhattan Loft Gardens  

AlexUpton. posted a photo:

Manhattan Loft Gardens is a multi-purpose 42 storey tower located near to Stratford international Station. Currently under construction the building has been designed by SOM architects.

Alex Upton Photography


© All Rights Reserved


Instagram | Twitter

 
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The Heist  

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St Pauls at sunset  

steven.kemp posted a photo:

St Pauls Cathedral in London taken from the roof terrace of a building on Cannon Street.

 
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/grant-stern/its-official-poop-in-miami-beach-waters-causing-sobe_b_12074150.html?utm_hp_ref=green&ir=Green  
IT'S OFFICIAL: Poop In Miami Beach Waters Causing SoBe Swimmer's Advisory Warning  

Florida officials have concluded that swimming in the waters of South Beach is hazardous due to human feces in the waters, with the most likely culprit being a new pumping system intended to keep the low-lying island dry during next week's king tides. The Miami Herald reports:

Miami-Dade's branch of the state health department reported levels of the bacteria enterococci that exceed federal standards on South Beach and at the north beach of Crandon Park on Key Biscayne. The presence of the bacteria, which is found in animal and human intestinal tracts, is an indicator of fecal pollution. That pollution may come from storm water run-off, wildlife, pets and human sewage. “The results of the sampling indicate that water contact may pose an increased risk of illness, particularly for susceptible individuals,” read the advisory.

Speaking of things that are both low and lying, in May, I asked Miami Beach Mayor Philip Levine what he planned to do about scientific reports indicating the presence of human poop in the waters off his city.

Levine responded on Facebook: “Nothing because that it a big fat lie! Thanks.”

And in the three months since he made his promise to do nothing about water quality, he's succeeded wildly.

South Beach visitors can thank the Mayor for living up to his promise and doing absolutely nothing in the last three months, leading to a swimmer's advisory from county health officials, due to the high level of human waste pumped into near shore waters surrounding the beleaguered tourist town.

In fact, the only detectable response to Miami Beach's water crisis from Mayor Levine was blocking me on Facebook and Twitter to avoid reading reports on why denying science is wrong, why violating the open records Sunshine Law is wrong and why FIU scientist Dr. Henry Briceño (who must be feeling vindicated, but still upset) is absolutely, undeniably, 100% verified and independently tested as correct.

This week, Mayor Levine was in Toronto for the big film festival, skipped a contentious meeting about zika virus spraying at Miami Beach City Hall

It's an elegant solution to Miami Beach's difficult problems, fly a thousand miles away to hang out with celebrities.

It also means that Levine probably missed this report about the health of hundreds of Biscayne Bay swimmers being threatened by poop polluted waters from Miami Beach's expected King Tides discharge.

Meanwhile, the Mayor's propaganda machine - he doesn't take a salary, but does pay for a lot of full time self-promotion online - created the ironically titled theme “Rising Above” to describe how the island city is handling a swarm of poop in its waters and a swarm of disease bearing mosquitos on land.

Unfortunately, Miami Beach's efforts didn't include anything at all to warn swimmers of problems and in fact, the original flyer design depicted pristine blue water.

So I'll leave readers with this revised flyer design to share with their friends and loved ones, so they understand clearly, precisely what is going into the waters off South Beach today.

It's poop.

UPDATE: A reader has pointed out that today ― ironically ― is Global Coastal Cleanup Day.

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POP Home Switch Simp  

POP Home Switch Simple smart home control for the whole family

 
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Bushy Park  

Tom Patterson posted a photo:

 
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1 Moorgate  

Florian Bütow posted a photo:

 
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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/nybooks/~3/74lp-OIoXrA/  
How They Wrestled with the New  
It is fascinating to learn about the concrete historical circumstances under which great philosophical works—works that have become timeless classics—were produced, and about the relation to their own times of the extraordinary individuals who produced them. For those with limited firsthand knowledge of the works this biographical approach can serve as an accessible introduction or reintroduction to the thought of some of the most important creators of our intellectual world.  
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The Real Power of Putin  
As Putin's rule has turned more authoritarian and his foreign policy more aggressive, observers have been asking themselves whether something fundamental has shifted in his outlook, and if so, why.  
culture  

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http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/nybooks/~3/Xs6_C15ZNHY/  
The Sorcerer of Jazz  
In 1975, Miles Davis put down his trumpet and retired. Davis was famous for his dramatic silences in performance: the notes he chose not to play were almost as meaningful as those he did. But this silence would last for nearly five years, during which he all but disappeared into his Upper West Side brownstone.  
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https://www.theguardian.com/film/2016/sep/18/blair-witch-new-film-review-mark-kermode  
Blair Witch review efficient horror sequel  
The 1999 original terrified audiences with its ‘found footage' shtick, but there are few surprises left down in the woods today

In the mid-1890s, Parisians reportedly ran screaming from the Lumière brothers' experimental short film L'arrivée d'un train en gare de La Ciotat, terrified that the train coming towards them was about to run them down. A century later, cinemagoers were traumatised by The Blair Witch Project, unable to determine whether its faux-documentary story was fact or fiction. Kickstarting the “found footage” boom that has dominated 21st-century horror, directors Daniel Myrick and Eduardo Sánchez brilliantly reminded us that cinema's greatest trick has always been in convincing us that what we are watching is “real”.

Distributors Artisan famously picked up the no-budget The Blair Witch Project, with its unknown cast, for $1m and watched it make hundreds of millions worldwide. Now franchise inheritors Lionsgate have come searching for equally rich pickings. Reprising the DIY gimmick of its forerunner, albeit in less grainy style, Adam Wingard's sequel Blair Witch finds young James (James Allen McCune) venturing into the Black Hills Forest in search of his sister Heather, who disappeared in October '94. Accompanying him are film student Lisa (Callie Hernandez), eager to exploit James's sibling anguish, and close friends Peter (Brandon Scott) and Ashley (Corbin Reid).

For media-savvy audiences raised on Paranormal Activity, [Rec] et al the film's aesthetic is just business as usual

Related: The first Blair Witch film killed me. I can't wait for the new one | Heather Donahue

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Breakfast in the Ruins  
In September 2015, the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles acquired the first photographs ever taken of Palmyra, the great trading oasis in the heart of the Syrian desert. With a history that extends back nearly four thousand years, Palmyra has risen and fallen many times. The worst destruction, certainly, was inflicted between June and September of 2015 by the militants of the Islamic State, who obliterated the ancient buildings amid accusations of paganism and idolatry.  
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https://www.theguardian.com/science/2016/sep/18/brian-cox-interview-it-is-a-book-about-how-to-think-universal-a-guide-to-the-cosmos  
Brian Cox: ‘It's a book about how to think'  
In Universal: A Guide to the Cosmos, Brian Cox shows how anyone can see the world like a physicist. Here he explains why he loves changing his mind

Professor Brian Cox is advanced fellow of particle physics in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester. He is about to embark on a nationwide tour to promote the ideas in his new book, Universal: A Guide to the Cosmos.

I was looking through your tour dates. You are playing Wembley…
The bigger the venue the fewer people you can see is a general rule. It's just great that cosmology can get people out. I did another event at Wembley Arena for 8,000 children, which was brilliant.

You can see the Andromeda galaxy with the naked eye, and it's two and a half million light years away

Is space-time real? Is the universe really a fabric? I don't know but I do know the model works brilliantly

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http://www.designboom.com/art/doug-aitken-monumental-survey-moca-los-angeles-museum-of-contemporary-art-09-18-2016/  
doug aitken: a monumental, multi-sensory survey opens at MOCA, los angeles  

comprising large-scale moving-image installations, sound works, sculptures, photographs, collages, and films, the exhibition exemplifies the artist's core themes throughout his career.

The post doug aitken: a monumental, multi-sensory survey opens at MOCA, los angeles appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

 
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https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/sep/18/infinite-mix-hayward-review-wifredo-lam-tate-modern  
The Infinite Mix; Wifredo Lam review  

Hayward Gallery at the Store; Tate Modern, London
From Hitler's Berlin to Kendrick Lamar's Compton, the Hayward's diverse fusion of 10 immersive installations offers a feast of sound and vision

Down in the car park below the Strand is a pop-up cinema reached through a seething black tunnel. We are given 3D specs and told to stay as long as we want. Shooting out of the screen towards us are glittering explosions, fireworks blossoming like silver flowers to a mesmerising dub soundtrack. It soon becomes apparent that we are up with the starbursts: the camera is high in the sky.

It's a gorgeous experience sound and vision perfectly matched. But Cyprien Gaillard's Nightlife grows darker and more complex. The drone's footage shows a plane landing dangerously low over a quaking tree in America. Those fireworks are exploding over the Berlin stadium where Jesse Owens won Olympic gold (and that very tree) in 1936. You see the shattered figure of Rodin's The Thinker in Cleveland, a sculpture blown up by the militant Weathermen, who had links to the Black Power movement. Everything connects. And everything is inflected by the soundtrack, featuring the refrain from Alton Ellis's Black Man's World “I was born a loser” looped until it becomes hauntingly ambiguous and poignant.

For a moment it seems possible that she is real, and the living resurrection of Maria Callas

Tiny children dance to the sound, in a never-ending cycle of blood, music and death

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http://heptagram.co/post/150561816795  
kvtes: tru studio  

kvtes:

tru studio

 
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http://heptagram.co/post/150557429693  
conceptmodel: by CREATO source  

conceptmodel:

by CREATO

source

 
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http://www.designboom.com/art/london-design-festival-glithero-green-room-v-and-a-museum-09-17-2016/  
london design festival: glithero's curtain of color makes waves at the V&A  

the number of possible perspectives from which the piece can be viewed means spectators can experience it on varying frequencies of color, sound, shape and space.

The post london design festival: glithero's curtain of color makes waves at the V&A appeared first on designboom | architecture & design magazine.

 
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https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2016/sep/17/oh-what-a-spectacle-glasses-portraits-by-luc-tuymans-in-pictures  
Oh, what a spectacle! The glasses portraits of Luc Tuymans  

Think of the world's most famous portraits and you might struggle to recall many sitters in spectacles. Yet the Belgian painter Luc Tuymans was looking through his catalogue of portraits one day and was amazed to discover that three-quarters of his subjects were wearing glasses. It was not a deliberate choice but, he says: “I have always enjoyed painting glasses... They radically change the physiognomy of a face.” After his discovery, Tuymans decided to cut loose some of his bespectacled subjects from the original contexts in which they were painted and present them in a glasses themed show in Antwerp. A smaller selection of portraits will travel to the National Portrait Gallery next month.

Luc Tuymans: Glasses is at the National Portrait Gallery, London, from 4 October to 26 March 2017

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https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/sep/18/washington-dc-monument-to-black-history  
Washington DC's monument to black history  

Decades after it was first dreamed of, the Smithsonian's National Museum of African American History and Culture, completed by British architect David Adjaye, opens this week. While the building is striking, its collection is more remarkable

“As a general rule,” it was written in the 1920s, “Negroes have not been and are not thought of in America when you talk in general terms of Americans unless they are specifically pointed out.” This “general forgetfulness” therefore made it “necessary for those interested in fair play to all citizens” to propose a “beautiful building” to “depict the negro's contribution to America in military service, in art, literature, invention, science, industry etc.”

The text was part of a century-long campaign, started by black civil war veterans in 1915, that will reach its fulfilment on Saturday, when Barack Obama formally opens the National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington DC. It describes with some precision what has finally been achieved. It also suggests what the museum's director, Lonnie Bunch, says over and over: that the museum should give “a fuller understanding of what it means to be American” seen through the “particular lens” of black experiences and contributions, not a place that is just about and for an anthropologically defined category known as African Americans.

Because of restrictions on the above-ground volume of buildings on the National Mall, 60% of the museum is buried

It achieves its main, difficult task, which is to be both American and African American

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Parcours on Behance  
Parcours on Behance  
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Blue Hen Falls, Cuya  
Blue Hen Falls, Cuyahoga Valley National Park, Ohio (© Patrick Jennings/Shutterstock) 2016-09-18 [www.bing.com/search]  
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Big, big Ben.  

cangrejo fotografiador posted a photo:

Big Ben. Westminster. London.
Canon 650D 50mm F1.8

 
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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hina-jilani/refugees-a-global-challen_b_12065286.html?utm_hp_ref=green&ir=Green  
Refugees: A global challenge, and a global opportunity  
A global crisis demands a global response. Nowhere is this more apparent than when looking at how the world responds to refugees and mass migration - an issue that leaves virtually no corner of the globe untouched.

There are more people on the move today than ever before. A quarter of a billion have left their homes for new lives abroad. Sixty-five million have been displaced by war or persecution.

The millions of people fleeing the devastating war in Syria have attracted considerable media attention over the past two years, but their plight mirrors that of countless others in less "visible" conflicts from Afghanistan to Congo or the vicious gang violence in Central America that has driven so many to seek safety in the United States.

In this context, the fact that the United Nations is convening a special summit on refugees and migration during the high-level week of its General Assembly in New York, and that President Barack Obama will chair a donor summit the following day is very welcome.

These are two moments for the world to come together and move beyond warm words to concrete actions that will help the most vulnerable people.

Because for all the summits and deliberations of recent years, it is clear that the world can - and must - do more to protect refugees and migrants, and ensure that their basic human rights are respected in the process.

This is the key message of a new report The Elders have just issued. Entitled "In Challenge Lies Opportunity: How the world must respond to refugees and mass migration", it sets out four key principles that we believe must be at the heart of a coherent international response: better coordinated response mechanisms to large flows of people; enhanced assistance to major refugee-hosting countries; increased resettlement opportunities and additional pathways for refugees; and respect for human rights and protection.

The heads of state meeting in New York this week have a responsibility to prove that they take these matters seriously, and reject the politics of prejudice and populism that are proving all too resonant on both sides of the Atlantic and beyond.

As Kofi Annan, Chair of The Elders, said on his recent visit to Germany to discuss these issues with top government officials, the solution to increased numbers of refugees can never be walls, fences or militarised borders.

Prosperous countries of the world must show genuine compassion and shoulder their fair share of the burden of hosting refugees. How can it be fair that a tiny country like Lebanon, with a population of only 4 million people, hosts at least 1.5 million refugees, when some much wealthier European countries quibble about even receiving a few thousand?

But equally, states in the developing world need to assume their own responsibilities. Leaders need to be held to account for the dire social, economic and human rights situations that cause so many of their citizens to flee abroad, believing there is no prospect of peace or security in their homeland. Addressing the root causes of flight is the key, not treating the symptoms.

Pakistan, my home country, has been host to over three million refugees from Afghanistan ever since the Soviet invasion nearly 40 years ago. Most of these poor people have been languishing in squalid urban camps for decades - as, I should add, have millions of Palestinian refugees in Lebanon, Jordan, Gaza and of course Syria, where they now find themselves victims of yet another war.

This week in New York, leaders at the United Nations - in particular, the five permanent members of the UN Security Council who have the heaviest responsibility - must demonstrate their willingness to prioritise saving lives over political rivalries, whether in Syria, Ukraine or other conflicts too often seen through the prism of realpolitik than that of protecting civilians.

Only a concerted international approach guided by the principles of solidarity, human rights and respect can deliver a durable solution Failure to rise to the challenge will only exacerbate the plethora of refugee crises the world faces today which in turn will further worsen global stability.

The founder of The Elders, Nelson Mandela, saw this all too clearly when discussing refugee problems in Africa in 1997. His words still resonate today and will continue to inform The Elders' engagement on refugees and migration in the months and years ahead:

"Unresolved refugee problems become a source of instability, violence and further population displacements. Dealing with these problems is inextricably linked to achieving peace, upholding the rule of law and entrenching a human rights culture and democracy."

Hina Jilani is a member of The Elders, the independent group of former leaders founded by Nelson Mandela who work for peace and human rights.


This post is part of a series produced by The Huffington Post to mark the occasion of two critical conferences at the UN on the Refugee and Migrant crisis: the UN Summit for Refugees and Migrants (Sept. 19th, a UN conference) and the Leaders Summit on Refugees (Sept. 20th, hosted by U.S. Pres. Barack Obama, at the UN). To see all the posts in the series, visit here. To follow the conversation on Twitter, see #UN4RefugeesMigrants.

-- 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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Power Plan Foes from Mars, Backers from Venus (Earth Actually)  

In less than two weeks, nine judges on the Court of Appeals in Washington will hear arguments over the Clean Power Plan, the centerpiece of this country's action on climate change.  At stake are limits on the nation's biggest single source of dangerous carbon pollution some 1500 coal and gas fired power plants that together emit nearly two billion tons per year of carbon dioxide.  That's more than a third of U.S. climate-changing pollution and almost three times the pollution from the next ten industrial source categories combined.

The first thing that might strike a neutral observer when reading the briefs is that the two sides are coming from completely different planets.  They are presenting such starkly different factual pictures. 

To be sure, the Clean Power Plan's supporters feel the fierce urgency of acting on climate change.  The climate deniers and big polluters on the others side, not so much. But that is not the main difference I want to emphasize here. 

At the heart of their case the Clean Power Plan's challengers have painted an enormous fiction: A picture of a stable, healthy coal-based power industry happily supplying everyone with low-cost electricity, until the big bad EPA came along and disrupted everything, forcing the industry into tumultuous change, and destroying the American energy economy. 

By any objective measure, this apocalyptic vision is plainly wrong.  The electricity industry already is and has been for years in a rapid transition away from coal and towards cleaner generation a transition driven mainly by fundamental market forces such as lower gas prices, lower costs for wind and solar power and energy efficiency, and by state and federal policies and company planning decisions that long predated the Clean Power Plan. 

Every neutral analyst expects these market-driven trends in the generation mix to continue, and to be boosted by Congress's five-year extension of federal wind and solar tax incentives late last year.  Because of these trends, analysts expect the power sector to be well-positioned to meet the Clean Power Plan's carbon pollution limits in 2022 and beyond.  This independent research is summarized in a new analysis NRDC released last week.

These are the reasons why US coal consumption for electricity declined 31 percent between 2008 and 2015. 

These are the reasons why Southern Company, the power company with the second-largest carbon emissions, reduced its coal generation by 60 percent over the last 10 years, and reduced its carbon pollution 25 percent. 

These are the reasons the wind industry is booming in Oklahoma one of the challenger states which is on track to pass California as the nation's #3 wind producer, behind Texas and Iowa. 

Check out these visuals showing the booming growth trends for wind and solar power.

As the lead challenger, West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, acknowledged in May, “the marketplace was moving in a particular direction” quite apart from the Clean Power Plan.

The underlying trends are so strong that even the Supreme Court's February stay “doesn't really change anything,” according to Quin Shea, an Edison Electric Institute vice president.  Shea added: “We're still reducing CO2, and the general curve, that's not going to change.” “You don't simply put the genie back in the bottle when it comes to major strategic investments that the captains of industry are making.”

Just as King Canute could not hold back the incoming tide, King Coal cannot hold back the rise of the seas—or the clean energy transition. 

Seen in this light, there is nothing radical or transformational about the Clean Power Plan.  To be sure, like other air pollution control rules, it requires somewhat more than the marketplace will deliver on its own.  That should be totally understandable:  the marketplace does not capture the externalities that dangerous air pollution imposes on our communities, our children, and our climate.  That's why we have a Clean Air Act. 

The false story of apocalyptic impacts is fundamental to the challengers' legal arguments.  Take that away, and the Clean Power Plan is unexceptional, just the latest of a long line of clean air standards to curb the public health and environmental toll that the power industry the nation's biggest polluter exacts on the American people.  I am confident that the Court of Appeals will see through the fictions on which the challengers' case depends. 

The challengers cannot question whether the Clean Air Act covers climate-changing air pollutants.  The Supreme Court already decided that in Massachusetts v. EPA.  They cannot question whether the Clean Air Act covers carbon dioxide pollution from power plants.  The Supreme Court already decided that in American Electric Power v. Connecticut. 

So they challenge how EPA has regulated.  And here they paint a second picture that stands in contrast to the facts.

To hear them tell it, the Clean Air Act requires EPA to assume that every power plant operates on its own, isolated from the others, like Edison's original plants back in the 19^th century. 

But that's not how they work.  Power plants are part of an interconnected electric grid.  They are jointly operated to supply exactly the amount of electricity demanded at any given time. When one plant increases generation, other plants generate less.  Power companies and grid operators routinely shift generation among facilities to meet demand within economic and environmental constraints. 

It's a fact of life that some power plants are used less, and others used more, when fuel prices change, for example.  The same is true when new air pollution limits take effect.

EPA took these facts into account and the fact that CO2 mixes evenly in the atmosphere regardless of its source and designed a flexible, cost-efficient way to reduce emissions. Each coal-fired plant has a set of tools to meet its emission limit.  These tools include so-called “inside the fenceline” measures a range of technologies and fuel choices to reduce the emissions of the plant itself and the ability to use credits reflecting the emission reductions that result from ramping up generation at cleaner plants.

This is, in fact, the very system many power companies and states asked EPA to allow for compliance purposes.  It is the very system the power sector has supported in numerous prior power sector regulations.  It's the system that power company intervenors representing some 10 percent of U.S. generation, joined by amicus Dominion Resources, have stepped in to defend here.

In this case, the challengers are asking the Court to adopt an unprecedented one-sided proposition:  let us use all these flexible tools to comply with standards.  But forbid EPA from considering these tools, and the cost-effective emission reductions they enable, when the agency determines the stringency of the standards themselves.

That's like the golfer who wants his handicap set playing 18 holes with one club, and then wants to play against his handicap with all the clubs in the bag.  The PGA doesn't work that way, and the Clean Air Act doesn't either.

I'll close by briefly addressing another argument one the challengers made up out of whole cloth late in the game, after the Supreme Court decided in American Electric Power that Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act does indeed authorize EPA to curb the carbon dioxide emissions of the nation's power plants. 

Congress adopted Section 111(d) in 1970 expressly to fill any gaps to make sure there was authority to curb any dangerous air pollutants from industrial sources that were not taken care of by other parts of the law, including Section 112 on hazardous air pollutants.  Now the challengers claim that the 1990 Congress amended the law to open the very gap Section 111(d) was intended to fill.  They claim Congress made EPA must choose between regulating power plants' carbon pollution under Section 111(d) or their mercury pollution under Section 112. 

I am confident the Court of Appeals will not be persuaded that Congress intended to create this Sophie's Choice.   

The challengers have lately invented a theory that Congress wanted to protect power plants and other sources from so-called “double regulation” under two parts of the Clean Air Act.  But a quick look at the Clean Air Act will show you that power plants are subject to regulation under at least six different part of the law, for different pollutants and different adverse effects on health or the environment.  That's the statutory plan, which ensures a way to curb all of the dangerous emissions from sources.

I suppose one could argue that it would be better to have a new statute that provides one comprehensive approach to regulating all of the dangerous pollutants that emanate from power plants.  But no one would design a system that says that if EPA chooses to protect the public from Dangerous Pollutant A in this case, mercury it may not protect the public from Dangerous Pollutant B in this case carbon dioxide.  There's simply no evidence that this is what the 1990 Congress intended to do.

So I am confident that the Court of Appeals will see through the fictions on which the challengers' case depends.  The power industry is in rapid transition due to market forces, and the Clean Power Plan asks for a modest amount more to control a very dangerous form of pollution than the unregulated marketplace on its own.  Power plants operate together in an interconnected grid, and it is reasonable for EPA to take those facts into account in assessing cost-effective pollution control measures.  And because power plants emit many dangerous air pollutants that are subject to many parts of the Clean Air Act, there is no plausibility to the story that Congress wanted EPA to pick one poison and let the other go free.

-- 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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